Last Year at Marienbad (1961) L'année dernière à Marienbad (original title)

Director:

Alain Resnais

Writer:

Alain Robbe-Grillet (scenario and dialogue)

Release Date:

7 March 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Romance

Tagline:

It Has The "Marienbad Look"

Plot:

Takes place in a chateau, an ambiguous story of a man and a woman who may or may not have met last year at Marienbad.

Plot Keywords:

Hotel | Chateau | Cult Director | Oneiric | Uncertainty

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Delphine Seyrig	...	A - la femme brune
Giorgio Albertazzi	...	X - l'homme à l'accent italien
Sacha Pitoëff	...	M - l'autre homme au visage maigre, le mari
Françoise Bertin	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Luce Garcia-Ville	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Héléna Kornel	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Françoise Spira	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Karin Toche-Mittler
Pierre Barbaud	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Wilhelm von Deek	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Jean Lanier	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Gérard Lorin	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Davide Montemurri	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel (as Davide Montemuri)
Gilles Quéant	...	Un personnage de l'hôtel
Gabriel Werner
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Alan Edwards	...	English Introduction (uncredited)

Directed by
Alain Resnais

Writing credits
Alain Robbe-Grillet		(scenario and dialogue)

Produced by
Pierre Courau	....	producer
Anatole Dauman	....	producer
Robert Dorfmann	....	co-producer
Raymond Froment	....	producer

Original Music by
Francis Seyrig

Cinematography by
Sacha Vierny

Film Editing by
Jasmine Chasney
Henri Colpi

Production Design by
Jacques Saulnier

Set Decoration by
Jean-Jacques Fabre
Georges Glon
André Piltant

Costume Design by
Bernard Evein

Makeup Department
Alexandre Marcus	....	key makeup artist
Éliane Marcus	....	makeup artist (as Elyane Marcus)

Production Management
Michel Choquet	....	post-production supervisor
Jean-Jacques Lécot	....	assistant production manager
Léon Sanz	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jean Léon	....	first assistant director
Florence Malraux	....	second assistant director
Volker Schlöndorff	....	second assistant director (as Volker Schloendorff)

Art Department
Jean-Jacques Fabre	....	assistant art director
Georges Glon	....	assistant art director
Charles Merangel	....	set dresser
André Piltant	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
Robert Cambourakis	....	sound
Jean-Claude Marchetti	....	sound
Jean Nény	....	sound
René Renault	....	sound
Guy Villette	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Louis Balthazard	....	key grip
Philippe Brun	....	camera operator
Elie Fontanille	....	chief electrician
Georges Pierre	....	still photographer
René Stocki	....	key grip

Music Department
André Girard	....	conductor
Marie-Louise Girod	....	musician: Orgue

Other crew
Sylvette Baudrot	....	script girl
Jean Fouchet	....	title designer
Janine Thaon	....	production secretary

Production Companies

• Cocinor (present)
• Terra Film (co-production) (as Terra-Film)
• Cormoran Films (co-production) (as Société Nouvelle des Films Cormoran)
• Precitel (co-production)
• Como Film Production (co-production) (as Como-Film)
• Argos Films (co-production) (as Argos-Films)
• Les Films Tamara (co-production)
• Cinétel (co-production)
• Silver Films (co-production)
• Cineriz (co-production) (Rome)

Distributors

• Cocinor (1961) (France) (theatrical)
• Astor Pictures Corporation (1962) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Les Acacias (2007) (France) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Rialto Pictures (2007) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray) (new HD master)
• Fox Lorber (1999) (USA) (DVD)
• Kinokuniya (2009) (Japan) (DVD) (new HD master)
• Optimum Home Entertainment (2005) (UK) (DVD) (PAL speed-up)
• Reel Media International (2004-2007) (USA) (video)
• Reel Media International (2007) (USA) (all media)
• StudioCanal (1999) (France) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Les Films Impéria  music edition
• Mondia Music S.r.l.  music edition (as Mondiamusic)
• Chanel  select wardrobe: for Mademoiselle Seyrig
• Photosonor  studio
• S.I.M.O.  studio (as SIMO)

Also Known As:

"L'année dernière à Marienbad" - France (original title)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | UK:U | Hong Kong:I | Italy:T | France:U | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Amalienburg Hunting Lodge, Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

Cocinor

Trivia:

The characters in the hotel attend a performance of a Henrik Ibsen play. Director Alain Resnais discovered Delphine Seyrig in an American stage production of Ibsen's "Enemy of the People".

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Exterior night scenes were shot day-for-night, but the sky and reflections of it were allowed in the frame, and they appear as bright white instead of black. This may have been intentional to emphasize the surreality of the film.

Quotes:

[X wanders through the hotel's corridors cataloging items he sees]
X:Empty salons. Corridors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick carpets. Heavy hangings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glasses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass partition, letters.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "I Dream of Jeannie: Jeannie and the Top Secret (#4.9)" (1968)

Darker and more sinister than is generally reckoned

It would take a braver person than me to delineate what LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD is `about', but as it is such an entirely thought provoking film, perhaps some sort of `meaning' can come from sharing these thoughts about it. Many people define it as cerebral and classical, but to me it is romantic and gothic. What is remarkable about the setting and the characters is that they are all so wealthy that they can rise above the concerns of ordinary mortals, only to find that this advantaged life brings other problems - of identity, purpose and values. They are strangely existentialist - the existentialism of great wealth - their small talk is intelligent, informed and stilted; they are all beautiful in the sense that money can partly buy beauty, and yet, in the process, they have lost human warmth, real sexual desire, and any purpose in life other than to drift on in their station in life. But desire is a respecter of nobody, and it is this element of human nature that haunts the corridors of the hotel like an invisible mist, and subconsciously their acutely civilised life-style which has bereaved them of something they no longer acknowledge or recognise and have deeply repressed - only to find it lingers on the fringes, confusing and disturbing them - spoiling everything; a depressive dissatisfaction. There is no joy, no enjoyment. The gardens become symbols of this desire to enslave, conquer and exile nature - formal, rigid and planned, and yet within the hotel, all around are decorative symbols of the chaotic and random aspects of nature. Everything appears to carry a symbol that needs to be interpreted - if it is there, it must have meaning, and if the Man says that they had arranged to elope together when they were at Marienbad, (or was it Marienbad, or elsewhere, and what does it matter?), how can the Woman be sure that this is not a ruse, made up to give immediate warning that we exile our emotions at our peril? That to acknowledge this for one second risks opening floodgates which will overwhelm and destroy? Or, that the ultimate expression of desire is death itself, as the film's closing line hints when the Man's voice speaks, over the night time silhouette of the hotel, of, `You.. and me.. together.. always.. in the night'. And it is an eternal night that we all subconsciously know lays in wait for us. The Great Leveller indeed! A remarkable film by any standards, and one which for me at least, is much darker and more sinister than has generally been recognised. But maybe it is just a springboard from which we can all set off on a journey guided by our own subconscious longings and dreads?