Alain Resnais's Mon Oncle d'Amrique: From Memory to Determinism

Author(s): John J. Michalczyk

Source: The French Review, Vol. 55, No. 5 (Apr., 1982), pp. 656-663
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. LV, No. 5, April 1982 Printed in U.S.A.

Alain Resnais's Mon Oncle d'Amerique:

From Memory to Determinism
by John J. Michalczyk

IT DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY PROFOUND INSIGHT to see that the eight feature films of

Alain Resnais reflect his ongoing interest in and preoccupation with the human
faculty of memory. In some films Resnais utilizes the memoire volontaire of
Bergson, while in others he uses the memoire involontaire of Proust in his peculiar

associations.' Mon Oncle d'Amerique (1980) pushes this to its furthest limits.
Often in Resnais's works, the mind of the principal character delves back in time

and space to create order in accumulated data or to search for some hidden

meaning for present comportment. With intricate story lines Resnais weaves plots
around human lives that are fragmented, meaningless, or questioning.

In the plot of Resnais's first feature film, Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), the
young French actress making a film in Hiroshima painfully recalls her German
lover during World War II.2 The memory structures in L'Annee demiere a
Marienbad (1961) are even more complex and ambiguous. They may be hypothetical, imagined, or realistic. The persuasive X attempts to convince the emotionless A that he had met her the preceding year and that they had agreed to go
off together one year hence. To jog the memory of A, X showers her with a series

of proofs-photographs, shoe, garden, conversation-establishing that there indeed was a last year at Marienbad and that she did welcome his invitation.
In a chapter entitled "Bad Memories," James Monaco writes of the director's
third film made in 1963:
In Muriel, ou le temps d'un retour everything comes together for Alain Resnais, and
the experiments of the first two feature films pay off. Muriel shares with its predeces-

sors a fascination with the phenomenon of memory and imagination; and like
Hiroshima and Marienbad it situates its examination of the world of the mind in a
geographical place which has its own concrete significance and which serves, in

addition, as the locus for states of mind.3

Helene, an antique dealer in Boulogne, and her former lover share fleeting
memories of their unfulfilled liaison during World War II. Helene's adopted son,
I See John Ward, Alain Resnais or the Theme of Time (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), p. 10.
2 Prior to Hiroshima, mon amour, Resnais had already made several shorts that dealt with memory.
Toute la memoire du monde demonstrates the capacity of the Bibliothique Nationale in Paris to house
humanity's collective memory. Starting with the present, Nuit et brouillard evolves into a disheartening

recollection of the tragic history of the construction of the concentration camps. It serves as a warning
of an uncertain future if we forget our past inhumanity to our fellow human beings.
3 James Monaco, Alain Resnais (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 74.
656

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RESNAIS'S MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE

657

an Algerian War veteran, cannot erase from his mind the image of a young
Algerian girl, Muriel, tortured to death. The film is held together with emotional

associations that create a highly developed stream of consciousness.

In La Guerre est finie (1966), Resnais blends memories of the Spanish Civil
War with dreams of a new Spain freed of the Franquist stranglehold. The
professional militant Diego momentarily abandons his memories and begins living
in what Resnais refers to as the "future conditional." At the close of the film he

is about to undertake what may be his final clandestine mission across the border

into Spain.
Resnais utilizes a type of Wellsian Time Machine in Je taime, je t'aime (1968)
in order to project Claude Rich into the uncertain past. Bits and pieces of his
biography can ultimately be assembled to reveal a life marked by frustrated love

and failed suicide. The next film, Stavisky (1974), is Resnais's only historical
production. The audience's collective memory re-establishes the myth of the
Russian Jew Serge Alexandre, a clever manipulator who builds his personal
empire between the wars.

Providence (1976) is another cinematic study of the elaborate machinations of

the mind. This highly imaginative work leads Resnais closer and closer to the

psychological intricacies of Mon Oncle d'Amerique. In Providence Resnais

plumbs the subconscious and presents the surrealistic nightmare world growing
out of the septuagenarian writer Clive's bout with primordial fears, suppositories,
and alcohol. During his fretful night at the chateau "Providence," the hallucinating

Clive creates and re-creates plots filled with memories of his deceased wife and
with unfounded fears of his son and daughter-in-law. Schizophrenia runs rampant

throughout the film. Several elements in Providence already predispose one to

expect the scientific approach taken by Resnais in Mon Oncle d'Amerique. In the
metamorphosis of the elderly man into a werewolf, Resnais speaks of an individ-

ual's haunting fear of returning to the animal state. Destiny or Providence is an

outside factor that influences human life. Resnais suggests that underlying human
relationships is the ultimate will to dominate others.4
From Hiroshima to Providence Resnais has alternated between treating memory
as a faculty of remembering with painful nostalgia or unbridled imagination and

viewing it as an incredible springboard for obsessions, fears, and concerns. Mon

Oncle d'Amerique travels even further, into the twilight zone of the human mind.

Here Resnais proceeds to a sociobiological study of the human brain and the
nervous system and their relationship to social activity. To date, this film is the
most dense and intellectually provocative of his works. It relies heavily on research

into the psychological, neurological, and physiological realms. Although all of

Resnais's film subjects are timely-war, peace, torture, relationships-the issues
in Mon Oncle d'Amerique may be more controversial and ambiguous than his
earlier ones. The subject of the film, very complex and perhaps still undeciphered,

gets at the mysterious core of a human's physiological and psychological makeup.

4 Interview with Alain Resnais, Paris, 1 March 1977.

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FRENCH REVIEW

658

To understand the major thrust of Mon Oncle d'Amerique, we must return to

the origins of the production. In the early seventies, a few years prior to filming

Providence (1976), Resnais was asked by a pharmaceutical company to make a

short film on one of the company's products, a new chemical memory aid. The
company thought of Resnais because of his interest in memory. For technical
assistance in the area of medicine, Resnais was to rely on Dr. Henri Laborit, a
pioneer in the development of the tranquilizer in 1951. A surgeon and behavioral

scientist, Laborit has published twenty books and 650 articles, primarily philosophical and scientific studies such as Reaction organique a I'agression et choc
(1952), Les Destins de la vie et de 1'homme (1959), Neurophysiologie (1969), and
L 'Inhibition de 'action (1979). Laborit was fascinated with Resnais's earlier films.

He said he was pleasantly shocked at the screening of L'Annee dermire a

Marienbad: "Alain y traitait de fa:on poetique mes preoccupations presque
chimiques sur l'imaginaire."5 Laborit's recent research has been in the area of
neuropsychopharmacology, a growing medical field wherein treatment of psychological disorders is expedited through the use of drugs. Given the exorbitant cost
of making such a film and the lack of a distribution market for short films, the
Resnais-Laborit project evaporated. Both scientist and cin6aste were disappointed.

Shortly after the completion of Providence, Resnais decided to gather up the

seminal ideas of the project with Laborit and recast them into a feature film.
M'etant impregne des travaux d'Henri Laborit, je m'etais rendu compte qu'ils me
sugg6raient facilement des images. Des visions. Ainsi, lisant un chapitre de lui sur la
description des mouvements sanguins selon les emotions ressenties par l'homme,
j'imaginais un film oi seraient r6capitulees toutes ces scenes cinematographiques
existantes au long desquelles les acteurs du style rouspeteur, Raimu ou Alerme, par
exemple, se mettaient en colere. Et puis, de reverie en reverie, je me suis mis a croire
qu'il etait possible de construire une sorte de vaudeville du comportement influence
par la connaissance du savant.6

Resnais had always worked with writers like Marguerite Duras (Hiroshima, mon
amour), Alain Robbe-Grillet (L'Annee derniere a Marienbad), Jean Cayrol (Muriel), Jorge Semprun (La Guerre est finie, Stavisky), Jacques Sternberg (e t'aime,

je t'aime), and David Mercer (Providence).7 For Mon Oncle d'Amerique Resnais
turned to an established scriptwriter with whom he could work effectively over

an extended period of time. He chose Jean Gruault, screenwriter for Truffaut

(Jules et Jim, L 'Enfant sauvage), Rossellini (Vanina Vanini, La Prise du pouvoir
par Louis XIV), Rivette (Paris nous appartient, La Religieuse), and Godard (Les
Carabiniers). In principle, Resnais never adapts a literary work but prefers to

create it ex nihilo with his screenwriter. Gruault submitted to Resnais one draft

after another. The director painstakingly examined, discussed, and corrected the
5 Michel Delain, "Resnais: la camera microscope," L 'Express (24 May 1980), p. 13.
6 L'Express, p. 13.
7 For the relationship of the director to his various screenwriters-litterateurs, see John Michalczyk,
"Alain Resnais: Literary Origins from Hiroshima to Providence," Literature/Film Quarterly, 7 (1979),
16-25.

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RESNAIS'S MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE

659

raw material. Step by step they assembled the fragments of materials on hum

behavior into a cohesive ensemble. Resnais, meticulous in this stage of

production, demanded absolute perfection. After one year of intensive writ

and rewriting, Resnais and Gruault decided upon a scenario that would offer

film-viewer a rich, dynamic experience. It would be a documented study of hum

oehavior, but not a documentary.

For the title of the film Laborit suggested "Dominance," an allusion to t

earlier title of Providence. It would serve as a clue to human comportmen
being dictated by one's biological make-up. The working title was Mon Onc
d'Amerique ou Les Somnambules. Resnais mentioned in the course of our
interview on location for the filming that the French often had an uncle who went
to America, made a fortune, and then returned to France, sometimes to share the
wealth. Resnais said he had such an uncle, but he never turned out to be the deus

ex machina that the young Resnais had expected.8 Resnais elaborated in one
interview: "Partly, I thought of Beckett's Godot: someone who's constantly waited

for, but who never shows up. It gives a feeling of uneasiness. These people have
everything to make them happy, and yet they're not happy at all. Why?"9
Eventually the subtitle "Les Somnambules" was dropped. It was to refer to
Laborit's theory that we are essentially "sleepwakers," perhaps not too different
from Cesare in Dr. Caligari's Cabinet. We are ultimately directed by forces
beyond our control.

The final version of the script, for the most part, remained unaltered in the
shooting; here the paths of three ambitious people-Janine, Jean, and Ren-intersect, supposedly without rhyme or reason. They come from diverse sociocultural backgrounds, geographical areas, and generations. Jean (Roger Pierre)
from Brittany heads off to Paris for advanced studies. He eventually accepts a
position as director in a radio studio. Rene (G6rard Depardieu), a farm lad from
Anjou, tries to attain success in the textile industry. After years of arduous work
and vast experience, he runs the risk of being let go because of a business merger

with another European firm. The attractive Janine (Nicole Garcia) aspires to a
career in the theatre. At a Paris performance she meets Jean with his wife Arlette
(Nelly Borgeaud). Shortly after the encounter, Jean abandons his wife for Janine.
Two years later and no longer attracted to drama, Janine finds herself working

in a textile company as a designer. Coincidentally, Rene holds a relatively

important position there. He is separated from his wife Therese (Marie DuBois).
Janine vacillates between her love for Jean and her desire to help Rene succeed
professionally in a position that may be beyond his potential. The three characters

pass through various physical and mental crises. Their health suffers because of
the physical and psychological complications of their lives. Yet they survive: "Ils
ne font rien de plus que n'importe quel individu vivant de l'amibe aux grands
anthropoides-fuir, lutter, s'inhiber-pour survivre."1'
8 Interview with Alain Resnais, Paris, 23 November 1979.
9 Press notes for American distribution of the film by New World Pictures, non-paginated.
10 Press notes for French distribution of the film by Philippe Dussart/Andrea Films, non-paginated.
The two quotations to follow are taken from the same notes.

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FRENCH REVIEW

660

Woven into the ever-weakening fabric of these relationships and encounters

are the elaborate, controversial hypotheses of Henri Laborit. As spokesman for
Resnais, Laborit puts forth scientific observations that merge with human interest

stories. Throughout the film, in a type of casual lecture, Laborit appears in his
laboratory, analyzing the comportment of human beings, and especially that of
the three principal subjects of the film. His ideas emanate from eight hours of
interviews with Resnais. His appearance and voice-off commentary bring forth
many of his personal theories about societal comportment. At times in these
improvised statements, he compresses an entire philosophical work into three or
four minutes of film time:

A plusieurs reprises, le professeur Laborit, celebre biologiste, intervient au cours du

film pour nous proposer la cle biologique de nos comportements, les notres comme
ceux de nos trois personnages, pour nous expliquer pourquoi nous aimons et pourquoi
nous haissons, ce qui se passe dans nos cellules, dans nos neurones, non seulement
lorsque nous avons faim et soif, mais aussi lorsque nous sommes heureux et lorsque
nous sommes malheureux...

Then Laborit explains the various physical drives in neurological and biologic
terms:

II tente de nous faire comprendre comment et pourquoi cette ambition, cette volon
de dominance que l'on nous inculque des la petite enfance et qui regle la conduit
nos trois personnages, cette agressivite sociale, cette violence pas forcement physiq

que nos societes hierarchisees considerent comme normales et meme comme

benefiques a l'6chelle des individus comme a celle des groupes, risquent de conduire
l'espece humaine a sa pure et simple disparition.

Laborit is convinced that the only means of alleviating this potential danger of
self-destruction is a fuller study and understanding of the nervous system. In
developing the relationships of nerve impulses to daily activities and of innate
and acquired characteristics to our comportment, he demonstrates that we are less
responsible for our behavior than we think.

In Mon Oncle d'Amerique, Resnais has Laborit comment on four behavioral

patterns dealing with consumption, gratification, combat, and inhibition. These
are humorously and seriously illustrated throughout the film by quasi-case studies

of the lives of Jean, Ren6, and Janine. Their entangled relationships reflect a
phenomenon at work within their physiology that cannot simply be explained by

the socialization process. To elucidate their activities, Laborit pushes further and
tries to penetrate the labyrinth of their minds. His "lectures" deal with the brain

and its mysteries. The iceberg analogy would best fit his description of the
function of the brain and nervous system. He sees three levels of the brain in
operation, two on the unconscious level and one on the visible, conscious level.
Laborit states that despite all our advanced scientific study of the brain, we are far
from comprehending its depths.

Resnais has stated that he had consulted his vast library of materials on social
behavior before undertaking the film. He had initially been inspired by his reading
of Laborit's L'Agressivite detoumee (1970). His research led him from the classical

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RESNAIS'S MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE

661

to the more recent controversial and hypothetical works. In the film Labori
reflects his own elaborate theories as well as the preoccupations of Resnais.
Laborit's theories show an evolution in post-World War II thinking in the area of

human behavior. The traditional approach to behavior motivation puts an accen

on the intelligence, the will, and the socialization process as factors determining
human activity. Human behavior is important insofar as it reflects an inner life.
Laborit challenges this perspective. At the same time he is more positive and
humane than B. F. Skinner in his theories of behaviorism. In Skinner's experiments, very much in the Pavlovian school of conditioned reflexes, human behavior
is viewed in terms of physiological responses to the environment.
In some instances, Laborit's theories expounded in Mon Oncle d'Amerique
coincide more readily with those of Konrad Lorenz in his critical work On
Aggression. Some of Laborit's ideas have already come to light in his international
journal of physio-biology and pharmacology, Agressologie. In the film Laborit
develops various theses on the drives of territorial imperative, social organization,
and aggressivity. Laborit's conclusions may not be as optimistic as those of Lorenz,
but he too has hope." In some respects Laborit shares with the Harvard socio
biologist E. O. Wilson certain beliefs about the source of human behavior in
genetic formation. Wilson's chapter on "The Development of Social Behavior," in
Sociobiology, discusses the interaction of evolutionary heritage and the socialization process.12 Laborit believes that a living creature is a memory that acts. The
human being is a creature of habit who follows certain inherited codes of behavior.
He or she passes on knowledge and behavioral patterns from one generation to
another. Richard Corliss comments on this social inheritance with respect to Mon
Oncle d'Amerique: "In each 'free' action, he (Man) is replaying the history of the
race as stage-managed by an eons-old brain that wants simply to survive and
conquer."13 Janine, Ren6, and Jean exemplify this inherited comportment, yet on
occasion they unpredictably break the codes; they go against the expected behavior
determined by genetic structure.
In many of the more recent works on behavior and sociobiology, the philosophical scientists make what may be a quantum leap from the animal kingdom
to the human being. Lorenz bases much of his theorizing on the coral fish and
greylag goose; Wilson traces the entire range of living organisms from the coldblooded vertebrates to the nonhuman primates, then applies the results of his
research to human activity. In Mon Oncle d'Amerique, as in his own private
research, Laborit studies the behavior of laboratory white rats and relates it to
human behavior, especially that of Jean, Janine, and Ren6.
Mon Oncle d'Amerique may thus be considered a film a these. The thesis of
Laborit and Resnais is elaborate and dense: genetic or neurological determinism

" Konrad Lorenz, "Avowal of Optimism," in On Aggression (New York: Bantam Books, 1963), pp.

266-90.

12 E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975).

13 Richard Corliss, "The Brain Drain: Mon Oncle d'Amerique," Time (8 December 1980),

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662

FRENCH REVIEW

plays a more significant role in human behavior than the socialization process or
free will. Their collaboration reinforces the factor of inevitability hovering over
programmed human behavior. Resnais, after presenting Laborit's comments in the

laboratory and tracing the evolution of the three characters, concludes his film
with a striking image. A mural on the wall of a building in a burnt-out section of

an American city draws together the ideas of the two collaborators. The exotic,
graphic design of the forest stands in strong contrast with the surrounding ruins.

The observation is bluntly made: "There is little chance that civilization will
change." Resnais and Laborit conclude with the notion that our salvation is in the
greater understanding of the brain and the nervous system. Like the conclusion of

Nuit et brouillard, Resnais's short documentary on the concentration camps, the

film offers a cautionary note to civilization. Resnais and Laborit recognize the
existential state of the human being in an alien universe but, like E. O. Wilson in

his conclusions to Sociobiology, still radiate hope.14

The humanist, philosophical, and sociobiological theories of Resnais and Laborit

are not set in a vacuum in Mon Oncle d'Amerique. The director casts them in a
format wherein structure, technique, and tone reinforce the "message." Some
viewers may find it unsettling to move on the double level of scientific theories
and human interest narrative. An individual familiar with Resnais's cinematic

repertoire can easily see that he has kept a type of dual structure, almost like a
double helix. This was already evident in Hiroshima, mon amour, set in World
War II and the late fifties. Resnais possesses the great facility of developing two
stories simultaneously, and he acknowledges a significant debt to William Faulkner. Shortly after World War II, Resnais discovered a copy of Wild Palms at an
army PX near the Champs-Elys6es. He was immediately caught up in the structure

of the work, appreciating the American novelist's ability to harmonize two

separate narratives.15

When Resnais introduces Laborit to the viewer at the outset of the film, the
dramatic flow of the narrative is immediately broken. The cin6aste uses this self-

conscious and anti-dramatic technique popularized by Brecht in order to oblige

the viewer to step out of the lives of the three characters and to begin to reflect on
the import of the message about human behavior. At one moment we sympathize

with Rene, whose professional life is about to disintegrate because of a company

merger. At another moment we hear Laborit clinically analyze human comport-

ment in crisis situations.

The lush still compositions of objects associated with the three individuals
provide time for reflection and aesthetic awareness to set in. The cameraman
photographer Sacha Viemy, a gifted veteran of Resnais's production unit, assumed
the responsibility for this collage of photos. They are predispositional insofar
they synthesize the various complex activities of the trio throughout the film.

14 Wilson, p. 575.
15 Interview with Resnais, 23 November 1979.

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RESNAIS'S MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE

663

Jean, as a laboratory rat, leaves Arlette for Janine. Courtesy New World Pictures.

The tone that Resnais takes in presenting the bi-level study of human behavior
is mock-serious. Laborit's statements are made with scientific precision, yet the
living out of these theories on the screen reveals a sense of humor on the part of
Resnais. When Jean leaves his wife Arlette for the actress Janine, Resnais has him
wear the head of a white laboratory rat in order to make an analogy. The comic
relief breaks up the denseness of Laborit's theoretical interventions.
Mon Oncle d'Amerique reflects a significant step in Resnais's evolution. The
seeds for this type of intricate, intellectual film were already planted with the
shorts and early films of the director. They have come to fruition here as a curious
product of chance and personal interest. The final form of these ideas, according

to Laborit, "constitutes an unusual experiment concerning the human brain."16

These reflections, however, serve only as a stepping stone to further understanding, growth, and creativity. Resnais testifies to this:
What I'm trying to offer in Mon Oncle d'Amerique are the elements-each one as

distinct as possible-that can allow everyone to build the film they want and

reconstruct themselves while confronting the film. And, if possible, enjoy themselves

at the same time.

BOSTON COLLEGE

16 Press notes for American distribution, non-paginated. The quotation to follow is taken from the
same notes.

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