Feature Friday: “Providence” (1977)

It turns out there’s a very beautiful copy up at YouTube. (I’d been looking for one for a while.) This has never been my favorite Alain Resnais film, though I’m not sure why. Something about it doesn’t work for me, and yet at the same time, I’m frequently drawn back to thinking about it, and am always eager to revisit it. Because certainly the concept underlying it a brilliant metafictional conceit. Put very simply, John Gielguld plays an author who spend a long night making up a new novel starring his family. He’s especially nasty in his feelings toward them, and spends much of the time revising the text so as to torture them.

Then, the next day, his family comes to visit him…

Providence (1977)

Directed by Alain Resnais

Written by David Mercer

Starring John Gielgud, Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, the evil David Warner, and Elaine Stritch

Enjoy…with a werewolf you love!

A. D. Jameson is the author of five books, most recently I FIND YOUR LACK OF FAITH DISTURBING: STAR WARS AND THE TRIUMPH OF GEEK CULTURE and CINEMAPS: AN ATLAS OF 35 GREAT MOVIES (with artist Andrew DeGraff). Last May, he received his Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the Program for Writers at UIC.

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