Muriel (film) - Production

Production

Resnais and Jean Cayrol first discussed the project of Muriel in 1959. They developed the script while Resnais was working on L'Année dernière à Marienbad as well as on two other (uncompleted) projects relating to the then contentious topic of the war in Algeria. Cayrol, though primarily a poet and novelist, was himself interested in film-making and editing, and he produced a screenplay for Muriel in which nearly all of the complex editing sequences were outlined.

Filming took place between November 1962 and January 1963. Location shooting was done in Boulogne-sur-Mer, which is almost another character in the film, a town whose centre has seen rapid rebuilding after extensive war damage and which is presented as both ancient and modern, uncertainly balanced between its past and future. The scenes in Hélène's apartment where most of the action takes place were filmed on a set at Studios Dumont in Épinay, but Resnais asked the designer Jacques Saulnier to reconstruct exactly a real apartment which he had seen in Boulogne, even down to the colour of the woodwork. The décor of the apartment is modern but, because of Hélène's business as an antique dealer, it is full of furniture of different styles and periods which continually change through the film. Resnais explained his intentions: "We used everything that could give this impression of incompleteness, of unease. ...The challenge of the film was to film in colour, that was essential, never to move the camera position, to film a week behind the scenario, to invent nothing, and to do nothing to make it prettier".

Filming lasted for 12 or 13 weeks, the longest shooting time of any of Resnais's films. According to Resnais, there were around 800 shots in the film instead of the usual 450; the many static camera set-ups were time-consuming; and it was only in the final shot of the film that the camera moved.

Music for the film was written by Hans Werner Henze who picked up the visual principle of multiple fixed camera shots by adopting a musical style which mirrored the fragmentation of the film structure. A series of verses, by Cayrol, are sung throughout the film (by Rita Streich); the relative lack of clarity of the words on the soundtrack was attributed by Resnais to the effect of having a German composer (who at the time did not speak French) setting French words. The full words of the verses are included in the published screenplay of the film.

The song "Déja", with words about the passing of time, which is sung unaccompanied by the character of Ernest near the end of the film, was written for a musical review in 1928 by Paul Colline and Paul Maye. It was one of several elements in the film which were prompted by Resnais's interest in "music-hall" and the theatre.