YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET


France, 2012, 115 minutes, Colour.
Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azema, Anne Consigny, Anny duperey, Hippolyte Girardot, Gerard :Lartigau, Jean-Noel? Broute, Michel Robin, Michel Piccoli, Lambert Wilson.
Directed by Alain Resnais.

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet is the work of French director, Alain Resnais. At the time of directing this film he was 90 years old. Yet it is not the film of an old man. It is, rather, the film of a man’s long experience in cinema and theatre and wants to pay tribute to this French tradition.

The screenplay it takes up the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus and is based on the work of playwright, Jean Anouilh.

The whole film is quite artificial and relishes this artificiality. A famous playwright is reported to have been accidentally killed and his butler summons a group of actors to his home to commemorate his life. This is a bit like the device in The Cat and the Canary where the family is invited to listen to the will which is spoken by the dead man on a video. But this time the author wants to create an event to his own memory. He has been planning a modern version of Eurydice which has been filmed on video and he begins to play it for the audience. The reason for the actors being present is that they have performed the play in the past and have been invited to enjoy the new version and make comparisons.

What happens is that the actors are caught up in the spirit of the play and begin to recite the lines that they performed in the past. As this gathers momentum, there is performance of the play amongst the different actors. There are two each for Eurydice and Orpheus from different past stagings.
As with much French drama, the language is rather abstract even though in the context of melodrama with reference to the original mythology. What is important is the range of performances, the articulation of the text, the passion for ideas. It is interesting to see the interaction amongst the past actors and, ultimately, interaction between the audience in the room and the actors on the video screen.

It is a great pleasure to see many of France’s top actors and actresses from screen and theatre. The two actresses who perform Eurydice are Sabine Azema and Anne Consigny. Two actors playing Orpheus are Pierre Arditi as the older, and the younger, Lambert Wilson. Included in the cast are veterans Michel Piccoli and Michel Robin and Annie Duperey.

Certainly not a film for everyone, but for connoisseurs of French cinema, admirers of the director and those who have been impressed by performances from the cast.

1. The tribute to French cinema? French theatre? The interplay between the two?

2. The work of Alain Resnais , over many decades? Documentary and experimental films from the 1950s? Innovation? Changes over the decades, his theatrical experiences, theatre, the play, being playful?

3. The title, expectations, Al Jolson?

4. A film of interiors, the mansion, the guest room, the actors watching the screen?

5. The interiors of locations of the play, the station, the diner…?

6. The musical score and atmosphere?

7. The interactions of the cast from the past and of the new version of Eurydice?

8. The interactions amongst the cast? Recalling their performances, resuming them?

9. The phone calls from the mansion? The author’s death? The invitation? The actors? The introduction to each of the cast, a reminder of their status?

10. The arrival, the welcome, their being seated, the speech from the dead man on the screen, his setting up the event about the new production of Eurydice?

11. The author, his reputation? Entirely fictitious? Screenplay based on work by Anouilh? The updating? The modern style? The reality of the Greek myth, interpreted for the 20th and 21st centuries?

12. Those playing the new version, the staging, Eurydice in this context, theatre work? Orpheus, the tradition, playing the violin, very young? The other characters: the suitor, Orpheus’ father, Eurydice’s mother, her partner, the waiter? The mixed group in the new play, the black actor?

13. Audience response to the older actors, their films and theatre performances over the decades? The older actors joining in, admiring their
performances, the two actresses for Eurydice , older and younger, and for Orpheus, older and younger? The two fathers? The mother and her lover?

14. The impact of the performance, the language? The sets?

15. The characters, Eurydice and her life, love, wanting to escape, on the bus, her death?

16. The language and ideas, the abstract nature of French theatre, characters representing stances?

17. The end, the author not dead, the reunion?