When he was ten or eleven, Alain Resnais longed to see Henri Bernstein's play, Melo, then all the rage in Paris. His parents wouldn't take him to the show deeming the play's subject unsuitable for the boy -- it's about adultery among professional musicians. His parents, themselves, attended and brought home a program over which the boy pored over. A facsimile of the program appears in the title sequence of Resnais' 1988 film adapting the play to the screen. A hand turns the pages introducing us the actors in the work and the characters they play. The cover of the 1929 program bears a sleek art deco design.
Like many of his peers in the French "New Wave", Resnais brought an experimental sensibility to film-making -- he was an innovator and pioneer with respect to the technique that he brought to cinema. In his early career, Resnais also stretched the boundaries of narrative, working with Alain Robbe-Grillet on his first feature film Last Year at Marienbad and experimenting with fractured, even dream-like mise-en-scene in his later films. In Melo, and similar films adapting theater works, Resnais seems to be exploring a form of cinema that is self-consciously archaic -- the experiment underway in Melo seems to be an inquiry as to how far film can go in simulating the effects of the classical theater while remaining cinematic. With a couple of exceptions, Resnais eschew montage in Melo and rarely moves the camera. Effects changing the audience's focus on events, ordinarily achieved by editing, are achieved by subtle manipulation of light within theatrically staged scenes -- some shots embody as many as 10 to 11 different light cues to guide the viewer's eye through the sequence. Throughout the film, the sets are elaborate but obviously theatrical, painted flats, a night sky with a big silvery moon and twinkling stars stretched on canvas between generic courtyard walls and porches. The acting style is histrionic and highly expressive. The play itself is an effective, but antique, museum-piece, not the sort of material that you would expect Resnais to revive (although I think the film is tribute to the director's desire to see this play as a little boy). Bernstein's play, although well-written and captivating in its own terms, certainly isn't innovative in any way either in form or subject matter or, even, style -- a kind of elevated discourse that reminds me of classic French theater, for instance, Racine or, even, Moliere. Resnais' taste as a director is perfectly suited to the material -- the movie is a highly refined meditation on the theatrical, also an aspect of the piece's subject matter. Romaine, the heroine, is always acting, always performing -- and, of course, adultery requires much deceit and strategy, also, I would maintain, a form of acting or performance art. Illusions are created and sustained by lies or obsession until they are no longer viable -- at that point, tragedy ensues. Pauses between acts are signified by a shot of a rather baroque curtain drawn across the stage: the curtain never parts -- it's as much of a set as the other sets in the film. The question that the closed curtain poses is simple: what is going on back there? This is the same question framed by the beautiful faces, particularly of Sabina Azema who plays the film's femme fatale -- what is going on behind that lovely facade?
Two men, Pierre and Marcel, are old friends. They are both professional violinists. Marcel is handsome and world-weary -- he is an internationally acclaimed soloist. Pierre is the first violinist in a regional orchestra -- compared to his friend, he's not a great success. But Pierre has been fortunate in love -- he is married to the seductive and beautiful Romaine, who plays piano. Romaine is charming and flirtatious, After Marcel tells an elaborate story of the collapse of a love affair in Havana (it's an eight minute monologue shot in a single take I believe), Romaine sets out to seduce her husband's friend. When Pierre -- Romaine calls him "Pierrot", perhaps, an allusion to the morose and lovelorn character of that name in the commedia dell 'arte (recall the melancholy figure in Watteau's great painting) -- goes to the front door to speak with Christiane, Romaine's cousin who likes Pierre, Romaine makes an assignation with Marcel. Romaine invites Marcel to play a duet with her at his house on the following day. Uncertain as to Romaine's intent, Marcel invites Pierrot to his house as well. Romaine, then, says that she isn't interested any more in the rendezvous but reminds Marcel to "keep his solemn promise" to her -- namely, that they will play Brahms' Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major together. The next day, Romaine comes alone to Marcel' elaborately furnished art deco apartment where they play together. Throughout the film, duet-playing between and man and woman stands as an emblem for sexual intercourse. At first, Marcel resists Romaine's flirtatious invitation and nobly asserts that he owes a duty to his friend, Pierre. But, of course, he ends up in bed with Romaine and, in this way, their affair begins.
It's unclear to what extent, Pierre is aware of the affair. At one point, he encounters the couple at a rather lavishly appointed night club -- it's all velvet darkness and mirrors. Pierre is very drunk and behaves in an amiable, if somewhat bemused manner -- he doesn't seem jealous and, perhaps, we are to think that he doesn't understand what he is seeing. At least, outwardly, his marriage to Romaine is the very paragon of a warm and loving relationship -- although we learn that Pierre would like to have children but something is restraining the couple for fulfilling that wish. When Marcel has to go on tour for a month, Romaine is distraught and, even, begins trembling uncontrollably as if having a sort of seizure. And as if by some sort of occult infection,Pierre also becomes very ill, sick to the point that he seems about to die. Marcel returns to Paris and Romaine leaves the dying man's bedside to hasten to Marcel's apartment. Christiane, who seems to be in love with Pierre, nurses the sick man and a doctor is called. Romaine sits in a bar by the Seine writing a final letter to Pierre. Then, she goes outside in the movie's only exterior shot, walks along the river lit with bright globes of radiance in the otherwise inky darkness, and, descending some stone steps, vanishes. In the next scene, several years have passed. Pierre, who has survived his onslaught of illness, is now married to Christiane by whom he has a child. Pierre goes to Marcel's apartment and shares with him, Romaine's final letter -- it's full of endearments, apologies,, and baby-talk. Pierre has found a rose-petal pressed between pages in a notebook and, since Marcel is associated with long-stem red roses, now understands that his friend has cuckolded him. The two men reconcile, playing a violin duet together.
At the center of the movie is the character of Romaine, who exudes a sort of hysterical sexuality. Although built of steel, she contrives to seem weak and dependent so that men can rescue her. She's both girlish and mysterious -- at one point, she turns somersaults for desperately ill Pierre to amuse him, but then literally runs away to her lover, Marcel. The film embodies a kind of typically gallic stance: it is like Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Sentimental Education, both swooningly and ecstatically romantic while, at the same time, maintaining a sort of jaundiced and ironic perspective on all the swooning and ecstasy. The film's speeches are all florid and precisely observed declamations in which the speaker exposes his or her debilitating passion while remaining sufficiently cool about the emotion to be able to carefully delineate its features and characteristics. Resnais uses his camera to optimize the viewer's own emotional response to this material. His direction is miracle of tact, reserve, decorum, and lavish passion. The film displays the utmost in emotion strictly constrained by the limitations of the theatrical experience.
