SCFZ

Polling the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Robbe-Grillet films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

we'll use extended rules for this:

• if you've seen an odd number of films, you can round up instead of down when deciding the length of your ballot (e.g. if you've seen 7, you can vote for 4 instead of the usual 3)

• if you've seen more than 10, you can vote for more than 5, but i think that's impossible in robbe-grillet's case

Glissements Progressifs de Plaisir
L'Eden et Apres
L'Immortelle
Trans-Europ Express

seen seven, i've never found robbe-grillet's prurience all that interesting, but his la jalousie changed my understanding of what fiction can be when i first read it, and a lot of his films i find really interesting not only for formal reasons but for what michel fano does with sound

Haven't seen any, though one of his books is one of my favorite pieces of literature (Instantanés, published in 1962).

Need to read more by him and, of course, watch some of his films.

6.

Successive Slidings of Pleasure
The Beautiful Prisoner
Eden and After

seen 10

trans-europ-express
the man who lies
successive slidings of pleasure
l'immortelle
playing with fire

in case you need tie-breakers:
the blue villa
l'èden et après
gradiva
the beautiful captive
n. a pris les dés

Seen 3.

Liked them all... and I will make an effort to tackle a couple more before the poll ends. One of my favorite writers, and an interesting filmmaker.

L'imortelle
Trans-europ-express

there's no provision in the rules for using ballots longer than 5 films (when a director only made 10) as tiebreakers, but i like breaking ties, so anyone who has seen 9 or 10 from robbe-grillet, please feel free to list all of them in order (as brian d did above) and i'll figure out a way to use the films outside the top five if needed

Seen 4:

1. Successive Slidings of Pleasure
2. Eden and After

More interesting as a writer.
My films:
Trans-Europ-Express (1966)
The Man Who Lies (1968)
The Beautiful Captive (1983)
Playing with Fire (1975)
Progressive Slidings towards Pleasure(1974)
The Blue Villa (1995)

Alain Robbe-Grillet is one of my all-time favourite directors, coupling stunning visuals with consistently intriguing and often even startling surrealism - and beyond, playing with structure and form in ways that almost match my all-time favourite film - Last Year at Marienbad - of which Robbe-Grillet, of course, was the author:

1. L'éden et après / Eden and After (1970) 10/10
2. La belle captive (1983)
3. L'immortelle (1963) 9/10
4. L'homme qui ment / The Man Who Lies (1968)
5. Glissements progressifs du plaisir / Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974)
-
6. Trans-Europ-Express (1967) 8.5/10
7. Le jeu avec le feu / Playing with Fire (1975) 8/10
8. Gradiva (C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle) (2006)
9. Un bruit qui rend fou / The Blue Villa (1995)
10. N. a pris les dés... (1971) 7/10

oscarwerner wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:35 pm More interesting as a writer.

did you list all of the robbe-grillet films you've seen, or have you seen ten and listed a top six? if you've seen all ten, i'm not sure i'll be able to use the ballot for tiebreaking unless all ten films are listed, though i haven't really thought about that yet.

seen 3

1. Trans-Europ-Express
2. The Immortal One

close contest - not sure what would have been the favourite going in, but five films ended up separated by one first place vote, so several films could have won: i assumed in the tally that oscar listed all six that he's seen (since there's no way to have seen enough to legitimately list six, by the rules), so only counted the top three -- if that was the wrong assumption, let me know.

results
1. Glissements Progressifs de Plaisir (1974) — 13 pts
2. Trans-Europ Express (1967) — 12 pts
3. L’Eden et Apres (1970) — 10 pts
3. L’Immortelle (1963) — 10 pts
5. L’Homme qui Ment (1968) — 8 pts
6. La Belle Captive (1983) — 7 pts
7. Le Jeu avec le Feu (1975) — 1 pt
8. The Blue Villa (1995) — 0.07 pts
9. Gradiva (2006) — 0.06 pts
10. N a Pris les Des (1971) — 0.02 pts

In honor of the winner... I bring you the time I went to one of the last remaining video rental shops in Taipei, found a Japanese-import DVD of "Successive Slidings of Pleasure" and proceeded to be baffled by some of the censorship decisions.

In Turkey, television blurs out images of smoking and amputated limbs... but those only if you can see the raw edge where they were amputated.

i have posted this to letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-285/