Alain Robbe-Grillet

A leading figure of the French Nouveau Roman ("New Novel") movement of the late 1950s, Robbe-Grillet wrote the screenplay for Alain Resnais' labyrinthine "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961) which incorporated many of the characteristic features of his novels: an undermining of chronological and narrative structure; an "objective" style supposedly free from authorial involvement; an investigation of the nature of memory and repetition; and a stylized eroticism. The film remains a landmark of European art cinema. Robbe-Grillet made his directorial debut with "L'Immortelle" (1963) and continued to navigate similar thematic and stylistic terrain, though to decreasingly innovative and successful effect. His introduction to the published screenplay of "Last Year at Marienbad" raised interesting theoretical questions on the differences between the novel and the film as media.