Resnais’ most intimate film, Mélo, based on Henry Bernstein’s 1929 play, centers around a tragic love triangle between a pair of musicians and the wife of the less successful of the two. The film playfully references its theatrical roots, framing each act with a proscenium arch and calling attention to the artifice of the sets while maintaining its emotional integrity through the deeply felt passions of the characters. As with Stavisky, Resnais mourns the loss of an earlier mode of filmmaking through affectionate homage to 1930s film styles while revealing the era to be one of illusory jollity and dangerous self-deception.