Providence

I saw this film at release and have seen it several times since and this motion picture still holds up, a seemingly complex story that unravels steadily

throughout the film. Resnais uses every dramatic device available to tell what becomes a moving and tender portrait, not least visual puns, particularly a

sequence where Dirk Bogarde drives across "town", in which a very simple

montage predates digital morphing as seen in current commercials, smoothly

linked through the activity of the character. All good Resnais films include an examination of the minds of his characters and this is a superb twist-and-turn reality that involves us completely. The acting of course is flawless and includes a wonderful pairing of the great Elaine Stritch and Ellen Burstyn. David Warner, a personal favorite, is actually given the opportunity to act and steps up to the plate and compliments Dirk Bogarde's cool and wooden portrait. I regularly look for this release on DVD and am consistently disappointed. Could someone

publish it soon?

This is one of the strangest movies I know. French intellectual aesthete meets contemporary British playwright - this should be the title of Providence. When two completely different cultures meet for a common project, the risk of failure is enormous. But in this case something interestingly and uniquely hilarious was created. Providence is a feverish dream that was successfully created for the screen.

The dream sequences of an old, dying writer, played by John Gielgud are absurd in a very British way. John Gielguds's upper class "king's English" voice-over adds effectively to its strangeness. As usual in contemporary British plays, sex and bowel movements are of the utmost importance . no, the script as a whole is neither very original nor particularly funny. I liked the incongruous, illogical situations though. Every now and then, in the most impossible situations, a strange, sickly looking football player (he seems to have fallen off Monty Python's Flying Circus) jogs limply past.

Director Alain Resnais is responsible for the dreamscapes, and they make Providence worth watching. Real settings are artfully distorted into haunting, surreal spatial sequences. Foreground and background, light and darkness, different textures and beautiful color arrangements are expertly arranged into a world of its own that is never too far from reality. One is sometimes reminded of Magritte's surrealistic paintings. Strange sounds add to the almost psychedelic effect the dream scenes have.

The acting is remarkable, especially Dirk Bogarde as the writer's slick, cynical «dream son» gives an outstanding performance.

A double header of complex imagination (first part) and painful recrimination (second part) in this film of deep feeling and hurt seen through the eyes of the dying author (John Gielgud). David Mercer's script includes all his life long angst of the relationship of father and son, although now in his final years fought out with more complex and participating female characters in the ghost of his dead wife, who doubles as his son's mistress (Elaine Stritch) and daughter-in-law (Ellen Burstyn).

The acting is pure poetry with John Geilgud at his refined best as the drunken and dying author in part celebrating his life of drunken womanising and in part regretting the pain that he has caused, in particular to his family. Dirk Borgarde performing the impossible task of being two imaginary characters and one real one with seemless effort. As the son of the dying author he carries all the pain and hatreds of the dying father both in the old man's fantasy and in his real life of inherited disillusionment. His relationship with his wife and mistress (in practice his mother! complex eh!) changes from the deeply loving to the perceive accusatory of the old man's increasingly drunken imagination.

Ellen Burstyn gives one of her finest film performances as the long suffering wife ,but in the end all the plaudits go to the writer. The style may be only that of the one-liner but each of them hits as an aphorism from the greatest of philosophical minds. The revolving characters of the final part of the authors dreaming make a bewildering tapestry of the imagination.

A fabulous movie, but one that will take many viewings to actually comprehend the complexities of it. Set that video!!

Renais "Providence" has all the hallmarks of cinema at its artistic best. Every component of film making is expertly handled. David Mercer's literary screenplay is a joy to listen to, especially when delivered by the likes of Dirk Bogarde and of course the legendary John Gielgud. The visuals are haunting and perfectly shot with detailed attention to set and costume. Miklos Rosza's soundtrack is in total accordance with the work as a whole, never intrusive, while adding to the rich tapestry that is "Providence". Renais too has assembled a wonderful if somewhat odd cast, which suitably serve this somewhat odd film.

Gielgud plays a dying author whose mind is racing with fantasies peopled by members of his family. His character Clive Langham is depicted as a ribald, sensual, womanizer. Yet his fantasies, making up the bulk of the film, are curiously cold and stark. They are played in bleak settings with an ever present sense of impending catastrophe, though remaining totally devoid of emotion. These imaginings are at completely at odds with their creator. The extreme incongruousness of these fantasies with the character to whom they belong, remains a mystery. This detracts much in the way of emotional impact which is very much lacking in the film, whether intentional or not. The elimination of emotion leaves "Providence" a cold, wonderfully intelligent exercise in the art of film making.

Renais has assembled an intriguing cast headed by the superb Gielgud. Dirk Bogarde whose performances have often been tinged with a cold, sauve superciliousness brings this unpleasant quality to an unparalleled level of extremity. Even the usually over emoting Ellen Burstyn delivers a restrained performance. Elaine Stritch has to be the oddest choice for the role being so contrary to her well known persona. Never has a more unlikely coupling been presented than Stitch and Bogarde as lovers. Yet in this emotionless void, even that becomes acceptable.

"Providence" is a highly unusual, important film and shouldn't be missed by the discerning film enthusiast. Yet despite the wealth of cinematic craft on display it remains an unsatisfying experience.

Since so many good comments have been written here, mostly on the psychological side of the characters, and they are all excellent, I decided to comment upon a very present entity and that is WINE.

Notice that, until the last scene, everybody drinks white, mostly CHABLIS, an acid one. But on that last scene Resnais shifts to RED. It is no accident, it has in my modest opinion, a way that illustrates a very fundamental change in the feelings that occurred in that lunch.

Criticism and over-analysis, ever present till that event, give way to peaceful acceptance of the characters by the father, Without hypocrite sensibility, that he refuses, but with warmth and tolerance.

Well, I do believe, by some 55 years of experience, that white wine (dry, European style) makes one restless and sometimes bitter.

Red wine makes one more relaxed and happy.

I do not know which kind of wine Resnais prefers, but since he is a Breton I would not be surprised, that it is WHITE. Maybe that is the reason why His movies are so difficult to decode. They are also some of the most magnificent works of cinematic art..