While listening to the interview with Alain Resnais on the Criterion Blu-Ray DVD, I was interested to hear that he requested Henri Langlois to screen Pandora's Box for the cast and crew of Marienbad. The make-up design for Delphine Seyrig was based on the appearance of Louise Brooks in Pandora.
I find the films that director's screen for the cast and crew before production starts to be very interesting. (Pandora's Box and Last Year at Marienbad are two of my favorite films) David Lynch screened Sunset Blvd. before filming Eraserhead, and Stanley Kubrick Screened Eraserhead before filming The Shining.
"Give up a dollar for Jesus!" Esa Hawks
Look at this excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Louise Brooks,in the section entitled "Legacy":
"Louise Brooks as an unattainable film image served as an inspiration for Adolfo Bioy Casares when he wrote his science fiction novel The Invention of Morel (1940) about a man attracted to Faustine, a woman who is only a projected 3-D image. In a 1995 interview, Casares explained that Faustine is directly based on his love for Louise Brooks who "vanished too early from the movies". (Elements of The Invention of Morel, minus the science fiction elements, served as a basis for Alain Resnais's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad.)"
I was so obsessed with "Last Year at Marienbad" that I tracked down and read The Invention of Morel many years ago. It is worth reading. I'd never seen "Pandora's Box" until just now, and I was glad I did. Thanks, TCM.
Thank you for that information, printphi. Years ago, I saw a music video for an Italian jazz ensemble and it was clearly influenced by Last Year at Marienbad. I wonder if Ms. Brooks ever saw the LYAM. I’m sure she saw Sunset Blvd. I know she was very fond of Ava Gardner, probably off-screen as well as on.
shareYou're welcome. What fun to see a reply to a message from almost three years ago...
shareYou can certainly see the influence. Marienbad lacks all the fog, but there's certainly something expressionistic about its mood and atmosphere. Wiene's "The Hands of Orlac" also has a very similar style. I can certainly see how this highly formal approach to filmmaking, utilized by the German expressionists, could have served as inspiration for Resnais's film, which is filled, paradoxically, by a void of silence and darkness of which the German silent filmmakers were the original innovators.
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