Alain Robbe-Grillet - Cultural References

Cultural References

• The Australian composer Lindsay Vickery has written an opera based on the novel Djinn.
• Frédéric Beigbeder refers to Robbe-Grillet in his novel Windows On the World.
• In the movie Sideways, Miles (Paul Giamatti) explains to Maya (Virginia Madsen) that his unpublished novel "evolves - or devolves - into a kind of a Robbe-Grillet mystery - but (with) no real resolution."
  • In the commentary section of the Sideways DVD, Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church discuss the Robbe-Grillet reference during the scene when Miles is explaining his novel to Maya in (what Church dubs) the "lair of the white grape." When the line is mentioned Church says: "I love that--Robbe-Grillet. That gets a very good laugh." Paul Giamatti chimes in with: "What the hell?!" Church adds, "it's the height of ostentation." To which Giamatti agrees: "Nothing could be more pretentious." Then he disparages his own character stating: "What a jackass!"