The Architecture of the Screen

by Graham Cairns

  12Carmal-Arthur, Judith. Carlo Scarpa, Museo Canoviano, Possagno, Edirtor Axel Manges, London, 2002. p. 15.

  13Scarpa’s use of light in this project has been described as a form of “critique” capable of revealing new interpretations of the works themselves. See: Los, Sergio. Carlo Scarpa – An Architectural Guide, Ibid. p. 8.

  14Carmal-Arthur, Judith. Carlo Scarpa, Museo Canoviano, Possagno, Ibid. p. 12–15.

  German Baroque architecture and the filming of Resnais: A fusion

  Last Year in Marienbad. 1961

  Alain Resnais

  Producer: Pierre Courau – Raymond Froment. (France).

  A hypnotic, intensely psychological study, and a portrait of obsessions and emotive tensions, Last Year in Marienbad shares various characteristics with the other Alain Resnais film commented on in this series, Hiroshima Mon Amour. This time, however, the primary setting for the film’s self-absorbed romantic narrative is not a contemporary city, but the seventeenth century palace at Nymphenburg, Munich. The construction of the palace began in 1664. Based on the designs of the Italian architect Agostino Barelli, its central pavilion was completed some ten years later. Although built in what may be defined as the Baroque period, its exterior owes as much to the Neoclassical school as it does to the Baroque.1 Subsequent extensions to the building, in the early part of the eighteenth century, more than doubled its original size and gave it the “gravitas” it has today as a site of courtly power. Housing the Bavarian aristocracy until recently, it has had numerous interior renovations in a Neoclassical and Rococo style and is renowned for its gardens, which were also originally built in the seventeenth century and subject to changes in the early eighteenth. Various isolated buildings and pavilions adorn the overall site, turning the palace, and its grounds, into one of the most exuberant, extensive and famous examples of Neoclassical, Rococo, and above all Baroque designs in northern Europe. In the architectural splendour of this palace, Resnais sets the story of philosophical introspection and unrequited love, that is, Last Year in Marienbad.

  Based on a script by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the film presents us with a group of upper-class friends and acquaintances who have gathered to spend a weekend of leisure.2 The main protagonist, Giorgio Albertazzi, tries to woo Delphine Seyrig, with whom we are led to believe he has had some sort of romantic involvement in the past. Aloof to his amorous advances, she maintains an ambiguous distance and apparent indifference that turns a standard romantic story into a metaphysical journey through the tortures of unrequited love. Centring on the emotional tension of this relationship, Resnais offers an unremitting portrait of self-absorption and suffocating obsession. He presents the audience with two protagonists who remain focused on the intensity of their own interior world throughout the film. For the lovers, everything around them is little more than a distraction. The palace, their friends, the events of the weekend and the conversations they overhear and partake in, all become secondary phenomena in a world at one remove from their own.3

  Resnais emphasises this psychological self-absorption both cinematographically and aurally. His cameraman, again Sacha Vierny, often films the protagonists alone, frequently isolated in an over-scaled luxurious architecture. Alternatively, he allows his camera to pass through spaces in which the secondary actors remain perfectly still, as if caught in “frozen motion” or forming props in a photograph. Consequently, the complete “interiorisation” of the two lovers is both symbolically and formally underlined by the filming. Most famously, however, he films completely empty spaces with a moving camera and continuous takes that flow, in long serpentine-like movements, through the palace’s Baroque corridors, halls and major rooms. In these scenes, the camera appears to float, hovers in the palace’s open spaces and rests on the vine-like patterns that engulf some of its most decorated surfaces.

  It is a method of filming that gives the work both a surreal and esoteric air that can become a hypnotic experience in and of itself. Central to this visual cinematographic construction is the nature of soundtrack behind. Occasionally revolving around the subtle use of Baroque music, its most celebrated and commented aspect is its sonorous voice-in-off narration. In a way that can appear embarrassingly artificial to contemporary audiences, the narration relates emotions, fears, hopes and metaphysical speculations on the nature of memory and love. Accompanied by actions or, more commonly, following the camera on its silent and solitary exploration of the building’s empty spaces and Baroque excesses, these monologues are intended to add additional layers to the film’s hypnotic visual revere as the narrator’s voice entwines the viewer in Resnais’ world of self-obsession and absorption.

  Similar effects are created in the film’s exterior scenes, where, once again, the aim is to use sound and cinematography to augment an artificial sensation of self-absorption. Whilst in the interior scenes, the surface decoration of the Baroque palace is appropriated to this end, in the exterior shots, it is the seventeenth and eighteenth century gardens. Famed for their complex, overlaid geometrical base, their intricate pattern of pathways, lakes, canals and planting offers a visually rich experience for both the visitor and the camera; an experience in which the rationality of the plan is absorbed in the intricacies of its “sensorial” features.4 As is typical in Baroque garden design, there are also numerous examples of carefully sculptured and crafted planting, statues precisely placed at strategic points, and elaborate fountain features at key geometrically aligned nodes in the overall plan.5 As the camera moves around this complex landscape, it weaves a languid path through the garden’s array that allows attention to linger on the geometric arrangement of the planning, the intricacy of its fountain features and the figurative qualities of its “frozen in motion” Baroque sculpture; a quality that is underlined by the presentation of actors who, as with notable interior shots, are occasionally presented as if they too were statues, perfectly still and apparently “frozen” in motion. Moving along sinuous trajectories, which take the eye in and around these human and artistic sculptures, the camera’s introduction of a fluid point of view deliberately intensifies their stillness. Accompanied by melodically repetitive Baroque music, or alternatively complete silence, these scenes are again representations of a psychological state of self-obsession in which even people become little more than a physical backdrop to a personal story.

  In other exterior scenes, Resnais appropriates very different qualities of the same gardens; their long perspectives that extend into the distance from set points of view in the grounds, thus emphasising the geometry of the design (Fig. 1). In one particularly notable scene in this regard, Seyrig strolls along one of the garden’s many straight pathways with all the pretence of a geisha or dancer. With the palaces’ main facade forming a constant architectural background, she walks as if performing in a comedy of manners, towards the camera. Delicately stepping on the floor, as if performing a ballet, she leaves and enters the shot with an overly stylised sense of whim and exaggerated contemplation (Fig. 2). Here, the mise-en-scène forms a deep, central, one-point perspective, which highlights the lineal path along which she walks and creates a sense of gravitas for the scene. The perspective focuses the viewer’s eye on the only action of the sequence. The self-conscious, melodramatic performance of the actress is consequently highlighted by an architectural arrangement that becomes symbolic; the one-point perspective seemingly representing Seyrig’s own self-absorption.

  Figure 1: External garden perspective and statuesque protagonists.

  Figure 2: Exterior garden perspective demarking lineal movement.

  This symbolic use of perspective by Resnais becomes one of the film’s principal tropes and is seen not only in the interiors and the gardens but also in pictorial representations of those same gardens; various scenes are set against paintings of the gardens hanging on walls inside the palace. In one example, we are privy to a typically tension-laden conversation between the film’s lovers and a potential unnamed rival to their romance in which a painting,
capturing a statue of two figures arm in arm set against the central axis of the garden layout, is the focus of conversation. Standing in front of the painting, Albertazzi gives an “emotive” interpretation of the characters represented in which his personal empathy with the male figure is evident. He suggests that this figure “has seen some danger and wants to stop the woman preceding”. The clear implication here is that they offer a metaphor on the lovers themselves. Before he can elaborate, however, he is interrupted by his “romantic rival” who offers “more accurate information”, stating that the painting is of Charles II and his wife at the time he became Holy Roman Emperor. Turning the personal and emotional into something factual and political, he undermines Albertazzi in front of the woman he is trying to “woo”. The empty one-point perspective of the painting thus takes on immediate symbolic resonances that are emphasised in the subsequent sequence when we see him alone and apparently confused walking along the corridors of the palace, isolated in his own single-point perspective composition (Fig. 3).

  Figure 3: Internal corridor perspective.

  Figure 4: The camera’s long take around statuesque protagonists.

  This compositional shot of the interior corridors is another of trope to which Resnais returns continually throughout the film. At times there are dramatic actions occurring but, more commonly, we witness simpler actions: for example, individuals lost in thought walking along straight paths, couples engaging in continuous repetitive conversations and groups of people making measured, artificial gestures to each other. Alternatively, we are presented with a complete lack of action and an underlying silence that invites us to simply “contemplate” the space in its own right. Continually, perspective is used to focus the eye and emphasises the apparent importance of the self-obsession presented. Interweaved with these interior perspective shots are long tracking shots in which the camera again weaves curvilinear and intricate paths through the interconnecting rooms of the palace interior and around subjects, who may be static or themselves in motion (Fig. 4). When both camera and protagonists move, Resnais and Vierny create a sense of fluidity that has clear echoes of the films of Jean Renoir, one of the worlds most celebrated directors in this regard.6 Although parallels between the filming styles of both these directors are inevitable in the context of this film, the continuous shooting of Last Year in Marienbad goes far beyond that of Renoir. Indeed, it can be read as at complete odds with the objectives of Renoir for whom film was a medium for “realism”.7 In Last Year in Marienbad, the fluidity and continuity of the filming and movement of the camera operate as a metaphor for the revere of a distracted and distanced mind. It is more symbolic and emotive than it is realistic.

  Probably the most memorable examples of this “symbolic filming” are the scenes that open the film and introduce the Baroque interior of the palace’s Amalienburg pavilion. Designed by the Belgian architect François de Cuvilliés, 1734–1739, credited with bringing Baroque to central Europe, the pavilion is a small hunting lodge generally considered to be the architect’s finest work.8 Dominated by two characteristics – its hall of mirrors and its highly exuberant gilded decoration – the complexity of the building’s interiors is in clear contrast to the sober nature of the palace’s exterior.9 Described as irrational, personal, emotive and subjective, the Baroque and Rococo interiors of the Nymphenburg Palace are most notable for their serpentine-like decorative detail that crawls like climbing plants over walls and ceilings. It results in an effect of surface movement and decoration that Mark Gelenter describes with respect to Baroque architecture as “an approach to design in which an illusionary and sensorial game buries order and rationality”.10

  Interpreted differently by Robert Harbison, the impression of surface movement in the Baroque is not seen exclusively as a decorative game of illusion. On the contrary, it forms part of a more holistic approach to spatial organisation. Focusing on the spatial organisation of Baroque architecture, Harbison interprets it as “manipulating, suggesting and creating multiple games with points of view”.11 In essence, although an overall design may revolve around a single, principal point of view, the complexity of Baroque’s secondary spaces and individual decorative features gives rise to additional independent perspectives. It thus becomes an architecture that demands the physical movement of the viewer if any given building is to be completely understood or experienced. Demonstrated through the two most iconic examples of Baroque architecture – Bernini’s Church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (1598–1680)12 and Borromini’s Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1599–1667)13 – these generally standard readings of the Baroque are clearly evidenced in the work of Cuvilliés in Nymphenburg.

  Showing the incredible complexity of the Baroque imagination, the decoration of Nymphenburg goes far beyond a simple surface treatment. Here, surfaces are practically engulfed by detail. It is a type of decoration that passes from one surface to another in a continuous flow of constantly transmogrifying forms. Consequently, walls, ceilings, doors, mirrors and windows all become unified into one homogonous visual web. Burying the “rationality of the design”, this web also manages to blend one room with another, inducing not only the eye but also the body of the viewer to follow it. In short, the visitor is obliged to move through a series of interconnected spaces if they are to experience the decoration and the spatial complexity of the building in all its glory. Both these characteristics of real and perceived motion found in Nymphenburg were to be major influences on the filming style employed in Last Year in Marienbad; the absorbing complexity of the building’s decoration seemingly focusing the camera on its intricacies, whilst the tendency of decoration to flow from one surface and room to another, seemingly enticing the lens to follow its labyrinth-like patterns of movement (Fig. 5).

  Figure 5: The camera follows the labyrinthine surface decoration of the interiors.

  This flowing filming style emphasises and exaggerates the fluidity of the building’s decoration, creating a perfect fusion of cinematography and architecture in which we find inherent characteristics of both camera and architecture mutually intensified. The filming appears more fluid whilst the architecture appears more unified. It is not only an intensification of the formal power of architecture and cinematography that is seen in these scenes, but both the narrative of the film and its hypnotic soundtrack are also blended and further emphasised. As the camera carries out its subtle study of the architecture, the intricate, intense and internal voice-in-off narration continues underneath, following its innumerable narrative themes as the camera flows across the equally innumerable decorative variations of the architecture. This cinematographic and architectural ensemble creates an all engrossing atmosphere in which both protagonists and spectators are totally absorbed. The role of the architecture here is not as a simple physical backdrop or a strictly controlled compositional device, but rather, it operates as a metaphorical representation of obsession and introspection that is inseparable from the cinematographic techniques employed. In this sense it repeats the role of architecture in the expressionist films of the 1920s but with one significant difference. Here, the psycho-cinematographic role played by architecture is not one artificially and exaggeratedly created by set designers, but rather a role created by an architecture that contains these psycho-cinematographic qualities inherently; the emotive and intricate architecture of the Baroque.

  Notes

  1Heinrich Wölfflin’s reference text Renaissance und Barock, 1888, still remains a basic starting point in defining the formal differences between these styles of art and architecture (and, by extension Neoclassicism). See: Wölfflin, Heinrich. Renaissance and Baroque, Cornell University Press, New York, 1966.

  2Subsequent to Last Year in Marienbad, Robbe-Grillet wrote more screen plays and directed films himself. Amongst these one finds: Trans-Europ-Express, 1966; L’homme qui ment, 1968; L’Eden et après, 1970; Glissements progressifs du plaisir, 1974; Le jeu avec le feu, 1975 and La belle captive, 1983. For more information, s
ee: Robbe-Grillet, Alain and D’Araille, Edouard. In the Temple of Dreams: The Writer on the Screen, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996.

  3For information on the film and details on the script, see: Resnais, Alain. Last Year at Marienbad: Text for the Film by Alain Resnais, Grove Press, New York, 1962.

  4For information on the influence of formal French garden design in Europe, and particularly at Nymphenburg, see: Thacker, Christopher. The History of Gardens (3rd edition), University of California Press, California, 1992. p. 166.

  5For an introduction to the basic characteristics and background to Baroque garden design, see: Turner, Tom. Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC - 2000 AD, Ibid., York, 2005. p. 263–286.

  6This is one of Renoir’s most celebrated traits. Alexander Sesonske has described Renoir as “capable of converting the cinematographic experience into a fluid visual experience in which the movement of the camera appears to be totally natural”. Sesonske, Alexander. The French Films, 1924–1939. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1980. p. 314.

  7The work of Jean Renoir has been extensively documented. For a general overview and more specific information on the idea of “realism”, see: Bazin, Andre. Jean Renoir, Da Capo Press, Massachusetts, 1992.

  8François de Cuvilliés was a Belgian born Bavarian designer who was a key figure in the introduction and extension of Rococo tendencies in Bavaria. For an overview of Rococo and its development of Baroque tendencies into a new style, see: Alexander Baily, Gauvin. Baroque & Rococo (Art & Ideas), Phaidon Press, London, 2012; Bazin, Germain and Griffin, Jonathan. Baroque & Rococo (World of Art), Thames and Hudson, London, 1985.

  9The fact that the interiors of European Palaces tended to be modified according to the whim of fashion in a way that was impossible on the exterior is identified by Germain Bazin, amongst others, who points out that it is consequently common to find palaces that are characterised by a clear “aesthetic duality”. This is certainly the case with the Nymphenburg Palace whose construction began around 1664 but whose interiors have been changed and modified at various times since. See: Bazin, Germain. Baroque and Rococo, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1993. p. 188.