The May 1963 meeting of the Discussion Group attracted an attendance of between 50 and 60 to enjoy the panel discussion on Last Year at Marienbad. The panel consisted of Miss Catherine de la Roche, the well known film critic, Mr Russell Rankin, who was responsible for importing the film, and Mr John O'Shea of Pacific Films. It was interesting to note that, while each member of the panel approached the film from a rather different viewpoint, the resulting conclusions were not so very far apart.

Miss de la Roche emphasised that, although there were certain surface similarities with such films as Cocteau's Orpheus, this new film did represent something of a new departure in film making. She explained that in her view the film must be regarded as a conscious construction of symbolic episodes. The scenes of the film were not related according to any traditional conception of chronological sequence, or of cause and effect. The film was an attempt to communicate solely by means of visual imagery, and in her view it had been fairly successful.

Mr Rankin was able to give us some indication of the financial success of the film. He said that it would have been a financial success from the point of view of the producers certainly. As far as its New Zealand run was concerned, however, he indicated that it did reasonably well in Auckland where it ran for three weeks, fairly well in Wellington for two weeks, and disastrously in Christchurch. As to the quality of the film Mr. Rankin adopted a somewhat suspicious view that Resnais had made the film with an eye on its oddity in the hope of having as successful a run with this one as he had with Hiroshma Mon Amour. Mr Rankin found the film gimmicky, and compared it unfavourably with the Japanese Rashomon.

As a film maker, Mr O'Shea said he found little that was new in terms of cinematic techniques although he did indicate that he thought that the film represented an emphasis on ever sharper cutting in the editing room. Mr O'Shea emphasised the relationship of the film to the great Romantic themes such as Death and the Maiden and the everlasting cycle. He thought that the symbolic aspects of the film were consciously intended by the filmmaker to be, not incoherent, but incomplete in the sense that their implications for the viewer would depend on what he was able to bring into the cinema with him in the way of experience and knowledge.

All of the panelists were agreed that the film was not a complete success. It was considered to be somewhat cold and although I don't think anyone actually used the term, the impression was given that it was a little too contrived. All were agreed, however, that it was an interesting, important and seriously intended film. The best short description that was given of the film was recounted by Mr O'Shea who told of the remark of an elderly woman in her seventies She told him she found it a very good film, it was so refined and at the same time so passionate.
- Pat Downey

[Two Months Later:]

To The Editor
Last Year in Marienbad
Dear Sir,
I would like to apologise to those present at the recent discussion of Last Year in Marienbad for so ineptly phrasing my remarks that they were interpreted by Mr Downey as an agreement that "the film was not a complete success".

As I recall, the phrase I used was "... in a certain sense Resnais had failed," going on to say that this was because film-going habits round the world do not in general extend to seeing films more than once. To my mind, Resnais' film has an intellectual opacity which many people, including myself, could not penetrate on a single viewing. We do not expect great literature to reveal its full richness the first time we hear it read to us. In fact, our schools analyse and prod many great literary works so remorselessly that they sometimes lose their emotional impact in the process of intellectual comprehension. Yet, because Hamlet deserves our closer study to reveal its many facets, one does not say it is "not a complete success".

My reference to "failure" was intended figuratively. It related more to audiences who, puzzled by Marienbad, failed to break their film going habits by seeing it again. The same familiarity we extend to other works of art - paintings, literature, music - should surely not be denied to those few films whose wealth of meaning and capacity to elicit a response at intellectual and emotional levels cannot be grasped in the tumult of one screening.
-Yours faithfully, John 0 Shea

Mr. Downey replies: I must apologise to Mr. O'Shea for unintentionally misrepresenting him. Certainly his letter sets out much more accurately than my brief note succeeded in doing, his comments at the Discussion Group meeting. Perhaps it just goes to show that understanding a discussion depends as much on the expectations of the audience as viewing Marienbad itself does.