Providence is a 1977 French/Swiss film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by David Mercer. It explores the processes of creativity through a portrayal of an ageing novelist, played by John Gielgud, who imagines scenes for his latest novel which draw upon his past and his relationships with members of his family. The film won the 1978 César Award for Best Film.
Plot summary On the eve of his 78th birthday, the ailing, alcoholic writer Clive Langham spends a painful and sleepless night mentally composing and recomposing scenes for a novel in which characters based on his own family are shaped by his fantasies and memories, alongside his caustic commentary on their behaviour. His son Claude appears as a cold and unforgiving prosecuting lawyer, who revels in spiteful repartee. His second (illegitimate) son Kevin features as an idealistic soldier accused of the mercy-killing of an old man who was being hunted down. Claude's wife Sonia shows sympathy with Kevin and seems eager to seduce him in protest at her husband's callousness. Clive also invents the character of Helen, as Claude's mistress, but she bears the features of Clive's dead wife Molly who committed suicide. Clive's imagination is also haunted by scenes of an autopsy on the corpse of an old man, a military round-up of elderly people who are detained in a sports stadium, and a dark tangled forest in which a hunted man metamorphoses into a werewolf. Before Clive loses consciousness, it is Kevin whom he sees as the werewolf in the forest; Claude shoots Kevin but seems to identify him with their father.
On the following day, Clive welcomes Claude, Sonia and Kevin (in reality an astrophysicist) for an idyllic birthday lunch in the sunlit garden of his country mansion, and their relationships are characterised by mutual affection and good humour, albeit with signs of self-restraint in deference to the occasion. After lunch, in what he seems to envisage as a final parting, Clive unexpectedly asks them all to leave without a word.
Cast John Gielgud as Clive Langham. Gielgud described his role as "a very tough, Augustus John kind of character, drunk half the time, lying in bed drinking white wine and throwing bottles about, and roaring a lot of very coarse dialogue."John Gielgud, An Actor and His Time. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989 (revised edition). pp. 195–198. Dirk Bogarde as Claude Langham Ellen Burstyn as Sonia Langham David Warner as Kevin Langham / Kevin Woodford Elaine Stritch as Helen Wiener Cyril Luckham as Doctor Mark Eddington Denis Lawson as Dave Woodford Kathryn Leigh Scott as Miss Boon Milo Sperber as Mr. Jenner Anna Wing as Karen Peter Arne as Nils Tanya Lopert as Miss Lister
Production The producer Klaus Hellwig suggested to Resnais that he should make a film with the British playwright David Mercer. The two men met in London and, overcoming the obstacle that neither of them spoke the language of the other fluently, they began a series of discussions of drafts and redraftings which extended over a year. Mercer's original idea concerned the situation of political prisoners held in a sports stadium, symbolising a world in collapse. Gradually the outline shifted to the imagination of an aging writer seeking the material for a novel. Resnais proposed making the whole film into a metaphor of creation and disintegration; he also made extensive alterations to the chronology of the scenes as written by Mercer."Entretien avec David Mercer", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. pp. 275–277; also p. 159.
The title of the film was also supplied by the producer, signifying both the name of the estate where the ageing novelist lives and also the controlling hand with which he arranges the fate of his characters. The name evoked further associations with the American city of Providence, the home of the fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft whose gothic stories inspired some of the imagery in the film."Entretien avec Alain Resnais sur Providence", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. pp. 228; 240–241.
The original intention was to shoot the film in the United States in New England but for reasons of cost this became impracticable. Certain exterior scenes were filmed in Providence and in Albany in the US, while others were done in Brussels, Antwerp, and Louvain; these were used in conjunction with each other to form a composite cityscape for the background of certain scenes. Studio scenes were filmed in Paris. The final birthday party sequence was shot on location at the château de Montméry at Ambazac near Limoges. Filming took place between April and June 1976.Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. pp. 238, 299.Le Populaire, 02/03/2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
The set designs were created by Jacques Saulnier, a regular collaborator with Resnais, and he won a César award for his work. In order to create a funereal atmosphere, grey and dark shades predominated in the design and strong colours were excluded. Saulnier recalled that Resnais made him read Lovecraft in order to imbue Langham's house with the presence of death: "I imagined it like a family tomb". In some scenes (created in Clive Langham's imagination) the layout of a set changes between one shot and another (for instance, the door in the corner of a room in one shot appears at the bottom of a flight of stairs in another; a conversation between four characters alone in one scene continues in the midst of a party in the next). Some settings use a painted backdrop which has a deliberately theatrical appearance; one of them portrays a seascape in which artificial waves surge up among the painted rocks (achieved by blowing bursts of polystyrene foam pieces from beneath the set).Jacques Saulnier, in Jean-Luc Douin, Alain Resnais. Paris: Éditions de la Martinière, 2013. pp. 256–257.Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, Jean-Louis Leutrat. Alain Resnais, liaisons secrètes, accords vagabonds. Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006. p. 91.Jacques Saulnier interviewed in À propos de Providence, film documentary accompanying the DVD of Providence issued by Edition Jupiter in 2013.Jean Regazzi, Le roman dans le cinéma: retour à Providence. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2010. p. 175.
Providence was Resnais's first film in English, and a prestigious cast of British and American actors was engaged despite the restrictions on the budget. Resnais held a longstanding ambition to cast John Gielgud in a substantial film role, having seen him performing on stage, and was encouraged to approach him by Dirk Bogarde.Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, Jean-Louis Leutrat. Alain Resnais, liaisons secrètes, accords vagabonds. Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006. pp. 232–233.Alain Resnais, in an interview accompanying the DVD of Providence issued by Edition Jupiter in 2013. Gielgud later described the project as "by far the most exciting film I have ever made", and noted the impressive calmness of Resnais throughout filming which made him "wonderful to work with". He also recalled the contribution made by Florence Malraux, Resnais's wife, who spoke fluent English and helped overcome the director's limitations in that respect. Resnais attached great importance to the interplay of vocal timbres of his principal actors, and he described how he thought of them as a Schubertian quintet: Ellen Burstyn a violin, Dirk Bogarde a piano, David Warner a viola, John Gielgud a cello, and Elaine Stritch a double bass."Entretien avec Alain Resnais sur Providence", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. p. 240
The original intention had been to make the film in French, translating it from the English. Resnais however soon felt that it would not work in French: "I could hear it so clearly in English and anyway, Mercer's writing depended on the English inflection." The producers agreed, but insisted that there should also be a French version."Nicholas Wapshott. "Resnais's continuing capacity to surprise" [interview], in The Times, 17 November 1980, p.10: "But later [the producers] came back to us and said that in New York the fact that it would be in English counted against the film. They prefer their European films to be in a foreign language with sub-titles. I suggested that we should send the dubbed French version to New York with English sub-titles." The process of dubbing the completed work into French was undertaken with particular care: the voice actors included Claude Dauphin as Clive, François Périer as Claude, Gérard Depardieu as Kevin, Nelly Borgeaud as Sonia, and Suzanne Flon as Helen.
For the music Resnais turned to the Hungarian-born Hollywood composer Miklós Rózsa, whom he had admired especially for his work on the 1949 version of Madame Bovary. Rózsa later cited Resnais as one of the few directors in his experience who really understood the function of music in film. Soundtrack albums were eventually issued on LP and CD.
Themes Resnais described the film as a "macabre divertissement", insisting that he wanted it to be funny despite the darkness of its themes."Entretien avec Alain Resnais sur Providence", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. p. 236: "j'espère que ce film est drôle car je le vois comme un divertissement, macabre certes et noir, mais un divertissement tout de même". He also said that one of the questions which the film poses is whether we are the people we think we are or whether we become what others make of us in their judgments."Entretien avec Alain Resnais sur Providence", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. p. 228: "L'une des questions que pose le film est, si vous voulez, celle-ci: est-ce que nous sommes ce que nous pensons être, ou est-ce que nous devenons ce que les autres font de nous dans leurs jugements?"
A central theme is the process of artistic creation: "[Providence] is a meta-film, a film about the making of films, a work of art about the fabricating of art works."William F. Van Wert. "Meta-film and point of view: Alain Resnais' Providence", in Sight & Sound, Summer 1979, p.179. Expanding this idea: "The film suggests some symbiotic relation between creator and created script.... The characters are [Clive's] creations, yet he speaks to them as if they were wilful children. Their status is ambiguous since they a composite: they are dream figures, created characters and also individuals who are part of Clive's proximate reality."Emma Wilson. Alain Resnais. Manchester University Press, 2006. p. 135.
In counterpoint with creativity, the theme of death recurs constantly, not so much as a subject in itself but in Clive's struggle to avoid it: Resnais described the film as telling the story of the old writer's determination not to die, and his continual drinking and imagining are the evidence of his refusal to let go."Entretien avec Alain Resnais sur Providence", in Robert Benayoun, Alain Resnais: arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. p. 229. As well as the funereal aspects of the decor and the scenes of autopsy, the repeated instances of metamorphosis of a character into a werewolf is linked to the advent of death, with the implication that the process of dying reduces man to animal.Gerald Weales. Review of Providence, in Film Quarterly, vol.30 (4), Summer 1987, pp. 21–24. Clive also has an obsession that the young are trying to push him aside, to kill him, which he visualises in the scenes of the stadium/concentration camp where the old are rounded up by soldiers who are all young.