calvinnme
John Gielgud stars as an old, dying, drunken writer, who spends a sleepless night thinking up his next novel's story in between bouts of pain and self-reflection. Most of the film is his imagined story, with a haughty lawyer (Dirk Bogarde) who has recently lost a case against a soldier (David Warner) who has committed a mercy killing. The lawyer's wife (Ellen Burstyn) brings the soldier home after the trial, and there is much back-biting and threats of adultery. The lawyer himself is also having an affair, with an older journalist (Elaine Stritch). One of the complicated factors in the film is that the writer has envisioned people from his real life as his characters: his sons are the lawyer and soldier, his daughter-in-law the unhappy wife, and his own deceased wife as the lawyer's mistress! Also in the story-within-the-story is a lot of background action involving young soldiers rounding up the elderly and placing them in concentration camps, as well as the threat of terrorist bombings.This film is a brutal and honest study of the creative process. Gielgud was one of the English language's greatest stage actors, but filmmakers never seemed to use him very well, at least not often. Here he has arguably his finest role, and even if just for his delivery of the film's final line, I would say he deserved an Oscar. Bogarde as well is fantastic, and just as deserving of accolades. The film also boasts some truly remarkable art direction and set design. I'm not sure how many of the exteriors and interiors were sets and which were locations, but they looked exquisite, even down to some H.R. Giger paintings on the wall in one scene. From what I've read, this film was poorly received here in the U.S., but was a great success commercially and critically in Europe. Recommended for the more adventurous film goers.
coolfast84
Providence is not an intellectual or artsy film, in the usual meaning of the word 'intellectual'. Is more a literary movie that experiments with the idea of an author, who is not only a novelist, but a playful and cynic god. In this sense, Providence is reminiscence of an idea exposed by the great Spanish writer and thinker Miguel de Unamuno in his novel Niebla: the author can play God inside the world of his creations, make fun of his characters worries, reactions and words.In Unamuno's novel, the idea is exposed with undeniable clarity. In Providence is far more complex, because there are also more psychology, absurdity and surrealism. Viewers can find a sarcastic but profound treatment of problems like adultery, Oedipus Complex, family hatred, social classes, pessimism and murder.But, in my opinion, Providence is a great film, not by Resnais pompous direction or by the much complicated literary ideas exposed in the story: this film contains one of Dirk Bogarde's and John Gielgud's best performances ever. Bogarde, the master of extreme elegance and excessive but charming mannerism, and Gielgud, with his mastery in giving words an independent life -as Derek Jacobi does-, bring humor and irony to this very pretentious work of Resnais.
moonmobile
This is my favourite film of all time. I first saw it many years ago, and it still remains my favourite. A masterpiece of subtle humour, irony, surrealism and commentary on what is real and what is fiction with a fantastic score and wonderful imagery. It also features some of my favourite actors - Dirk Bogarde, David Warner.Like another reviewer here I also frequently check to see if it has been released on DVD and am disappointed and puzzled by its continued non release. It is not as though it figures an obscure director and actors and it is Resnais' only film in English!I would also like to agree with other reviewers who says that it manages to capture the interior process of how a writer or creative artist works. There are very nice touches. As the writer (John Gielgud)gets progressively more sozzled on white wine, we see the characters he is imagining all standing around in the most improbable of settings with glasses of white wine in their hands.
davidf33
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!!
AD
