Hiroshima Mon Amour
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| Hiroshima Mon Amour | |
|---|---|
 original 1959 movie poster |
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| Directed by | Alain Resnais |
| Produced by | Samy Halfon Anatole Dauman |
| Written by | Marguerite Duras |
| Starring | Emmanuelle Riva Eiji Okada Stella Dassas Pierre Barbaud |
| Music by | Georges Delerue Giovanni Fusco |
| Cinematography | Michio Takahashi Sacha Vierny |
| Distributed by | Pathé Films |
| Release date(s) |  June 10, 1959 May 16, 1960 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | France / Japan |
| Language | French / Japanese / English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Hiroshima Mon Amour is an acclaimed film by French film director Alain Resnais. It was made in 1958/1959 and was released in the USA in 1960. It was described as "The Birth of a Nation of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague)" by critic Leonard Maltin, because of its importance to the innovations of the movement and, in addition, fellow French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard described the film's inventiveness as "Faulkner plus Stravinsky" and "the first film without any cinematic references" [1].
It tells the story of a French actress played by Emmanuelle Riva who is playing the role of a nurse in a film being shot in post-war Hiroshima. There she meets a Japanese man (Eiji Okada) and they become lovers. Using flashbacks intercut between segments showing the present day love story - their meetings in hotel rooms, restaurants, etc. - the woman tells of her experiences fifteen and more years before during the Second World War in France, where she was involved with a young German soldier during the German occupation and the consequences of that when the war came to an end. Resnais' bold experiments in using flashback sequences was also used in his later masterpiece Last Year at Marienbad.
The film was a co-production by Japan and France. The producers stipulated that one main character must be French and the other be Japanese, and it also required that the film be shot in both countries employing film crews comprised of technicians from each. [2]
According to James Monaco [2], Resnais was originally commissioned to make a short documentary about the atomic bomb, but he spent several months confused about how to proceed because he did not want to recreate his 1955 documentary Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog). He later went to his producer and joked that the film could not be done unless Marguerite Duras was involved in writing the screenplay.
Hirsohima mon Amour earned an Oscar nomination for screenwriter Marguerite Duras, as well as a special award at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival where it was excluded from the official selection because of its sensitive subject matter as well as to avoid upsetting the U.S. government.
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[edit] Film references
James Monaco ends his chapter on Hiroshima mon Amour by stating
- "Here is an 'impossible' love story between two people struggling with the imagery of a distant war. At the end of this romantic, poignant movie about leave takings and responsibilities, the two fateful lovers meet in a cafe. Resnais gives us a rare establishing shot of the location. 'He' is going to meet 'She' for the last time at a bar called 'The Casablanca' --right here in the middle of Hiroshima! It's still the same old story. A fight for love and glory. A case of do or die. the world will always welcome lovers. As time goes by". [2]
[edit] Compared to other films by Resnais
Hiroshima Mon Amour is typical of Resnais' work in theme, narrative structure, and style of sound/image.
Two common themes that recur in Alain Resnais' films are the impact of the past on the individual and the effects of memory and forgetfulness. In Hiroshima Mon Amour, the woman determines that, only with the passing of time, will she forget her experiences in Nevers, France, and she tries to convince the man that the passage of time will also cause both of them to forget their present love affair in Hiroshima. Like other Resnais's films, Hiroshima Mon Amour does not adhere to classical cinematic structure. Instead, the woman's memory structures what is told in images, so that present-time experiences involuntarily bring back memories of her German lover.
Resnais usually has no neutral settings in his films, and these settings often serve as symbols for characters; present-day Hiroshima is certainly not one, conjouring up as it does violent and disturbing images which the viewer associates with the destruction caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb. Also, when we are introduced to the characters, we first hear their voices and then only parts of their bodies (bare shoulders, arms embracing) and only gradually are the lovers revealed more and more.
Resnais's work often combines fiction and documentary, and this recuring element of his work features significantly in Hiroshima Mon Amour with its violent images of the atomic bomb's destruction contrasted with the love story.
[edit] References
- ^ Quoted in popmatters.com
- ^ a b c James Monaco, Alan Resnais, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979 ISBN 0195200373
