Marker, Resnais, Varda: Remembering the Left Bank Group

This paper provides an introduction to and an appreciation of the Left Bank Group of French filmmakers: Agnes Varda, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais. Working at the same time as the French New Wave filmmakers (Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette), The Left Bank Group have either been overshadowed by, or considered a minor sub-set of, their much more famous contemporaries. However, the films of the Left Bank Group are intellectually, politically, and aesthetically demanding, and, as this article argues, should be understood as a group in their own right, rather than as a lesser cousin of the French New Wave.