Mon oncle d'Amérique (English: My American Uncle or My Uncle from America) is a 1980 French film directed by Alain Resnais with a screenplay by Jean Gruault. The film juxtaposes a comedy-drama narrative with the ideas of Henri Laborit, the French surgeon, neurobiologist, philosopher and author. Its principal actors are Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, and Roger Pierre.
Synopsis Henri Laborit gives an introduction to the physiology of the brain, and also briefly describes his own background. Summary biographies of three fictional characters are given in parallel to his own: Jean Le Gall is born into a comfortable middle-class family on an island in the gulf of Morbihan in Brittany and pursues a career in radio and politics; Janine Garnier, daughter of left-wing working-class parents in Paris, runs away from home to become an actress, but later switches career to be a fashion adviser; René Ragueneau rebels against the old-fashioned outlook of his farming family in Torfou, in Maine-et-Loire, and studies accountancy before becoming an executive in a textile factory in Lille; a company merger forces him to take a new job in Cholet, away from his wife and children.
Laborit expounds his ideas on four main types of animal behaviour, grounded respectively in consumption, escape, struggle, and inhibition. The lives of the three fictional characters intersect at various points (Jean in an affair with Janine, René negotiating with Janine about the future of his job) and each of them faces moments of critical life-changing decision. At these moments they are seen as self-identifying with the image of a popular star in French cinema (Jean with Danielle Darrieux, Janine with Jean Marais, and René with Jean Gabin).
Laborit comments on the conflicts arising from pursuit of dominance among individuals and defensive reactions to it, and reflects on the need for better understanding of the human brain.An abbreviated transcription of Henri Laborit's remarks in the film is given in a note at the end of the following article: Edward Kunz, "Henri Laborit and the inhibition of action", in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, March 2014, vol. 16(1), pp. 113–117. The full screenplay was published in L'Avant-scène cinéma, no. 263, 1 mars 1981.
Cast Gérard Depardieu as René Ragueneau Nicole Garcia as Janine Garnier Roger Pierre as Jean Le Gall Nelly Borgeaud as Arlette Le Gall Pierre Arditi as Zambeaux Gérard Darrieu as Léon Veestrate Philippe Laudenbach as Michel Aubert Marie Dubois as Thérèse Ragueneau Geneviève Mnich as René's mother Henri Laborit as himself
Development Resnais first met Laborit when the latter, an admirer of L'Année dernière à Marienbad, asked to work with him on a short documentary film for a pharmaceutical laboratory about a product to enhance the capacity of memory. That film was not financed, but the two men decided to explore the possibility of a feature film in which documentary would be mingled with fiction. Resnais began an extensive programme of immersing himself in Laborit's published works, to understand how the presentation of scientific reasoning might interact with fictional narrative in a dramatically interesting way while treating each type of material independently.Robert Benayoun, Interview with Resnais in Alain Resnais, arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. pp. 242-243. Resnais commented on his plan in an interview: "Films or plays usually arise from a desire to develop an idea or theory through characters or through a story. I said to myself, 'Wouldn't it be fun to do just the opposite? To allow theory and fiction to coexist on the screen.'""How Resnais made a success with science", by Tom Buckley. In New York Times, 6 February 1981, section C, page 12. (Archived at the Wayback Machine 3 March 2020.)
The screenwriter Jean Gruault developed the fictional strands, after reading all of Laborit's works himself, and in continual discussions with Resnais. This led to a screenplay in which three fictional characters would take Laborit's theories as their starting point but their interwoven stories would then develop in their own way.François Thomas, L'Atelier d'Alain Resnais. Paris: Flammarion, 1989. p. 48. The process of writing the screenplay took one year."A filmmaker who seeks the unlikely", by Richard Eder. In New York Times, 26 April 1981, section 2, page 1. (Archived at the Wayback Machine 26 January 2018.)
Resnais also added the idea of using black-and-white extracts from old films to explore the way in which the characters might be influenced by models of behaviour embodied in certain well-known film actors, just as people sometimes admit to being influenced by books they have read or people they have met. Gruault made the choice of Danielle Darrieux, Jean Marais and Jean Gabin as the most likely ones to fit his three characters.Robert Benayoun, Interview with Resnais in Alain Resnais, arpenteur de l'imaginaire. Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 2008. p. 245.Mon oncle d'Amérique: scénario de Jean Gruault pour Alain Resnais précédé d'entretiens avec Alain Resnais et Henri Laborit par Madeleine Chapsal. Paris: Éditions Albatros, 1980. p.18.The film extracts are taken from the following films. For Jean Marais: Les Chouans (1947); Pleins feux sur Stanislas (1965); L'Aigle à deux têtes (1948); Le Capitan (1960); Typhon sur Nagasaki (1957). For Jean Marais & Danielle Darrieux: Ruy Blas (1948). For Danielle Darrieux: L'Homme à femmes (1960); Mayerling (1936); Retour à l'aube (1938). For Jean Gabin: Gueule d'amour (1937); Les Grandes Familles (1958); La Belle Équipe (1936); Le Président (1961); Remorques (1941). (L'Avant-scène cinéma, no.263, 1 mars 1961: full screenplay.)
Production Filming took place in Paris and on location at Cholet and the Îles Logoden in Morbihan, Brittany.Mon oncle d'Amérique at Ciné-Ressources (Tournage). Retrieved 3 June 2020. The budget was not sufficient to allow extensive studio filming and so existing locations were used but often completely transformed (e.g. a bank became the broadcasting offices).Jacques Saulnier (set designer) quoted in François Thomas, L'Atelier d'Alain Resnais. Paris: Flammarion, 1989. p. 112.
The fictional stories were filmed in advance and independently of Laborit's contributions. At this stage Resnais did not know exactly what Laborit was going to say, although he had discussed with him the general themes which he would cover. Some very long shots were filmed in the stories to allow flexibility for Laborit's words to be added later. The editor Albert Jurgenson commented that the role of the editing process in the film was more important than usual, and the various elements were so complex that everything could not be foreseen in the planning; the film was thoroughly rebuilt at the editing stage.Albert Jurgenson, quoted in François Thomas, L'Atelier d'Alain Resnais. Paris: Flammarion, 1989. pp. 205-206: "On ne peut pas dire que la construction de Mon oncle d'Amérique ait été établi au montage, mais elle a été profondément régénérée à ce moment-là".
In the film's epilogue a montage of travelling shots shows a landscape of abandoned and half-demolished buildings in the Bronx, New York, culminating on a starkly contrasted mural of a green tree painted on the side of one of the buildings, providing a moment of relief and pleasure. The camera then moves progressively closer to the mural in a series of shots, causing the whole image to disintegrate into its constituent parts until we can see only fragments of paint on the side of a single brick. Resnais explained that he wanted to show an image of the impossibility for the brain to understand things completely; the effort to create something and then an effort to destroy it were tendencies which seemed to fit the atmosphere of the film.Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues & Jean-Louis Leutrat, Alain Resnais: liaisons secrètes, accords vagabonds. (Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006). p. 234. The mural was "The American Forest" by the American artist and environmentalist Alan Sonfist.Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues & Jean-Louis Leutrat, Alain Resnais: liaisons secrètes, accords vagabonds. (Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006). p. 106.
Reception When released in France the film achieved 1,378,207 admissions, and Resnais judged it to be one of the most popular films he had made.Alain Resnais films at Box Office Story (Retrieved 5 June 2020. Archived at the Wayback Machine 13 August 2019.)Interview with Nicholas Wapshott, "Resnais's continuing capacity to surprise", in The Times (London), 17 November 1980, p. 10. It was also one of his more successful films in the United States and it had a run of several months in New York.
The reception among press reviewers was mixed. In France critical observations included a view that the disparate elements of the film did not blend together satisfactorily or throw sufficient light upon each other,Michel Delain, in L'Express, 17-23 mai 1980: "...l'homme à la caméra et l'homme au microscope - l'un qui ne s'applique surtout pas à illustrer les thèses du biologiste et poursuit, imperturbable, son récit, et l'autre qui, de la même façon, laisse cheminer sa réflexion et ne se contente pas de commenter un film." ("... the man with the camera and the man with the microscope - the one who above all does not try to illustrate the arguments of the biologist and imperturbably pursues his narrative, and the other who, in the same way, lets his thoughts follow their path and does not content himself with commentating on a film.").Emmanuel Decaux, in Cinématographe, no. 58, 1980: "L'explication scientifique elle-même prise au piège devient un reflet supplémentaire, et non une réponse définitive." ("The scientific explanation, itself caught in a trap, becomes an additional reflection, and not a definitive reply.")Jean-Pierre Oudart, in Cahiers du cinéma, no. 314, juillet 1980: "Il y a dans ce film au moins deux films, mal mixés, une greffe qui ne prend pas, mais qui tient tout de même à une nécessité". ("There are in this film at least two films, badly mixed together, a grafting which doesn't take, but which adheres to its necessity all the same.") while there was also some concern expressed that the scientific arguments about the biological determinism of human actions and social phenomena were reactionary ideas which would give support to the politics of the 'new right'.Françoise Lazard-Levaillant, in L'Humanité, 4 juin 1980: "...ce film illustre ces thèses réactionnaires, et le spectateur doit en être d'autant plus conscient que ses qualités lui assureront une grande diffusion". ("...this film illustrates these reactionary arguments, all the more reason for the viewer to be aware of that since its qualities will ensure a wide distribution.")