Providence (1977 film)

Infobox Film
name = Providence


writer = David Mercer
starring = Dirk Bogarde
Ellen Burstyn
John Gielgud
David Warner
director = Alain Resnais
music = Miklós Rózsa
editing = Jean-Pierre Besnard
Albert Jurgenson
distributor =
released = January 25 1977
runtime = 110 min.
language = English
imdb_id = 0076574
budget =

"Providence" is a French/Swiss 1977 film directed by Alain Resnais and starring Dirk Bogarde, David Warner, Ellen Burstyn, and John Gielgud.

Plot

Over a drunken, tormented night, dying writer Clive Langham (Gielgud) struggles with the plot of a novel. The characters are based on Langham's own family, who are depicted as spiteful, treacherous and decadent. Langham makes these people interact in a variety of settings - courtrooms, mortuaries, werewolf-haunted forests. Although it is obvious that the writer's perceptions are distorted by bitterness and guilt, the extent of this is not made clear until the end, when the "real" family members come to Langham's house to celebrate his birthday.

Reception and influence

*The film won seven César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Editing, as well as the New York Film Critics Circle Award for John Gielgud.
*Although he was one of the preeminent theatre actors of the twentieth century, John Gielgud felt that this was his only completely successful attempt at film acting. [John Gielgud, "An Actor and His Times", Penguin Books (1981)]
*The bipartite structure of "Providence" was hailed by films critics as a precursor to David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (1997) and "Mulholland Drive" (2002).Emma Wilson. "Alain Resnais". Manchester University Press, 2006. Page 138.]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0076574|title=Providence (1977)

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=César Award for Best Film
years=1978
before="Monsieur Klein"
after="L'Argent des autres"