born June 3, 1922, Vannes, France French film director. After studying at the French cinema school IDHEC, he made short films on the visual arts (Van Gogh [1948]) and documentaries (Night and Fog [1956]). His first feature film, Hiroshima mon amour (1959), created a sensation with its alternation between past and present and is considered one of the earliest and best films of the New Wave. He continued his exploration of the complex themes of time and memory in Last Year at Marienbad (1961). His later films include Muriel (1963), Stavisky (1974), My American Uncle (1980), Love unto Death (1984), I Want to Go Home (1989), Smoking/No Smoking (1993), and Same Old Song (1997)
born Aug. 18, 1922, Brest, France French writer. Trained as a statistician and agronomist, he became a writer and leading theoretician of the nouveau roman ("new novel"), the French antinovel that emerged in the 1950s. His narratives lack conventional elements such as chronological plot and are composed largely of recurring images and repeated fragments of dialogue. Among his works are fiction, including The Erasers (1953), Jealousy (1957), and Djinn (1981); the essay "Towards a New Novel" (1963); and the memoir Ghosts in the Mirror (1984). He is also a screenwriter and film director; his best-known screenplay is that for Last Year at Marienbad (1961)