who is your favourite french new wave director?

nevermind nevermind nevermind!

for every masterpiece there's some proto-miramax dreck lurking

Judging someone on the sum total of their work is certainly valid, but whether Truffaut, Altman, Dylan, or anybody else, I weigh the masterpieces and pretty much disregard everything else.

but dylan and altman's non-masterpieces are mostly pretty great and interesting and entertaining or at least bizarre, truffaut's are so useless (what's his . i can understand why someone would prefer truffaut to godard - diff'rent strokes to move the world - but it just seems crazy to me that someone would prefer truffaut, or at least post-kennedy truffaut to rohmer, such a gulf in consistency and peak performance, for me at least. i love spielberg and i even love truffaut (i always go overboard in this debate, same thing happens with stones vs beatles)(turn 'godard' into 'stones', 'truffaut' into 'beatles' and 'rohmer' into 'kinks' and you're halfway there), but if ever there was a new wave director who was gonna be talking sign language to a puppet in a spielberg movie it was francois truffaut.

truffaut vs. pizza

truffaut fries

I think Dylan and Altman have put out some pretty dreadful stuff, but that's fine, I understand what you're saying. For me, once you get past the masterpieces, it just doesn't matter to me if X had 8 mediocre films and 5 really bad ones, while Y had 4 that were mediocre and 7 that were awful. All the less-than-great stuff just kind of fades away. I prefer Truffaut over Rohmer because Shoot the Piano Player and The 400 Blows mean more to me than My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee (which I do like).

close encounters is truffaut's best movie

(not really, just seemed like somebody had to say it)

YES REALLY

what have i done

Rivette>Godard>Varda>Rohmer>Resnais>Demy>>>>Truffaut>Chabrol

Demy and Resnais don't really belong here, though.

"I haven't seen anything by Jacques Rivette, but I really want to see his Out 1 before I die."

it's an amazing,special (huge) piece of art and really worth the time, effort and endurance.

see also : celine and julie go boating.

voted rivette, in part because - assuming you like/accept his aesthetic - he's continued to make amazing films throughout his career - the joan of arc movies, secret defense, gang of four etc are all terrific. the fact that, afaik, the only circulating print of l'amour fou is in an utterly wretched condition makes me pretty sad abt the state of film preservation.

i'll add to yor list La Belle Noiseuse.

i don't know why l'amour fou is not available, but Out1 relatively obscure fate is partly due to Rivette's fault - he insist it won't be shown as a tv series (though it was his intention originaly).

Probably by tiers my opinion would be:

1) Jean-Luc Godard
...

2) François Truffaut
3) Louis Malle (would he count as new wave? not sure)
(Two humanists maybe)

...
4) Alain Resnais
5) Jacques Rivette
6) Jacques Demy
7) Éric Rohmer

...
8) Agnès Varda
9) Claude Chabrol

re: Out 1 - the version screened a few years ago in the UK and America (and also floating round the web) is the tv version, split up into different episodes and (i think) v slightly shorter than the first 'theatrical' version. in the same rivette retrospective, the print of Out 1: Spectre was very clean and crisp, and wld transfer nicely to DVD wout much restoration required.

Louis Malle should be there too. Love most of these directors.
On the other hand, I find a little movie like Chabrol's "Le Boucher" much more interesting than the entire Godard filmography.

don't want to get into rive gauche politicking but marker especially doesn't belong w/ these

― Chinedu "Edu" Obasi Ogbuke (nakhchivan), Monday, September 20, 2010 3:39 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

otm

this is very much the new wave as seen from 2010

if demy, why not malle? there are other more obscure types who were better known than rohmer way back when (mocky, kast)

the best director out of these is probably resnais, though 'cleo' is probably the best film by any of them

i shd probably try some other rivettes, but of the four i've persevered with, i'd only f/w 'paris nous appartient'

though i think that's the best cahiers-gang new wave film not by godard, who is infuriating, but kind of 'undeniable' -- chabrol and truffaut and rohmer are more modest talents one could easily ignore

but rivette... how 'secret defence' is terrific i have no idea; 'va savoir' was one of the longest three hours i've ever spent in a cinema; etc.

this has become a mantra w/ me, but i'd like to hear what is profound about his work, rather than just see it asserted

some critic wrote, and i agree - Rivette made 4 great movies, and some other good ones.
the 4 are as follows:
L'amour fou
Out 1
Out 1: spectre (which is the former, edited to "only" 4 hours, but a different movie nevertheless)
Celine and julie go boating

the thing is, those 4 are the best, most complicated and original works in french new wave, and some of the best stuff in cinema histoy in general.

He is profound because, like Orson Wells, he made something new out of the medium, that still seems fresh after 40 years or so.
he was a true,100 percent extremist "auteur" - getting as close as one can get to avant garde, but never losing his huminity as oppose to Godard's cold POV on human nature.
his best work fuses reality and fiction/narrative in a way equivelent only to Borgas and Cortazer in fiction, he is also political,post modern, very self reflexive, add to thsoe Cassavetes style improvisations with actors with endless curiosity to human nature, and the fact that he remanins very watchable even when he makes a 12 hour film - and you meight see why he is considered profound.

fair dos, well played

will have to see at least 'celine and julie' again (the others not being widely available), though it didn't interest me before. i sense people rolling their eyes at that, like im saying 'ulysses' or some other modernist landmark is boring, or whatever, but i can see why 'hiroshima mon amour' or 'cleo' warrant that kind of comparison.

godard is pretty much useless on human nature (but aren't good avant-gardists* meant not to believe in human nature?), and sometimes astonishingly inept. he does make beautiful images and striking 'bits' though, classic scenes in a halliwell's-guide-to-the-movies-type way.

I had a hard time with Out 1. (I know--having a hard time with a movie is not inherently a bad thing.) As I mentioned above, I loved what an audacious non-event the last shot was. The rest went along, and went along, and went along, and even though the anticipation of it coming together in some significant way kept me attentive, it never really happened. I'm glad I saw it, but beyond the (very) impressive fact of its existence, I wasn't sure what someone would take away from this film.

"chabrol and truffaut and rohmer are more modest talents one could easily ignore"

Seriously? :)

Zeno has put it well - rivette brings a new flavour, a new taste to the ways of making narrative cinema. he is very interested in theatre obv, and amongst other things that keys into his interest in actors, and performances. he got the best out of ppl as varied as ogier, leaud, berto, birkin, chaplin, bonnaire, karenina, lonsdale etc etc, and i can't think of another film director who has made better use of improvisation AND documentary-like observation (of 'real' events and 'made-up' words and gestures). his films are VERY time-locked in a way - Out 1 feels now like a 'report' on post-peter brooks theatrical troupes and hippy-dippy happenings - and also ABOUT time - eternal time (celine and julie are, after time travellers) and filmic time (in terms of marathon length) - so they are automatically something of an acquired taste, indulgent, obscure, wayward. but personally, i love the 'roominess' of his cinema, the sense that rivette and his camera are always free to explore and digress (those endless train journeys that bonnaire undertakes in secret defense!) - if you enter his world, you can experience a different, less frantic (even 'ambient') way of telling stories, of observing the world and its people.

i also think you cld make a p convincing case that almost all of his films are weird, daylight daydreamed supernatural stories - from paris nous appartient on, there are endless references to secret societies, ghosts, psychic phenomenon, magic, the occult etc. celine and julie is partly adapated from a henry james ghost story ('the romance of certain old clothes') and again you cld say there's something jamesian and discursive abt rivette's cinema - another hall of mirrors to enter and never come out of

otm

"the anticipation of it coming together in some significant way kept me attentive, it never really happened. I'm glad I saw it, but beyond the (very) impressive fact of its existence, I wasn't sure what someone would take away from this film."

really?
the last 2.5 hours of was totally siginificent, and lifted the "story" to the it's ultimate "tied" conclusion (except for the last shot).
about the meanning of the film and what to take from it - i have many things to say, but it would be easier to just add this link to the brilliant essay about it:

http://www.reverseshot.com/article/rivette_out_1_volume_1

"you cld say there's something jamesian and discursive abt rivette's cinema"

definitely, and for some reason the same could be said about several of the other directors mentioned on this thread.

yeah, i never really expected Out 1 to 'resolve itself' in any meaningful/coherent way. at the end, you kinda feel it could've gone on for another 12 hours, 12 years, forever. i mean, it's a classic modernist/nouvelle vague trope that narrative, like life, isn't tidy or structured (journalist: "do you believe in a beginning, middle and end?" godard: "yes, but not in that order".) at the time, rivette talked about the way that a film of Out 1's length obliterates or buries narrative under a weight of detail and event - story explodes, the possibilities are endless, life is a river blah blah

I've even seen a couple decent Rivette movies and I think he sucks, so you Truffaut haters shaddap

it's been forever since i read any but what i recall of their film crit is truffaut was way better than godard (who was like a big william wyler fan or some shit right?)

I dunno, they all liked the celebrated genre auteurs of the day, Lang, Mann, Tashlin etc.

also let me know the day Rivette makes a film as good as The Letter

he liked nicholas ray above all

his favourite film of 1958 was mankiewicz's 'the quiet american'

not seen him weigh in on wyler, but bazin rated him highly

it's literally been since high school so i could be waaay off on how i remembering it.

Didn't Sarris, at some point, revisit his American Cinema rankings and move Wyler (and Wilder--Zinnemann too?) into his pantheon?

JLG

this is a good english language collection of godard's criticism etc:

http://www.amazon.com/Godard-Da-Capo-Paperback/dp/0306802597

his favourite film of 1958 was mankiewicz's 'the quiet american'

He liked it so much that he cast Georgia Moll in Contempt based on her work in the film.

Godard's films are also so funny... in "King Lear" for example, when William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth interrupts a woman in a restaurant for having inspriring him, saying, "Thank you... thank you, milady"; or in "Contempt," when the character played by Jack Palance intones, "I re-read the Odyssey last night. And I finally found something I’d been looking for a long, long time; something that’s just as indispensable in the movies as it is in real life: poetry."

edit: "inspired"

"Contempt" is the only Godard I unreservedly enjoyed.

as much as i love a handful of godards ('band of outsiders,' 'masculin-feminin,' most of 'weekend'), his bad stuff is so unwatchable i can't bring myself to vote for him.

i might go with varda, because the ones i haven't seen intrigue me more than the truffauts/rivettes/etc i haven't seen. (i haven't cared for the rohmers i've seen, but that's just me.)

is there a general consensus now that truffaut's masterpieces are '400 blows' and 'piano player,' not 'jules and jim'?

truffaut's masterpieces = two english girls and the wild child (but that's just me)

Truffaut's best: 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player, Jules et Jim, The Wild Child, The Story of Adele H. The latter is the best of his neo-classical films.

I remember Small Change being really great, but it's been ages since I've seen. I've never seen a Truffaut movie I actually disliked although there are quite a few that are kind of proto-Greenberg I guess that probably haven't aged too well.

I've not seen anything post-79, I guess, either.

is there a general consensus now that truffaut's masterpieces are '400 blows' and 'piano player,' not 'jules and jim'?

I think Jules and Jim still jumps to the head of the line in terms of something like the Sight & Sound poll. I like Shoot the Piano Player and The 400 Blows more myself, but I think it's still generally considered his greatest film.

Excellent stuff on Rivette above. Really need to see Out 1. I just don't know what the hell I was doing missing that Rivette season a few years ago.

No wai: Rohmer, Chabrol, Demy, Truffaut.

Very much so: Resnais, JLG, Varda, Rivette.

I think additions are Marker, but also Jean Rouch (guess he'd never win, but still...)

Thinking of how much I love Z by Costa-Gavras which is in-the-battle-lines as La Chinoise or The War is Over xxp

Although Z is a diff style n' all.

truffaut's masterpieces = two english girls and the wild child (but that's just me)

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, 25 September 2010 18:37 (1 hour ago)

I would agree with this and add The Story of Adele H.

Went for Resnais. Current 'just a bit more of a fave than the others at the mo' thing

RIP Alexandre Astruc

http://www.avclub.com/article/rip-alexandre-astruc-uncle-french-new-wave-237035

RIP. Haven't clicked yet, wonder how old he could possibly have been?