Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Pierre Gautard Synopsis for Providence by Pierre GautardCLIVE Langham (played by John Gielguld) is an old writer with health problems who still enjoys the gifts of life, as his gusto of his daily white wine. He is a storyteller and he tells us of his family, especially of his sons. He has two sons: one is CLAUDE Langham, the official one, a successful lawyer (played by Dirk Bogarde), the other KEVIN Langham or Kevin Woodford (played by David Warner) his illegitimate son, remembrance of some past relationship he is not sure of.But the way CLIVE, the author, changes several times in his storytelling the behaviors of his siblings makes us gradually suspect they are only characters in his story, the creatures of his writer's increasingly intoxicated imagination, products of his writer's block, his hopes, his hesitations or angst, his findings, and finally tells us of the joys, humor and suffering of the whole creating process in writing a novel. Nevertheless CLIVE has to comply to one of the very few rules of dramatic writing which states there is no story without conflicts, and therefore feels compelled to give his characters antagonism, some educated aggressiveness, and the more often than sometimes sex-obsessed image of cynical people entangled in their neurotic denials with uneven bravados on the surface, the whole story being spiced with insistence and English humor. In his storytelling, CLIVE acts as master of the world, but when his characters resist his demiurgic wanton caprices and vagaries, he complains they give him a hectic time and he rants it's them who build up his anger against them, so he is the one who has to change them.This is how, sometimes, after being told once, a scene turns out to be only a draft and has to be replayed with a difference. So we see it again, as CLIVE finds other behaviors and other dialogs over the same characters predicaments and commitments, that would fit his scheme and demiurgic pleasure. The same can happen to a prop, a background, a door, a passing extra. They can be altered, displaced, transformed, appear or disappear on sight, as the mood of the characters or the scene changes, or as CLIVE's whims meddle in.As CLIVE's point of view is preeminent in the storytelling, Alain RESNAIS brilliantly stages CLIVE's complex behavior by using different parts of the house in different ways. The BEDROOM from which CLIVE speaks can be said to be his SELF with both CLIVE's doubts and certainties over his work. The back of the house, its BACK TERRACE, where most of the strange changes occur, is undoubtedly his SUBCONSCIOUS, his backstage, subject to CLIVEs fantasy, to his fancies and whims, and logic uncommon. But the FRONT of the house brings us back to REALITY and will cloture the story. This is where, IN REALITY, his family finally arrives for his birthday, and CLIVE welcomes them on the FRONT lawn for lunch. They are perfectly normal and even quite sympathetic people, getting along with each other, and not the embittered, devious players CLIVE described earlier in his story. Peace at last.After all, this is a secret comedy about life, all in the way it is told - and John Gielguld's best experience as he stated it.

Tony Greig Clive Langham spends one of many tormented nights in bed suffering the terminal stages of bowel cancer. He is a successful writer, or so we are led to believe by him. Whether this proves to be delusion or truth, like so many of the other scenes within this film, we will later discover. In the terminal throes of his condition, with his pain controlled by morphine, he tries to recall scenes from his life, his family and loves. A combination of arrogance of personality, the side effects of the morphine, and the constant sleeplessness caused by agonising twinges of pain, creates a confused picture encompassing episodes of his life filled with distortion, with family members seemingly out of place, much like a bad dream remembered. His bitterness of personality, backstabbing nature, and flashbacks heavily laced with his morphine medication, as well as his preference for one of his sons, creates for the viewer a finely woven mesh of his life and fears. In one scene he is terrified of that time after death that he may face a post mortem examination. We witness a brief glimpse of his fears with a true but grotesque scene of a real post mortem. He feels the victim of his conniving family; however it is likely that they are the victim of his lifelong controlling personality. When dawn breaks, the normal world is discovered and the day is set up for the imminent appearance of his family at lunch. The final scene is beautifully set, with a fine picnic lunch set outside, enjoyed by all participants. The viewer discovers the reality of family relationships with the caring nature of his supposedly errant son shown in stark contrast to his own recollections and distortions. Will he continue to wilfully misinterpret the situation? How much of his viewpoint is composed of his own personality, the condition from which he suffers, or the side effects of medication? We are left wondering. The day gradually draws to a close and Langham basks in safe oasis of his family, their love and support, before facing again, the demons of the night.

bfcg Obviously, Providence has not been created to be understood at a first glance. Dream, nightmare, reality, you're never sure that you are in one of these fields. But, one thing is real : it's a great movie. It has been said that the life and personality of Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937), the famous fantastic novelist which created the Cthulhu myth, was a big part of inspiration for the dying hero of Providence. I'm not sure of that. But, it is a matter of fact that HP Lovecraft spend most of his life in the city of Providence. Nevertheless, Providence is a captivating movie played by such great actors (Gielgud, Bogarde...) and Resnais' camera is writing an atmosphere all along the story. As it was a novel on paper, not a movie on celluloid. Maybe is that why this movie is so magic.

Howard Schumann How often do we awake from our dreams in a sweat, not knowing what is real and what is illusion? Especially if we are feverish, our dreams can turn close friends or family members into ogres and hateful creatures (or possibly werewolves) who are bent on our destruction. Such is the case with novelist Clive Langham (John Gielgud), a dying 78 year-old writer who is working on his final novel in the playfully bizarre 1977 English language film, Providence, by Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad, Muriel). The film depicts how physical and mental anguish can distort our view of reality. A poetic screenplay by playwright David Mercer and powerful performances by John Gielgud, Ellen Burstyn, Dirk Bogarde, Elaine Strich, and David Warner provide strong support.Clive does not go gentle into that good night. During one horrific night, all the pain of his life and disturbing family relationships boil to the surface. In the novel being played out in the author's mind, his family members, sons Claude (Dirk Bogarde) and Kevin (David Warner), and Claude's wife Sonia (Ellen Burstyn), mysteriously become the main protagonists, assuming roles as prosecutors and defendants, feuding spouses, and extra-marital lovers. As Clive goes deeper into the maelstrom, images become more and more hallucinatory. The denouement is witty, baffling, irritating, and then finally transcendent. To say that the ending is a surprise is a major understatement.Providence may exasperate you but, if you have patience, it can be a richly rewarding experience. As with all thought provoking and multi-layered films, multiple viewing may be required for full appreciation. Providence was voted the greatest film of the '70s by an international jury of critics and, at Telluride, Norman Mailer called it "the greatest film ever made on the creative process".