The Oscars failed to paid tribute to Alain Resnais, the celebrated French director of Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour, who died today. Perhaps because of the late-breaking nature of his death, they did not include Resnais in the traditional In Memoriam section to the film-maker.
Resnais was never nominated for an Oscar, though he did receive a string of awards from major international film festivals, including a lifetime achievement award from Cannes in 2009. His feature debut, Hiroshima Mon Amour, was a key early entry in the French new wave, competing at the 1959 Cannes film festival against the likes of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Jack Clayton's Room at the Top; this followed a series a short films which included the celebrated 1955 documentary Night and Fog, about Auschwitz. In later decades Resnais turned to the theatre for inspiration, adapting a number of plays for the screen including three Alan Ayckbourns. One of these, Life of Riley, which recently premiered at the Berlin film festival, would prove to be Renais's final film.
Resnais died aged 91 on 1 March.
Read the Guardian's obituary of Alain Resnais here.
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