[It was] in the field of short films that Resnais embarked on the experiment which has continued throughout his subsequent career and which makes him of particular interest to us now: the collaboration on equal terms with distinguished figures from the literary world. First, in Nuit et Brouillard, his documentary about concentration camps, it was Jean Cayrol. Then for Le Chant du Styrène, a commissioned piece about the manufacture of the plastic polystyrene, Raymond Queneau was called on for a characteristic punning verse commentary. In Resnais's first feature, Hiroshima Mon Amour, the original screenplay was by the novelist Marguerite Duras; in his second, L'Année Dernière à Marienbad, it was the turn of Alain Robbe-Grillet; and for the third, Muriel, ou le Temps d'un Retour, he returned to Jean Cayrol. It is an impressive enough list, and its consistency suggests that the succession is more than just...