Initially, Hiroshima Mon Amour was supposed to be a short documentary about the atomic bomb, and its devastating effects on the Japanese landscape. However, director Alain Resnais told producers that that wasn't what he wanted to do - after all, he has already made a Holocaust documentary in 1955 titled Night and Fog.
Resnais spent several months pondering on how to proceed with film production, but finally decided the film should be a love story dealing with the affects of war on people. Resnais also was integral in hiring Marguerite Duras to write the screenplay, telling his producers that only she would be able to write a good script for what he needed. Without him hiring her, the film could have taken a completely different path.
Because of his want to have a love film, Resnais had two different companies assist in production - one French and the other Japanese. The companies also insisted that half the film be shot in France, and the other half in Japan, and there would be both a French and a Japanese star of the film. Resnais agreed to these terms, and the film became very ethnically cosmopolitan for the day.
