IN MEMORIAM

I have a third of a Godzilla review written, the afterglow of a spec-fucking-tacular night of Oscar themed bar trivia, and I am about ready to pass out while sitting at my computer, but I couldn't possibly allow the night to go by without nodding in the direction of Alain Resnais, the great French director who passed away this weekend at the age of 91. A fine age for any of us to reach, especially for a gifted creator working right up to the last (his final film premiered at last month's Berlin film festival, and he leaves behind a truly enviable body of work, challenging and beautiful films that complicate the viewer's relationship to the image, to history, and to narrative representation. His masterpiece, by my lights, was the short documentary Night and Fog, an examination of how Auschwitz is processed visually and morally by people who weren't there and can't be trusted to have learned from it, but you could dip in anywhere in his career and pull out essential cinema. One more great mind from the Golden Age of art cinema has left us, and in this moment, nothing seems more important to me than to reflect on what he gave to all of us who love the medium, and to thank him for some of the most mind-expanding experiences I've had watching a movie.