„Nothing is written”. Opatrzność jako film o pisarzu

Abstrakt

„NOTHING IS WRITTEN.” PROVIDENCE AS A FILM ABOUT A WRITER

The article is an analysis of the Alain Resnais’ film Providence 1977, treated as a work of fiction telling the story about a writer. The starting point of the analysis is the observation that in the Resnais’ film there is not a single scene showing the protagonist actually writing, the center of the plot is therefore the process of composing a novel, as in Fellini’s Otto e mezzo, where the story was limited to the pre-production phase of the film release.
After the initial determination of the place Providence takes within Alain Resnais’ filmmaking, the author makes an analysis in three successive stages. First, he analyses the process of devising the novel as a narrative situation, predicting ludic reception of the film. Second, at a higher level of analytical receipt, the same situation of devising novel becomes an excuse to explore the mystery of creation seen as a self-therapy, in this case needed to work over the guilt after not preventing his wife’s suicide. Thirdly, at the deepest level of meaning, devising novel is a preparation for death; at this level the act of not writing is the equivalent of a spiritual suicide. Beheld in this perspective Providence hero becomes another variant of the central theme of the Resnais’ work: lazarian figure from the biblical Lazarus, who met death and could not find himself in the world after this experience.

Translated by Małgorzata Hadwiczak