Jacques Rivette

contains some discusion of this. i'm going to see a bunch of this, esp the late '60s films.

i don't get 'c & j' i must confess.

I'm not so keen on some of the early 60s movies - La Religieuse is surprisingly conventional and rather dull, Paris nous appartient nouvelle vaguish to the point of parody - but pretty much everything else by Rivette I've seen, particularly the 70s flicks, are ESSENTIAL - a totally new language of time/place/movement in cinema

What's there to get abt Celine and Julie? It is magical fun - esp. if you've read the Henry James story it is obliquely derived from

It has "shifting meanings", so it is perhaps worth going to see it more than once.

Of course, I was there in Le Havre in 1971.

I thought it said Celine and Julie Go Roasting, because I have been watching Vicki Pollard and Cliff Maxford.

the nft could have done better than have that poindexter roddick do the prog notes. but i would like to try 'out one'.

nft patrons are esp. intolerant of snoring in my experience

Steady Mike might know why. He might know how much 12 hours of sous-titrage would cost as well.

Oh, if only those first 6 words were true.

There's a series coming to NY featuring Out 1 which I will do my best to miss.

http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/schedule/?start=2006-4-22&end=2006-4-30

Rivette = not a big fan of Scorsese, so I'm guessing he wldn't be too enthused abt Mann either

desperately seeking susan = the american remake of C+J, if that's any help!

but both films do have a scene w/ two chicks performing tricks

An Elusive All-Day Film and the Bug-Eyed Few Who Have Seen It
By DENNIS LIM

IF there is a movie equivalent of reading Proust or watching the "Ring" cycle — of committing to an artwork of overwhelming proportions that promises to repay accordingly — it's likely to be found in the films of the French New Wave veteran Jacques Rivette. In a 50-year career Mr. Rivette, a master of the marathon running time, has never made a feature under two hours. (Three or four is more typical.) And in the annals of monumental cinema — a category that includes Andy Warhol's avant-garde provocations, Marcel Ophuls's patient portraiture and Bela Tarr's long-take miserablism — there are few objects more sacred than Mr. Rivette's 12 1/2-hour "Out 1: Noli Me Tangere."

Shot in the spring of 1970, this fabled colossus owes its stature not just to its immodest duration but also to its rarity. Commissioned and then rejected by French television, the film had its premiere on Sept. 9 and 10, 1971, at the Maison de la Culture in Le Havre before receding into obscurity. Hoping to salvage a version for theatrical release, Mr. Rivette, now 78, whittled down his eight-episode, 760-minute serial into a 255-minute alternate cut, which he called "Out 1: Spectre."

"Spectre" has been difficult but not impossible to see. "Noli Me Tangere," meanwhile, has become a true phantom film whose reputation rests on its unattainability. Its title (Latin for "touch me not") seems to predict its fate: an apt one, given that many of Mr. Rivette's films are predicated on obsessive and perhaps futile quests.

This cinephile's holy grail slipped into sight earlier this year when the National Film Theater in London announced a sweeping Rivette retrospective. Its centerpiece was a screening of "Out 1: Noli Me Tangere" on April 22 and 23. (Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, by coincidence, chose the same weekend to give "Out 1: Spectre" its first New York screening in decades.)

So just how rare is the original "Out 1"? The National Film Theater program claimed it had been "unseen since its one and only screening in Le Havre." David Thomson, in his Biographical Dictionary of Film, notes that it was "never shown properly without mechanical breakdown." The critic Jonathan Rosenbaum reported a sighting at the 1989 Rotterdam Film Festival, where 45 minutes of its soundtrack was missing. Mr. Rosenbaum said that Mr. Rivette cut 10 minutes from the film after Rotterdam. That 750-minute version quietly surfaced at a few European festivals and on French cable television, then disappeared again.

It seems certain, at any rate, that the recent London screening was the film's first presentation with English subtitles. It was, in other words, a big enough deal to inspire a pilgrimage (whose numbers included this writer). With a hushed anticipation, more than 100 of the faithful filed into a darkened room on an incongruously sunny London morning, ready for the long haul. The spectacle that unfolded over two days was, as advertised, unique in movies: an adventure and a hallucination. As time elapses, the viewer succumbs to waves of delight and disorientation, exhaustion and exhilaration.

Among other things, "Out 1" concerns the parallel efforts of two theater companies to put on Aeschylus plays ("Prometheus Bound" and "Seven Against Thebes"). Two oddball loners (Jean-Pierre Léaud and Juliet Berto) separately circle the groups. Characters change names and reveal secret identities. Living Theaterish rehearsals go on for ages. Connective tissue fills in, only to fall away. Mr. Léaud's character is the thickening mystery's self-appointed detective, fixated on cryptic messages about a 13-member secret society, a subplot that Mr. Rivette borrowed from the Balzac suite of novellas "History of the Thirteen."

Building on his improvisational experiments of "L'Amour Fou" (1968), Mr. Rivette worked without a script, relying instead on a diagram that mapped the junctures at which members of his large ensemble cast would intersect. The actors came up with their dialogue; the only thing Mr. Rivette actually wrote were the enigmatic notes Mr. Léaud's character receives. In a 1999 interview Mr. Léaud described the director's methods as "vampiric."

"Out 1" uses documentary techniques — uninflected observation, unscripted situations — not to capture reality but to generate fiction. For Mr. Rivette, narratives — or, more precisely, our hunger for them — can be dangerous. In his best-loved film, "Céline and Julie Go Boating" (1974), a giddy parable on the pleasures and perils of storytelling, the heroines are literally thrust into a haunted house of fiction.

Mr. Rivette's fondness for shadowy conspiracies and paranoid fantasies, which owes a debt to Balzac and the sinister daydreams of the silent-era serialist Louis Feuillade, dates to his first feature, "Paris Belongs to Us" (1960). With "Out 1" he found the perfect match of form and content, an outsize canvas for a narrative too vast to apprehend. In a 1973 interview Mr. Rivette described the film's creep from quasi-documentary to drama in ominous terms: the fiction "swallows everything up and finally auto-destructs."

Mr. Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard were the two major French filmmakers most visibly galvanized by the student riots of May 1968. While Mr. Godard grew overt in his militancy, Mr. Rivette set about on a subtler but no less anarchic course. Much of his 70's work stems from a radical impulse toward destruction and renewal.

The director Claire Denis, who worked with Mr. Rivette in the mid 70's and later made a documentary about him, spent an afternoon on the set of "Out 1" as a student. "Everything was political then," she said in a telephone interview. "Making the film was political. So was watching it." She has fond if somewhat dim memories of the legendary 1971 screening. "It was like an acid experience," she said. "Everyone was more or less stoned."

"Out 1" now seems a relic of a bohemian heyday, a time when you could spend your days rehearsing ancient Greek plays or making 12-hour films. But even in 1970 that hazy idyll was already fading. The film takes its shape, as Mr. Rosenbaum has noted, from "the successive building and shattering of utopian dreams." An epic meditation on the relationship between the individual and the collective, "Out 1" devotes its second half to fracture and dissolution. But it's not a depressing film, perhaps because its implicit pessimism is refuted by its very existence. Experiential in the extreme, "Out 1" cannot help transforming the solitary act of moviegoing into a communal one.

New Yorkers looking to dive in will not have to wait long. "Noli Me Tangere" is set to make its United States debut at the Museum of the Moving Image's Rivette retrospective in November. By way of warm up, Anthology concludes its small Rivette series this weekend with the 70's rarities "Noroît," "Duelle" and "Merry-Go-Round."

Mr. Rivette is still a vital and unpredictable force. The feature he's currently shooting, "Don't Touch the Axe," bears a titular resemblance to "Noli Me Tangere" and will apparently revisit Balzac's "History of the Thirteen." Does this represent a closing of the circle? An expansion of the master plan? If there's one thing we know from Mr. Rivette's films, it's that the big picture will remain just outside our grasp.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

spending so much time with the lead actors - leaud, bulle ogier, juliet berto, the absolutely superb michael lonsdale - builds a completely different level of recognition/empathy/reflection than one normally experiences w/ narrative cinema of 'conventional' length - and at the end we were left with an incredible, inexplicable and unexpected feeling of loss (I actually heard someone behind say "is that all there is?" at the end!), so much so that i had to return for the 'shorter' (4 and a half hour) Out One: Spectre, where the narrative is re-arranged, re-shaped and re-directed - a fascinating lesson in the relatively arbitrary nature of narrative film construction

all in all, a life-changing experience

the 13 hour print, divided into 8 segments, had a 1990 copyright date but was already pretty fucked/shagged (tho' not quite as bad as the disintegrating print of L'Amour Fou the BFI used - now there's a film in URGENT need of restoration) - however Out One:Spectre was a nice-looking non-grainy restoration, the better to see the sadness in juliet berto's eyes+smile

la belle noiseuse has been on terrestrial tv a cpl of times - lotsa nudity in that! - and BBC 2 once screened an early 80s Rivette called L'Amour Par Terre (not one of my faves, despite the great geraldine chaplin being in it) - C4 may even have shown Celine and Julie back in the 'glory days'.

Artificial Eye have released a few of the later Rivettes on DVD

C4 also had TWO Godard seasons back in the 80s/90s - one of them was esp. good for those hard to find documentaries/polemics that JLG was making after La Chinoise, as well as the awesome Histoire Cinema series - but again, DVD is yr best bet these days

http://www.cahiersducinema.com/IMG/gif/LAMOURFOU.gif

Wiki lists his movies and ile has a few mentions, just wanted some recommendations of anything that might be available.

It's funny, Rivette's working method/choices/events-staged before camera all seem to suggest 'democracy-in-action' - he's very interested in community-gangs-groups, and Out One is like the last gasp of post-68 collective dreaming - but by all accounts he's quite a strong-willed auteur (which I guess you wld need to be to get these monsters made...)

Seeing the full Out One remains my cultural highlight of the year, any year

Gotta say I'm quite interested in the theatrical traditons (or experimental theatre) that have worked themselves into his movies (something touched on the discussion in the DVD extra). But these are all questions for another time..

Also I see Film Four are showing 'Celine and Julie..' as their late late movie on tuesday.

http://movingimage.us/site/screenings/mainpage/rivette.html

"box dinner available" for Out 1! Lots of coffee I hope.

what means this?

i watched Celine and Julie the other night on film4. much funnier second time round, also it was surprisingly suited to TV viewing because you don't have to give it 100% of your attention.

I generally love Sandrine Bonnaire, so I just reserved Joan the Maid at the library.

what i love about celine and julie is that no matter how long Rivette is stretching the whole thing out for it's never so long that he won't throw in another leghty, pointless and just plain funny digression. coming up for the three hour mark there's a needless plot development which involves the sweets running out and C&J having to steal a book from the library so that they can make up a potion. for some reason they have to steal the book wearing wetsuits, balaclavas and rollerskates (hott). the other night this struck me as the funniest thing ever whereas first time round i just found it frustrating. what changed?

http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/15195_PARIS_BELONGS_TO_US

the bfi dvd looks good, has some of his shorts on it.

"Having recently seen the long Out 1 subtitled in English for the first time at the Vancouver International Film Festival, I can only reiterate how invaluable it would be to have both versions on DVD. Rivette devoted the better part of a year to editing Spectre, striving to make it as different from the long version as possible, and the ways that the same shots often have radically different meanings and functions in the two versions are an important part of what makes this magnum opus so fascinating. But it can’t shake off its legend and become a legitimate part of film history until we can see both versions.
Maybe this is a function of the risks of innovative art—to be ignored by the more traditional critics as if it never existed. That’s presumably how Keith Reader could recently publish a supposedly authoritative piece about Jean-Pierre Léaud’s career in Sight and Sound without mentioning Out 1—even though, thanks to Geoff Andrew, both versions had recently screened at London’s National Film Theatre. (Needless to say, Moullet’s A Girl is a Gun goes unmentioned as well.) This isn’t very far from the David Denby school of canon restriction that tidily limits the span of existing works to whatever Denby has seen. When Denby recently wrote, “The great study of an Iraq vet, in either documentary or fictional form, has yet to be made,” he was essentially reassuring the New Yorker’s readers that they didn’t have to think about anything apart from what he was reviewing—including a film as great as The War Tapes (now available on DVD). Or did he actually mean he’d been tracking and viewing all the undistributed videos about returning veterans in order to arrive at his considered judgment?"

It's a shame, I think, that the BFI chose Paris... to restore, rather than L'Amour Fou - the former may be the more 'seminal new wave document' blahdiblah but the latter is pure uncut Rivette, the real gd hard stuff

Anyone seen his new one? Probably catch it on sunday..

Saw it when I visited London just after Xmas - its a real chamber piece ("restrained" is how my companion neatly put it) and i'm afraid i started snoozing abt 20 minutes in. Apart from the Joan of Arc two-parter - which is surprisingly action-packed, relatively speaking, for a Rivette movie - I'm not that big a fan of Rivette's historical pieces, tbh - they are very exacting exercises in framing/tableaux/ritual/spectacle/costume, but don't have the same necromantic thrill as the best of his 'modern-day' movies. Don't Touch The Axe has no music and is verrrrry slow in terms of both narrative exposition and movement into/within the mise-en-scene. Aspects of it reminded me of late Rossellini, Dreyer, Bresson - deliberately so on Rivette's part, I'm sure.

Three new Region 2 Rivette DVDs: GANG OF FOUR is especially welcome

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66945

you gotta salute their bravery.

i saw 'paris nous appartient' on the weekend; it was awesome.

the one time I saw PARIS NOUS APPARTIENT, the print burnt up in the projector!

dayum. you don't get that with dvd, really, though when i saw 'muriel' there was some kind of glitch that made the sound go out of sync...

yeah, DVD glitches are v. interesting, as are digital broadcasts where the signal breaks up and pixilates - a whole new way of seeing the image deformed - is there a visual equivalent of the Oval/Yasunao Tone CD glitch aesthetic/practice?

the one time I saw PARIS NOUS APPARTIENT, the print burnt up in the projector!

-- Ward Fowler, Monday, 18 February 2008 19:31 (58 minutes ago) Link

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Ward I saw this, I agree that its more of a chamber piece/slow burner. Kind of closed you in, but far more palatable than a BBC costume drama (those clocks of his), which isn't saying much, I know.

"Don't Touch The Axe has no music and is verrrrry slow in terms of both narrative exposition and movement into/within the mise-en-scene."

I remember that there was a bit of music? Don't the main characters discuss a quality belonging to a partic piece played in the film.

Must track 'Gang of Four'.

Happy 80th birthday.

hb, JR.

Saw 'Secret Defense' last week on yer cheapo VHS! Someone sort me out 'L'Amour Fou' plz!

Sort you out?

Oh, I'm an idiot, never mind. I don't think there's a dvd (R1 or 2).

Yeah, I know there isn't a DVD -- ws thinking more of a clandestine copy of it :-)

julio - i've been trying to contact you for a bit. i tried that mesageboard email thing but i didn't hear back. anyway can you email me on colinohara at gmail dot com? cheers.

"mesageboard email thing"

i meant the ILX send message to a user function.

Sigh.

My very close friend who first turned me on to Rivette (and lotsa other art cinema) died last week at the age of 52. I have kind've avoid mentioning his passing on ILX for fear of the snark squad, but one of the things that has lifted my spirits has been the knowledge that both of us did live long enough to see the complete OUT ONE - the phrase "a once in a lifetime experience" turned out not to be mere hyperbole.

Happy birthday, Jacques Rivette. I am so glad you're still making movies, even if I will never get to see them with (x).

Today I saw a Basset hound in real life for the first time, thanks to a kind neighbor who warned us that Barney was out on the block. Il s'appelle Valentino.

Hopefully tomorrow I will see the Duchess of Longeais.

I did. And I found out that the story is by Balzac. Rohmer had the Marquise of O. What kind of steady diet of classics they must have had to come up with these. And what kind of nationalism and amour de la patrie.

He came up with an outline for a contemporary mystery called “Next Year in Paris.” When financing failed to materialize, he looked for an existing story to accommodate these two actors and for the third time in his career was drawn to Balzac. “The Duchess of Langeais” is the centerpiece of Balzac’s trilogy about a secret society, “The History of the Thirteen,” which Mr. Rivette had used as the jumping-off point for the conspiratorial web of “Out 1.” A Balzac story was also the inspiration for “La Belle Noiseuse,” his 1991 film about a painter and his muse.

Mr. Rivette discovered Balzac late in life, despite the urgings of an esteemed friend and colleague. “Rohmer told me in the ’50s that there are two novelists every filmmaker needs to read: Dostoyevsky and Balzac,” he said. “But I had a hard time with Balzac.” He had read almost no Balzac when he decided to use the “Thirteen” mythology as the linchpin for “Out 1” (though Mr. Rohmer has an amusing cameo as a Balzac scholar in that film).

Rohmer, in his writing especially, seems more marked by that kind of French education.

I brought that photo of Bulle Ogier with me to get my hair cut. And another in which she is looking in a mirror, courtesy of the Chicago Reader. In "Ne touchez pas la hache," one of the pleasures was seeing the active traces of her youthful beauty.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/070525_2/out.jpg

for future reference

"L'Amour Fou"

how the fuck do i get this movie?

And just to wet your appetite there is this neat piece on L'Amour Fou.

It reminded me of The Travelling Players and the description of destruction that goes on => also the less playful, but no less '68, than Akermann's Saute ma Ville.

Made me think of how it became my 'lost' film. There should've been others but I've always come across them before reading a ton of stuff and becoming obsessed: 'Jeanne Dielman' had that one screening at the NFT; the Lumiere broadcast 'La Mama et La Putain'; 'Herostratus' is one of the BFI's great restoration jobs; Marker's 'Grin Without a Cat' got a release (love it, can't say I'm arsed about the extra added hour that is supposed to be knocking around, its 3 hrs long already!); and I read about Resnais' 60s films first in James Monaco's cool study but a cpl were available straight away and for the remainder it was simply a patient wait, culminating in 'Je T'aime, Je T'aime' just last year. Now when I often read about something it could be on youtube, as was the case with Kiju Yoshida's 3 and 1/2 hrs cracker from '68 'Eros Plus Madness'.

I was thinking that maybe 'The Man Who Left his Will on Film' by Oshima could be a companion, but no, Tate are screening it in March.

So to have a film that is truly lost: that you have no prospect of seeing, and when you do you know that it will be in such a crappy condition you'd want to get yr money back is almost to be treasured.

(Just kidding, btw...)

ty for that link, julio. great pic of bulle o at the top - if nothing else, the sequence in L'Amour Four where ogier's character goes mad in her flat and starts making bizarre tape recordings shld be preserved forever in a pristine print

a little while ago someone v kindly transferred for me my legit uk vhs version of the mother and the whore to dvd, as afaik there's still no disc version of that. i watch it along with my dvd transfer of renaldo and clara, most sunday afternoons.

Nice combo! (imagine so anyway, frm reading about 'Renaldo and Clara', not seen...)

yeah it's mindblowing that le maman ... isn't on dvd. i always figured it was the kind of thing bfi might be able to release that would be a little more populist than some of their worthier titles. routine watching would probably send you the way of the actors tho

I can see the opportunity for an Eustache 2-DVD set on the lines of Vigo, say: 'Mama et la Putain' on the first DVD, then his other film and a couple of juicy shorts too on the 2nd disc. Certainly beat a lot of the Rohmer sets on Artificial Eye label (he's ok, but lets face it Eustache totally outdoes Rohmer).

Both cuts of "Out 1" coming this year on a German DVD set:

http://www.amazon.de/Out-Noli-tangere-Spectre-DVDs/dp/3898487008/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325936267&sr=8-1

Its a lost film no longer :-) Was able to source a phantom copy (w/near complete subtitles too) and spent much of the afternoon w/it.

Timing perfect, what with that in-depth look at the film. The issues bought by Mary in her article above regarding 16mm vs 35mm recordings is kinda lost on me because I think the editing and its gargutuan length seem to unify the different POVs over a period of time.

I love how L'AF records (and edits) the whole process of a work's gestation period and squares this w/a relationship between two people that is falling apart. Or more like the moments when it works and when it doesn't, or when things are on a knife-edge. Again the length of Rivette's films can every now and again seem unneccesary, but there is total pay-off in that respect, and it also allows for the v subtle flashbacks and story circularity that complicates things, but just enough, to work.

Claire in the apartment ws best tho'. Reminded me of The Conversation, as did the destruction of the flat - wonder if Coppola has seen this.

When her jealous fixation reaches a pinnacle of intensity, Claire approaches Sébastien as he sleeps and attempts to pierce his eye with a hat pin.

^ this gave me the shivers

just saw (and really loved) 'celine and julie go boating' - loved all the digressions and the story-within-the-story piling up and up, the camaraderie between c+j and jed OTM that the book-stealing scene is, in retrospect, really funny

glad someone enjoyed c&j, but boy was i worried when i saw this thread revived (iirc another ilxor posted that rivette was seriously ill at the moment.)

gonna see "l'amour fou".
what to expect?

greatness.

j/k - haven't watched my copy of "L'amour fou" yet but I expect it's magnificent. + a young Bulle Ogier...

i'm halfway through - so the dude doesn't change his cloths for the whole movie?!

my answer was to expect length.

"Out 1" has been smuggled on youtube.

See you next year..

Haha! Me too!

english subs?

and the DVD release has been put back until march next year and tbh i'd be amazed if it surfaced then given that it's been delayed a few times already.

Yes english subs - an old broadcast from Italian TV

so much better than L'amour Fou imo..

hope you're going to watch out one:spectre straight after, xyzzzzz :-)

the user that uploaded the movie, Rick Petaccio, is THE MAN:
great cinema:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GS1WbfteCpn4idCwmVFsw

Can you put up a link for the last part? (I looked and couldn't figure it out.) I don't feel like watching the whole 13 hours again--but I want to see that great final shot!

L'Amour Fou, Le Pont du Nord, and Celine and Julie are all being screened on 35mm nearby soon. I'm prob going to see Celine and Julie but I have a short attention span and it's difficult for me to sit through entire films w/o getting sleepy, esp if they're slow (I started nodding off during the last 20 minutes of The Color of Pomegranates last night). Are the other two like OMG totally worth it?

I caught 35mm sceening of Le Pont du Nord last month. It's like a shorter & less whimsical C&J. It also helps if you know a little about late '70s domestic European terrorism (Mesrine, Baader-Meinhof) going in, as what story there is in the film concerns the fallout from that stuff. It's also not as easy a film to drift in and out of like you can with C&J.

I'm thinking I am only going to see one of them and it's prob going to be C&J

The new print of C&J is very nice.

LPDN is not so hot imo but tbh there are worse things you could do with your time than go, see its deeply-hued paris & drift in & out of sleep without noticeably missing 'plot'

L'Amour Fou has, at least in the UK, been the most difficult to see of all the major Rivettes. As I'm sure I mentioned upthread, the print shown at the National Film Theatre's complete Rivette retrospective was in terrible terrible condition - so if this is a newly struck print then that would be the one to go for, at least from a trainspottery pov (again, I don't think L'Amour Fou is available anywhere in the world on DVD, whereas C&J, as Rivette's most 'popular' film, is easily accessible, and in the UK Masters of Cinema have just brought out a new disc of Port Du Nord). L'Amour Fou was partially shot on 16mm, so when projected at 35mm those sequences have a real grainy beauty, and Bulle Ogier is amazing in it.

But from an entertainment POV, Celine and Julie is the one to go for - and the slippage between dream and reality is even more pronounced in it, making it the perfect film to drift off to.

Saline & Julie tomorrow!! Is this a thing to get stoned for or will I like actually fall asleep?

I got stoned and accidentally watched Werkmeister Harmonies once w/ some friends and it was so boring I made an excuse halfway through the film and left :-/

Saline !

Always thought it was fresh-water boating.

It turns out that S&JGB is a v fun movie even though it is v slow and boring and you fall asleep during it

Saw a Claire Denis documentary on him tonight. Basically a long interview with Serge Daney. Rivette's shot in a way that makes him look like Charlie Watts at times.

just saw La Belle Noiseuse and yeah both Rivettes I've seen have been absolutely fucking incredible - so intense, so genuinely profound. want to live in his movies

Love him. I hope he's doing well.

"Celine & Julie" was one of those films that I found sooooooo tiring to sit through but when it was done I was like "Oh damn that was kind of wonderful!"

but still with no desire to ever see it again. It's like I want to have seen his films but don't want to actually have to deal w/ sitting through them.

They're worth sitting through, IMHO.

http://sensesofcinema.com/2014/2014-melbourne-international-film-festival-dossier/thirteen-others-formed-a-strange-crew-jean-pierre-leauds-performance-in-out-1-by-jacques-rivette/

Out 1 will be "restored," distributed digitally

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=16598

i can't imagine finding 13 hours (?) to watch that!

i'm kind of a rivette agnostic. i seem to be the only cinephile in existence who doesn't like "celine and julie," though i like his later stuff (like "secret defense" and "va savoir") to different degrees. or at least i did when i saw them 10–15 years ago.

i seem to be the only cinephile in existence who doesn't like "celine and julie,"

hallooooo

you know the story that Kael stomped out of it midway, yelling "I'm going to the movies!"

yeah me three tbh

I mean I enjoy ~having seen~ the film but I did NOT enjoy seeing it.

ha! I guess i'm not alone.

i watched it all the way through once, was intermittently entertained but mostly annoyed by the aggressive whimsy. tried seeing it again years later, left after about 40 minutes once i realized it was strictly diminishing returns.

i guess i'm just not on rivette-in-the-1970s wavelength.

i mean, i like wes anderson movies, so obviously i'm not allergic to whimsy. but i guess i felt like there was a lack of compensating virtues... like, in some cases, basic filmmaking skill. (ouch, sorry.)

my guess is that once more people actually see "out one" it'll largely cease to have its mystique as one of the greatest films of all time (which is mostly due to jonathan rosenbaum's hyping it for decades)

but who knows, maybe it really is an astonishment. i'll never know, frankly.

i mean, there are feuillade serials--entire serials!--i've never seen, and those are way farther up in the queue.

http://www.organicmechanic.org/scratch/outsiders1.jpg

this is excellent news and I will watch it

c&jveb is easily one of the greatest movies i've seen, if i may punctuate the naysaying parade briefly, and la belle noiseuse not too far behind

Love Rivette and have watched both versions of Out 1. The 13 hour version is all extreme peaks and valleys. The theatre stuff gets tedious - but then I'm not a huge fan of Living Theatre-type extreme theatrics. And there's a whole lot of that here. Juliette Berto is great in this, though.

Also ... F*** Kael :)

idg kael, she seems to be in disagreement with me most of the time, is she the popism of cinecrit or something lol

it's too bad we never got a PK review of this movie explaining why it "doesn't work" and filled with lots of snappy, colorful descriptions of the two lead actresses

i can't imagine finding 13 hours (?) to watch that!

People are finding 50+ hours to watch tripe like Game of Thrones and Mad Men, surely there will be time for this.

Out One is one of the greatest films ever made. As is Out One Spectre. As is Celine and Julie. I like the fact that these films are acts of faith, semi-secret fetish objects, open only to the true believers - it echoes the content of the films themselves, with all their codes, and secrets and, frequently, veiled occult/supernatural hints and whispers.

The DVD edition of Out One is perfectly serviceable - it's L'Amour Fou that is the Rivette REALLY crying out for restoration.

i'm kind of a rivette agnostic. i seem to be the only cinephile in existence who doesn't like "celine and julie,"

hi!

My heart soared when Masters of Cinema brought out a new DVD/Blu of Le Pont du Nord - a lesser Rivette, but still essential - and put 'Dedicated to all Rivettniks' in the liner notes.

As I understand it, Rivette now has dementia, so I was sad when this thread was revived.

Oh that's terrible. Just assumed he retired.

re: Amour Fou I have a terrible rip which - while I loved anyway - I don't care to come back to. Most of all I'd like to see it in the cinema.

I think I've probably mentioned already on this thread that I saw L'Amour Fou as part of the NFT's complete Rivette retrospective, and it was in truly pitiful condition - all the theatre stuff, shot on 16mm and blown up, looked especially poor, but the whole four hour plus print was ruined one way or another. It wasn't helped by the fact that this was an unsubtitled print that the NFT superimposed computer subtitles over in fairly random/haphazard fashion. Made me almost miss the days when the NFT did earphone commentaries.

lol at J.D.

i walked out of l'amour fou, too! like i said, i'm not not on rivette's wavelength. i guess the metafiction stuff is just too intellectual for me, or something. and his films are just too long for me to want to invest the time to give it another try. but i'm glad that out one will be available for the curious.

17 year old interview

http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/french-cinema-present-and-past/rivette-2/

That's a great interview. "Cameron isn’t evil, he’s not an asshole like Spielberg." hah. Very entertaining. I'd be keen to see this format with other directors.

that's the one where he praised showgirls, isn't it? i think it made verhoeven OK for snobby critics to like.

Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)

I’ve seen it twice and I like it a lot, but I prefer Showgirls (1995), one of the great American films of the last few years. It’s Verhoeven’s best American film and his most personal. In Starship Troopers, he uses various effects to help everything go down smoothly, but he’s totally exposed in Showgirls. It’s the American film that’s closest to his Dutch work. It has great sincerity, and the script is very honest, guileless. It’s so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing. And that actress is amazing! Like every Verhoeven film, it’s very unpleasant: it’s about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that’s his philosophy. Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real – take my word for it.I who have never set foot in the place!

That interview is mostly great but man, he sounds like a real asshole when talking about Titanic.

just a bit of misogyny, let's be cool

Rivette doesn't even own a TV <3

The titanic bit is fucking shit tho, not just cause of the sexism

yeah the titanic comments are nagl. "get off my yard!," yells rivette to kids.

It’s so obvious that it was written by Verhoeven himself rather than Mr. Eszterhas, who is nothing

politique des auteurs dies hard, i guess.

More than those of any other filmmaker, Buñuel’s films gain the most on re-viewing. Not only do they not wear thin, they become increasingly mysterious, stronger and more precise.

Rivette otm

http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=rivette&product_id=603

Yeah. Reallyreallyreally want that package. But 85 pounds? That's a lot...

It is 16 discs!

Having already spunked a small fortune on the German Out 1 set, I'm actually more excited about the other films in this set, especially Duelle - "the Queen of the Sun (Bulle Ogier) and the Queen of the Night (Juliet Berto) search for a magical diamond in present-day Paris"

Time to ask for Santa's help.

I've been good..

This set is very much worth the 85 pounds!

lol it's 16 discs bcz it's both Blu-Ray and DVD

well yeah

rewatching Rivette: mostly "no, never" for me

that's your cred down the pan..

xpost
well don't then!

junques rivette

Celine & Julie, Go to Hell

They do. Or maybe purgatory.

dunno why you'd bother continuing to seek this stuff out if you've already decided it's not for you, it's not like rivette is some ubiquitous inescapable cultural presence

i like SOME of his films alright. just not a master to me.

Not a master then

North American release of Out 1 on DVD/Blu-ray in November...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B014LHPGXI/

The Arrow Films (UK) box is at £74.99 until Sep. 8 and they seem to do free shipping even all the way to Canada.

Just a heads up for anyone else weighing their options- Arrow just announced today on Facebook that due to legal issues (probably to do with the US release) they've had to amend their release to code it to blu-ray Region B.

Just saw picture of Juliet Berto on BAM site, I think, meaning...

Out 1 is coming back

i am afraid

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/out-1-noli-me-tangere

Pourquoi?

bcz of my ambivalence about Rivette, nothing more

Out 1: Noli me Tangere is Rivette at his most Rivette-y, not the film to win round sceptics imho (try Out 1: Spectre instead, though you will miss out on Rohmer's turn as a Balzac scholar)

Oh god it's screening in Philly too but they're doing two 6 hour chunks on consecutive days, what the fuck?

one of them starts at 7pm, get the fuck outta here

Would like to see, but doubt I will have the time

dOubt 1: liSpector

Oops you already made that joke in your own name :/ dunno what I was thinking.

screening # 52

Jacques Rivette:
Out1

1st half – Saturday 28 November, 09:00 - 17:15
2nd half – Sunday 29 November, 09:30 - 17:15
Prince Charles Cinema

box office

We are delighted to present in collaboration with The Badlands Collective a very rare and wonderful opportunity to see Jacques Rivette’s longest work – Out1 – a magnum opus if ever there was one, running at 773 minutes - just under 13 hours.

Out1 has been very rarely screened because there was no English subtitled copy made and so any screening had to be done with live subtitling – daunting and, of course, prohibitively expensive for most venues.

Rivette made a cut down version for film festivals, but the full version is what cinephiles know about, have read about, and want to have seen. With this new restoration and the fresh subtitling that longing can at last be satisfied.

But this will not be a daunting experience, because Out1 is a delightful, playful, story-filled adventure – teaming with richly drawn characters and ticklish eccentricity. Taking a Balzac pot-boiler about a secret society (Histoires de treize - Stories of the Thirteen) and Lewis Caroll’s The Hunting of the Snark as a large scale map, Rivette and his cast fill in the landscape with infinite variety

Also coming to Los Angeles, Nov 14-15.

http://www.cinefamily.org/films/la-collectionneuse/

Out 1 fortnight has arrived in NY.... Bluray/DVD next year.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-jacques-rivettes-out-1

http://www.kinolorber.com/video.php?id=2145

Or this year if you're in a Region 2 country

I watched Out 1 & 2 last night ... does it get better? I would like to see a condensed version stripped of the tedious theater people and featuring solely the machinations of Jean-Pierre Leaud and Juliet Berto.

Well there is the four hour cut as an option that would cut that down somewhat, its what I have (as a torrent)

should i watch out if i found celine and julie a bit uneventful?

Virginia Plain, yes, after the first two parts the theatre stuff drops away and the conspiracy stuff begins to take over - Rivette said this was kind of a deliberate strategy on his part, to have stories taken over by other stories.

Xyzzz, the Spectre version really is very different from the long version - the 4 hour cut has almost none of the theatre stuff and IIRC the final shot of Spectre comes about three hours into the long version. You don't get Eric Rohmer as a Balzac scholar in Spectre, either.

thinking i will avoid this entirely

One of the nice things about the NFT screening of Out 1 (Thurs 27th April to Sat 29th April 2006) was that they produced original screening notes for each episode. I still have them, and this is the quote from Rivette that I was alluding to (and mangling) earlier -

"We start off with the reportage - it's phoney, of course, set up, but presented more of less as reportgage - with the fiction slipping in very stealthily at first, but then beginning to proliferate until it swallows everything up and finally auto-destructs." I would say that I thought Michel Lonsdale was absolutely extraordinary in this movie, and his performance helped me get through the 'difficult' opening episodes.

Apologies if this link has already been posted - further details of the Region 2 set. Not totally sold on the design they've gone with - def doesn't do much to undermine those accusations of tweeness leveled esp at Celine & Julie - but as an artifact it is a great coup for Arrow, following their landmark Borowczyk set.

http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/the-jacques-rivette-collection-out-1-noli-me-tangere-out-1-spectre-duelle-une-quarantaine-noroit-merry-go-round/

"Rivette's mise-en-scène is often crushingly one-note"

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/out-1-2015

Hilarious review. He mentions Rohmer's appearance but the Nouvelle Vague as a movement seems to have been v literature based and Out 1 does seem like the ultimate film in that regard. Has this person ever read a modern novel? This project - although based around a thetrical troupe - is v early late 19th/early 20th century narrative novel based. The Leaud/Berto - then slippage of characters coming in-and-out, as a set-up, is really appealing to me. The look at how the passage of almost uncontrolled time does mirror a particular reading experience (the way people slip and coming back hundreds of pages later). You could say "but its a film", but all of these movements in painting, poetry, novels and, art and film really feed off one another, and you can't see them in isolation. I had to laugh when he says the plot might not be solved. When were you expecting this?

Morbs - this is clearly not for you. Its gonna be ok man.

Even that quote you pulled out..."one-note" is so off as a criticism of this. It implies a master director that controlled your experience, something very precisely scuplted and verging on the oppressive. And watching Out 1 (even in the four hour cut) feels like a really organic interaction and collaboration between cast and director on the shape and of what that might be - so it has this rough and ready feel of an exploration (which is what he says) and yet its also a potential way of working that is only unsustainable because works have to be perhaps funded and produced in ways that are contrary to how this was made.

Also its one of the few films where you can really get a flavour of the time: there are a lot of films that centre around paranoia but this seems like one of the few that trasmit the psychic torment of what paranoia might be.

I've read very few modern novels for related reasons.

I figure the NY public library will have the video release in a few months if I ever feel the need. Also I feel Virginia Plain has suffered on behalf of me.

Also on Slant, Mich(a)el Lonsdale interview!

Improvisation was easy with Bulle Ogier because she can improvise very easily, but it was more difficult with Bernadette Lafont because she didn't know what to say. [laughs] So we'd say to her, “Say something.” She couldn't! When she acts, you know, she's wonderful. She was, now she's gone. But she was completely lost and couldn't say anything. That's why her part isn't very long in the film.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/interview-michael-lonsdale

Out 1 is now streaming on Fandor.

Interview with Bulle Ogier in November's "Cahiers du Cinéma" where she reveals the origin of OUT 1. While in NYC with Rivette to present "L'Amour Fou" at a festival they (and Bertolucci!) became hooked on "Get Smart" reruns. They especially liked Barbara Feldon. Afterwards Rivette was stuck on doing either a TV series or a veeeeery long film with a good guys vs bad guys angle.

That's a great story! And you can totally see it in Out 1. Rivette uses genre brilliantly.

v gd tick!

that's easy for YOU to say

On the contrary: cinema is hard work.

It's a lie told 25 times a second.

The only chance for me to see Out 1 in Seattle is to go to the marathon screening.

off to a 35mm screening of Paris Belongs to Us v shortly

^ Liked it, even the explicit turn toward Body Snatchers-style dread near the end. Funny JLG cameo.

I saw this for the first time the other week; it's startling how many of Rivette's preoccupations (endless rehearsal, artistic process in tension with the expectation of a final saleable product, paranoia as a way of projecting order onto the flow of experience, "Body Snatchers-style dread" as part of the way ungraspable historical forces permeate everyday life) seem to have been in place from the first.

https://www.criterion.com/films/27724-paris-belongs-to-us

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/movies/jacques-rivette-french-director-dies.html?_r=0

RIP

:-(

Really wonderful that "Out 1" came out again last year.

That's a massive loss (though given the rumors that he'd been in decline for the last several years, I'm glad he's not suffering). I finally saw Celine and Julie Go Boating this past week, and it was one of the most joyful experiences with film I've had in a long time.

Rest In Peace

"When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

RIP (reading the notes in the new Rivette box set, it did sound as if his last years were fairly miserable, so I'm glad he's no longer suffering)

Will be having a memorial viewing of Duelle this weekend

Am watching "Paris s'en va" ( the alternate "Pont du Nord") this morning.

La Belle Noiseuse is one of my favorite movies about art. RIP.

RIP, he's 2/2 for movies I've seen/movies I think are incredible, looking forward to adding to both columns

i'll keep trying, Monsieur.

RIP

slightly guiltily my first response just now was to be psyched at the increased probability of actually getting some screenings here

links

http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.de/2016/01/the-film-plays-thing-rip-jacques.html

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-jacques-rivette-1928-2016

http://www.jacques-rivette.com/

a ward fowler post from a decade ago mentions "a totally new language of time/place/movement in cinema."

i haven't warmed up to that language.

how is the film with Birkin and G Chaplin? anyone?

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/love-on-the-ground/

It is almost the quintessential Rivette - two women as central protaganists, a theatrical background, a ghost house - but perhaps not the most inspired version of that kind of thing (Gang of Four is another, more compelling, variant.) Rivette had as good a late run of movies as any major director, imho.

That's a massive loss (though given the rumors that he'd been in decline for the last several years, I'm glad he's not suffering). I

he had been suffering from alzheimer's for some time. supposedly he wasn't altogether "there" for the production and post-production of his last film, and after that, couldn't be insured.

i have to admit that the only rivette films i've liked are some of his later films, like "secret defense." granted, i haven't seen "out one" or several other of his lengthy '70s films, but having seen the established "masterpieces" i concur with sarris that, at least in the first decades of his career he was rather flat-footed as a stylist.

RIP. Does anyone else like his Joan of Arc movies?

La Belle Noiseuse is one of my favorite movies about art. RIP.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, January 29, 2016 3:14 PM

I really enjoyed the Joan films. Thought Bonnaire was perfect casting and the grittiness worked in its favor.

There are very good versions on YT, btw.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/out-ward-bound-jacques-rivette-s-out-1-arctic-circle?utm_content=bufferad1e4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I really like the two Joan of Arc movies, definitely Rivette's best period films - parts of them strongly reminded me of Rossellini's 'historicals'.

Watched Duelle at the weekend - Rivette's most overtly 'fantastic' film.

Jane Birkin did a Q&A after the Jane B par Agnes V screening here last night, and talked a little about Rivette; i didn't know she'd done 3 with him. On her first meeting she was thrown by the lack of a script, and the prospect of doing a 'circus' movie. Then she watched Celine et Julie and phoned Geraldine Chaplin in a panic to see if ahe could get back into JR's good graces.

Hmmm - the circus-themed Rivette is Around a Small Mountain, the third of the three films Birkin and Rivette made together (and, as it turned out, JR's final movie.) It could be that Mountain was an older project revived much later, I suppose (it never got any kind of release in the UK so I've not actually seen it).

Checking his filmog I've seen less than I thought I had. Le Pont du Nord is something I want to see as soon-ish as poss. Got a hunch about that one.

(xxpost) at one point in the 70s he was going to do something called "Carnaval" (sp?) that was also circus themed. Maybe Jane B was referring to an earlier request to work on that project?

"Le Pont du Nord" is fantastic. Paris never felt so threatening.

Yeah, Pont du Nord is another Paris-as-playground one; Duelle also has lots of fantastically empty Parisian locations.

I don't know; it's possible she was confused, or i am.

I've seen Pont du Nord, tho at least ten yerars ago, and ... it didn't work on me. Willing to revisit.

The weirdest thing about Pont du Nord is a sudden non-diagetic burst of Astor Piazolla on the soundtrack

Acid Hose, I think I saw somewhere on ILX that you'd watched the earlier, 'trial run' of Pont du Nord - I take it this was a non-official source (it isn't on the Masters of Cinema Pont du Nord disc)?

"Paris vu par". And yes - non official source most probably.

"Paris Goes Away," the sort, somewhat abstract companion film to Pont du Nord, is also available online: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TiuNS59K8rg

*short, I mean

ty ows, will watch later

whats the deal w the doc claire denis did on him? seems like the perfect time for someone to put that out if its possible wrt to the rights etc

On YT as well ( the doc ).

Yes, thanks ows and ah

RIP. though i always preferred jacques demy. i will never watch out. i dont care how much less of a true card carrying cinephile that makes me.

please tell us more about the other films you're never going to watch

StillAdvance - are you comparing Rivette and Demy just because they are called Jacques (as per the poll you just posted)? Just how fucking dumb can you get.

oh STFU you received-wisdom-parroting dullard

of course they cant really be compared, fucking DUH!

[jingle]Iconoclasm on ILX[/jingle]

Fuck you - stop the contrarian routine first.

im not trying to be 'iconoclastic', i find the over reverence a bit stultifying. rivettes films are treated as a sort of holy entrance exam for a particular kind of film fan.

which posts on this thread about Jacques Rivette are you actually referring to?

im not trying to be 'iconoclastic', i find the over reverence a bit stultifying. rivettes films are treated as a sort of holy entrance exam for a particular kind of film fan.

― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 2 February 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't fancy your chances when Godard goes over.

I just find JLG more interesting tbh, even at his most indulgent. *shrug* Even something like Un Film comme les autres (which i only saw recently) has a lot going for it, even if visually it isnt exactly riveting to watch, though even then, you have to admire his gall in keeping the camera so still, and never truly revealing his subjects. I should probably try rivette again, but that kind of hip whimsy (combined with the running time!) i saw in celine... makes me not want to. reminds me a little of vera chytilova's daisies, thinking about it now. i might try le pont du nord though, its on mubi at the moment.

Can't you wait at least a couple of fucking weeks to tell us about your tedious contempt for this not-dead-even-a-week artist whose films you haven't seen and who other posters here actually have some affection for?

Un Film comme les autres (which i only saw recently) has a lot going for it, even if visually it isnt exactly riveting to watch, though even then, you have to admire his gall in keeping the camera so still, and never truly revealing his subjects

Saw this too. You can easily all of this about Rivette, i.e. you have to admire Rivette's gall in making a 12.5 hr film/shooting extended takes of rehearsals etc etc.

Morbs is at least willing to re-watch. Just save your bullshit for another time.

sure. hopefully you will have dismounted that rather tall horse of willful offence-taking of yours by then too.

Would someone who knows mind posting a link to the Claire Denis documentary? Somehow I can't find it. Thanks...

My copy of the Arrow box set was delivered on the day he died. RIP.

"... it isnt exactly riveting to watch..."

I see what you did there.

http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/rosie-riveter-1.jpg

sure. hopefully you will have dismounted that rather tall horse of willful offence-taking of yours by then too.

― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 2 February 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't have such a high opinion of yourself - you haven't offended anyone.

i think i will watch 'the nun' this weekend. any thoughts on this one? conventional wisdom seems to suggest it's one of his more conventional.

i am not proud of the fact that i am totally allergic to celine and julie go boating. i saw it for the first time about 15 years ago, and was just bored. i tried it one more time about 8 years ago, and had to walk out after 40 minutes. the relentless tweeness made me want to rip the heads off of kittens or something. and also i just don't think he was much of a visual stylist at that point! i think he got better -- much of "Secret defense" is extremely evocative.

i say "i am not proud" b/c people whose opinions i respect a great deal think it's the bee knees, but i just don't get it.

i am proud. they are wrong.

we're unusually simpatico this evening, morbs.

As someone who is allergic to tweeness I felt the stretching of time deployed by Rivette cut that right off.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/jacques-rivette-out-1-celine-julie-go-boating?utm_content=bufferfc600&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

Excellent interview from the S&S archives - lots of tibbits on Bioy (who is of course had a couple of tasty reissues recently). Finds Henry James "unfilmmable".

Imagine reading this in '74 and not being able to see Out 1. Would've made me crazy.

Thank you, love the way Rivette talks about films (his own and other people's)

"Contrary to what people think, I’m not particularly well read."

Checking his filmog I've seen less than I thought I had. Le Pont du Nord is something I want to see as soon-ish as poss. Got a hunch about that one.

do you subscribe to Mubi xyzzzz__because this is on there at the moment. I started watching it yesterday.

I listened to Rosenbaum talking about Out 1 on The Cinephiliacs podcast about a week before Rivette's passing. I'd love to see it sometime.

I don't - was told on twitter last night about the availability of the film on MUBI, where I also found out that the accordion based tune mentioned by Ward is actually a Grace Jones cover.

I'll see whether I can do this or not. Most of the year I tend to watch films at the cinema - mind really wanders off nowdays if I am not inside the dark box.

I noticed the Denis documentary has been taken down from YT. Good thing I saved a copy. It's a great one.

(link in my post, y'all)

i'm sleep deprived as usual on Fridays so there's no way i'm going to make it to Love on the Ground in 3 hours (Rivette make me sleepy to begin with and that's not necessarily a dis).

Morbs, there is a Region 2 DVD of Love on the Ground - however I would prioritise the same company's Gang of Four DVD above it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Ground-English-subtitles-DVD/dp/B000TQLJU0/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1454717246&sr=1-1&keywords=love+on+the+ground

But if you really want to sample Rivette on home video DVD, there is a Region 1 disc of Va Savoir that might appeal - it's his most Rohmeresque film, except with many of the old obsessions, chiefly the theatre.

i think i will watch 'the nun' this weekend. any thoughts on this one? conventional wisdom seems to suggest it's one of his more conventional.

Saw it once about fifteen years ago. Yes, it has the most conventional mise en scene of any Rivette film, and no obvious moments of improvisation - this might sound more appealing to Rivette-sceptics, but my memory of is that it's a bit of a slog; far inferior to the Joan of Arc movies in terms of a 'period Rivette'.

saw Va Savoir when it was released

Cheers for the Denis, Jay Vee

Atlanta people, Emory Univ. is screening Out 1 for free this weekend.
http://filmstudies.emory.edu/home/events/

Went up to the cemetery in Montmartre this morning to pay respects to Rivette and Truffaut. They are buried pretty much a few feet from each other. Sadly, Rivette's tombstone is a humble concrete slab ( I hope it's a temporary thing?) and Truffaut's is dotted with pigeon shit.
I mentioned to the folks at the conservation office there that Truffaut's stone could use a good cleaning and their response was that it was the family's job to ake care of it.

*take

Out 1 is on netflix wtf

!!!

insane, i never thought the day would come, so stoked

Great to see -- death to 'I hate how everything has become available' bobbins!

I am just stunned tbh bcz Netflix's film offerings have not too great as of late, esp w/r/t obscure foreign cinema

Dare I ask if it's on uk netflix?

Pretty sure it's not. Arrow are the UK rights holders, and they do sometimes licence things to Netflix, but I imagine at the moment they don't want to discourage sales on their recent Rivette box set (you can rent that box set, btw, from Amazon Love Film, or whatever their films-by-post service is called these days - that offers a much better selection of movies than any UK streaming service, fwiw)

Shit, and to think US Netflix just clamped down on Hola usage

Funny Out 1 customer review for that Rivette box set on Amazon:

Unwatchable docu-drama of a small group of actors lying down with their legs bent back toward themselves. Awful beyond belief.

Hahaha! Concise and to the point!

Halfway through Out 1. I'm very happy.

I've seen Out 1! I'm a happy filmfan. Nice ending.

I watched Godard's Le Vent d'Est a few days back, and it's kinda fun to contrast. Much post may ennui, but while Dziga Vertov group seems a bit desperate, Out 1 seems thoughtful, meditative and experimental. And fun.

Doesn't scan as a comparison.

Reading up a bit on the context. At this point I'm pretty sure it's to a significant extent a film about Maoism.

Maoism is def ONE of the things Out 1 is about - or rather, it's about the conflict between the individual and the collective (and the difficulty of maintaining identity within a group, be that a theatrical troupe or a secret society). It's definitely a post-68 film in the same way that The Mother and the Whore is, too. But you could just as easily say that Out 1 is a Marxist film, in that it's haunted by Balzac, who was Marx's favourite author ("Behind every great fortune is a great crime" etc etc)

And another way of saying 'thoughtful, meditative' might be to say 'wasted', whereas Godard's post-68 work is very definitely much more straight-edge (there's a scene in Out 1, at the hippy café/meeting, where Bulle Ogier collapses into fits of giggles, as if the tea she's serving has been spiked. And I remember reading somewhere that the premiere audience for Out 1 were very majorly stoned.)

Well worth watching Out 1: Spectre, Frederik, for a very different ending, and a change of emphasis on certain scenes and characters.

It's more Leaud who is giggling, and feeding Ogier spoonfuls of jam. He's is definitely high as a kite in that scene :)

The film is not about one thing, of course, it's just fun to treat it as a coded statement the way Colin treats Balzac. It is very true that it's about Marx, but being about Marx in France in 70-71 was being about Mao. Even Cahiers was maoist at the time. Le Vent d'Est seems to me a maoist film, whereas Out 1 is a film about maoism. It's so weird to think about that time, that there actually was a period where Mao was thought to be the best, and that that period coincides quite well with the period Mao was most destructive and murderous. Intellectuals can be quite dumb.

There's a previously unpublished '71 interview with Rivette in French film mag "La Septième Obsession" this month. Here's a relevant quote to what you guys are discussing (excuse my bad off-the-cuff translation):

Q: What exactly do the two groups in OUT1 represent?

Rivette: (...)The two groups come out of the traditional (spaces?) of classical theatre - both the Italian and modern ... At the time they were being filmed they were searching for a process outside of the strictures of traditional theatre. It's a process of waiting in any case since the film attempted to describe a period of general crisis, at all levels, notably within the theatrical sphere. The characters all have that feeling of existing within a time of crisis where one could do nothing but wait for a time when, eventually, action would once again be possible. While waiting all they could engage in , for one, were projects that were more or less utopian, through uncertain paths and, on the other hand, trying to maintain a false enthusiasm, a false energy. It's very difficult and the result was a kind of erosion. The film shows this eroding as they wait it out. ... To me it's a very dated film: France - Paris - 1970 - two years after May '68. That's where we are. We wait.

it IS dated but in a good way. the process/waiting was my fave element of out 1. just watched the rules of the game last night for the hell of it. totally not dated at all.

also i still haven't watched the thing rivette did that is on the crit rules dvd.

Still don't see this is as a film about Maoism - it certainly doesn't get away from the
time it was made at, the paranoia induced by the characters and their actions situates
this film as being made at a politically tense point. So post-68, but you can map a lot of
things onto it that Rivette would go on to do at other points in his career where things are more 'settled': his interest
in theatre (the whole birth of a play, the stresses and trials around that, its effect on the participants) and creation
of art. Balzac is a big literary reference in later films.

JLG in the Vertov stuff mostly gives it to you straight, but even in La Chinoise and a lot
of his films he was Maoist in a playful manner - Mao's little book is Red, lets saturate
the film in Red!

(xxpost) I think my translation s/b "it's a film that's very of its time" rather than "dated".

Rivette never mentions Maoism wrt to this film. I haven't seen it come up in any interviews with him or the cast.

There's a huge (500+ pages?) book on just Rivette and Balzac out now in France. i picked up this one on my recent visit. Can't wait to dive in: https://www.amazon.fr/Jacques-Rivette-secret-compris-Frappat/dp/2866422813

It was only after reading Emily Bickerton's excellent history of Cahiers - Rivette-relevant extract here: http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2469-jacques-rivette-1928-2016 - that I learned Rivette essentially deposed Rohmer from the Cahiers editorship, in part because Rivette was far more of a leftist than Rohmer. So I'm sure Maoism was at least on Rivette's mind at the time he and his collaborators made Out 1 - how could it not be?

there is definitely a similar film to be made of u.s. artists/activists wanting to burn down the world in 1968 and a couple of years later...not so much. or not knowing how to proceed after the immediacy of the flames/fire. or maybe that is a film already. the bored talk of putting out the newspaper in out 1 was funny. no real hurry.

Yeah, the Cahiers had in turn been taken over by Maoists by 70, so.

Also, of course he doesn't mention it, the true, maoist meaning of the film is only available for the TRUE VIEWERS who can read the TRUE LANGUAGE of the film. Wake up sheeple!

I mean, we could say that it's a film about France 'post-68' but I'm getting kinda tired of that term. It makes it sound as if nothing really happened at that time, in the period ca 68-72 (a period I'm calling 'the years between Red May and Black September.' It sounds better in Danish), as if the revolt failed, and then people sat around a few years and thought about what they wanted to do now. Like Assayas' film Apres Mai, where the whole thing is sort of a blur, and then the hero discovers cheesy filmmaking. But stuff did happen in those years, people were still very much politically engaged. And most of left-wing politics at the time, anti-imperialist, guevarist, nasserist, bound to be disappointed by Mao meeting Nixon; Chile and Argentina collapsing into right-wing autocracy; Mid-east terrorists attacking Munich, regimes attacking Israel on Yom Kippur and then attacking the entire west through rising oil prices; can sorta be grouped together under the term 'maoism'.

So perhaps the film can both be said to be about 'post-68' or about 'maoism'. I think it most productive to say 'maoism'.

Thanks for the link Ward. Rivette was certainly more outwardly political than what I've ever seen in his films - the stuff he was doing during that period is set in Paris, among a small group of young actors and he has them playing games with each other - a very insular paranoid world miles away from Cinema Novo and what was happening in South America and Africa.

Whatever the merits of JLG's Vertov, at least he made an attempt at 'end of cinema': he states that and takes the idea further, sketches it out. The Left Bank were actively engaging with Cuba, Algeria, Chile and Palestine in their actual films.

Can't see any of that in Rivette.

Think this means that three very early Rivette shorts, all well before his first feature, have been been brought back to the light of day:

http://www.cinematheque.fr/article/843.html

https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201605&id=59510

Nice obit

Somewhat surprisingly, Duelle, Noroît, and Merry-Go-Round are going to be on Mubi in the US over the next couple of weeks; also, the latest issue of Senses of Cinema is mostly devoted to Rivette (as well as Twin Peaks).

https://mubi.com/specials/jacques-rivette-tribute
http://sensesofcinema.com/issues/issue-79/

Why surprising?

Maybe just surprising to me because I'm used to Rivette films seeming unavailable or being distributed poorly. I see from glancing upthread that those three were screened in NYC back in 2006, though, so maybe prints are more easily available than I'd thought.

Think because of the way Mubi works with some sort of limited licensing they can show stuff that might be otherwise unavailable.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Those films were restored for the Rivette box set that came out last year, I'm sure mubi will be using the same source material

Oh, I think I missed that part of the discussion: I wasn't aware of the contents of the Arrow box beyond the release of Out 1.

Arrow is releasing Duelle, Noroît, and Merry-Go-Round in the US in May and all 3 are now streaming on Amazon Prime.
https://www.facebook.com/ArrowAcademy/photos/a.805295076280491.1073741828.804231479720184/1039249329551730/?type=3&permPage=1

The Story of Marie and Julien -- yes?

Yes. Haven't seen in a while but the leads work well off each other and there's a real sense of romantic loss in Jerzy R's performance, if I recall. I may rewatch tonight now that you've mentioned it.

3-film blu is out

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/the-jacques-rivette-collection

Been out in the UK for well over a year

Reminds me, just got an email from Anthology mentioning a film directed by Juliet Berto.

It's an Eduardo de Gregorio box set that's really needed

“It’s the Jacques Rivette movie for people who can’t stand Jacques Rivette movies—and yet no one else could’ve made it.”

that's me, i guess

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/11/24/la-belle-noiseuse-finds-jacques-rivette-marrying-the-ordinary-and-the-cosmic/

Great that the writer mentioned Quince Tree Sun at the end there - as I was thinking about it as I read it.

i love the QTS so much

I heard a great story about that director, wonder if I’ve posted it already

I'd like to hear a story about Victor Erice.

So he was at the Walter Reade Theater for a festival of his films and told the audience that one of the reasons he cast Ana Torrent in The Spirit of the Beehive is that when he asked her “Do you know who Dr. Frankenstein is?” she replied “Yes I do, but we haven’t been introduced.”

:D

Watched the New Yorker Films (!) DVD of La Belle Noiseuse last weekend and hey, I still don't much like Rivette! At least Michel Piccoli's presence meant I made it through in 2 days. I did like Emmanuelle Beart's insouciance in the second half.

WTF Out 1 (and bunch of other Rivettes) is free to watch on Amazon Prime.

On closer inspection Out 1 (and Le pont du nord) is on a Fandor channel you can do a trial of for free and then subscribe to through Amazon. But there are other ones on Prime.

anyone want to browbeat me into seeing Gang of Four on 35mm tonight?

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-gang-of-four/

https://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/03/gang-of-four.html

actually, looking closely it seems to be on DCP... there's no US disc anyhoo.

The Nun is getting a minor re-release over here and I've never seen it. Curious to see what Karina does with it.

There is a North American DVD of Gang of Four. I've had it for 15+ years and I'm shocked to find that it's still available:

https://www.amazon.com/Gang-of-Four/dp/B00005TNF8/

And it's great! See it.

The Nun is his most "conventional" feature and not among my favourites, but still very much worth watching.

In the UK you can currently buy Gang of Four, Wuthering Heights and Love on the Ground on DVD for £3 each.

Gang of Four is indeed very great, but is so quintessentially Rivettian that I can't imagine it pleasing a Rivette sceptic like the good Doctor M.

Agree w/ you about The Nun - a Rivette adaptation of Diderot text starring Anna Karina sounds like the best thing ever, but the actual film is a bit lumpy and dull.

Gang of Four is really good, love that film.

i went to some silent shorts instead

On brand

presumably i will run across either the Go4 disc or a 35mm screening someday

Lots of Rivette films have their double or pair, and the film that I would pair w/ Gang of Four - as its echo inverse etc - is L'amour Fou, the film Rivette made after the disaster of The Nun, also w/ Bulle Ogier and (as I habitually say on this thread) in desperate need of a proper restoration. When I first got into Rivette, investigated his entry in Thomson's Biographical Dictionary, borrowed Jonathan Rosenbaum's scarce BFI mongraph on JR from the old BFI library, I seriously thought I would probably never get to see the complete Out One in my lifetime, and now it is easy to see in high definition, everywhere. So, one day!

"The Nun" is a favorite of mine but it's still a pretty big left turn after "Paris nous appartient", for me, and even though stagey feels the least Rivette of all his films.

All the sapphic habit-diving in the last third of The Nun is borderline risible, but I liked it more than is typical with me and JR. The story of its banning is at least as compelling. (Mme de Gaulle did it)

exciting opportunity to watch out 1 in london

https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2019/jacques-rivette-out-1

I'm guessing that this is a screening of the digital version that Arrow and others have released on Blu-Ray in the last few years, possibly timed to coincide w/ a new standalone Out 1 set w/ both versions of the film:

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/out-1-blu-ray/FCD1886

Still no sign of L'Amour Fou though!

Have a chance to see Duelle for free at a newly opening theater in Seattle in a few weeks.

so watched the full out 1 over the weekend, and still unsure how I feel about it. contrary to what most people’s experience seems to be, I found the extended theatre exercises to be the most captivating; observing the evolutions and magnetism of people, pushing and pulling, growing and deflating — and the moments where what little we learn in the external sequences seem to infect these communities.

i was never bored but frequently frustrated, a feeling that only grew as i realised the whole thing was an improvisational exercise and the total absence of a defined reality, just the world as the individual actors understand it. the sense of lost promise is so strong and I left the cinema on the verge of anger, but living more and more with what it is, am only finding it more fascinating. been thinking of it as a komboloi, something to hold with you, thread through your hands, feel individual moments it as you go about your life, idk looking forward to growing with it

is there an obvious movie to start with this guy? out 1 seems daunting.

just realized his photo is featured a couple times in The Image Book

His most popular is Celine et Julie, after which you can pick others based on whether you like that or not.

Paris Belongs To Us is essential Nouvelle Vague, and shorter than usual for him.

Yeah, Celine et Julie or perhaps La Belle Noiseuse. That one isn't that typical, but it's very easy to watch. Though a lot of the popularity has to do with the very large amounts of nudity in it, I suspect.

Paris Belongs to Us is really mysterious and beautiful and is amazingly confident for a first feature-length film

haven’t seen any other Rivette films yet besides his first and now his last, Around a Small Mountain. it’s interesting that his last film was so straightforward. wondering about the arc in between

more like a rollercoaster

a frequently quiet and/or tedious one

people who have nothing to do and nowhere to go

Finally saw La Belle Noiseuse and found it totally enthralling, and singular and mature among his films I've seen. It avoids most of the pitfalls I half-expected it to fall into when I first heard about it years ago. No clumsy eroticism; It takes the work seriously without veering off into exaggerated or doofy paens to Art. I don't know if you could even call their relationship a battle of wills. They could be two co-workers butting heads over the design of a building or machine. Loved it.

A recent YouTube upload - a subtitled print of L'amour Fou (seemingly sourced from a video) - the image quality might be tough to take over four hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLXKgDCSuJ0

It's my favourite of his!

It's great, except for the director wearing his sunglasses under his chin for most of the duration.

this (by jacques rivette) is the funniest piece of film criticism ever written, in that it somehow massively insults three completely unrelated directors and makes jacques demy look like a nerd pic.twitter.com/Xsu6LFtWZX

— axaxaxas lmaö (@demarionunn) December 29, 2021

from: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/jacques-rivette/rivette-2/

Here's your Rivette news for Spring 2023...

-So far this year, Cohen has released four films on Blu-ray: L'Amour par Terre, La Bande des Qautre, Haut Bas Fragile, and Secret Defense.

-The "version longue" of Va Savoir (3h 45m) was restored in 2021 and has surfaced on the French streaming service UniversCine. A title card about the restoration describes it as the "first version" of the film. You can watch it if you have a VPN and 1 Euro to spare for a month's trial. No subtitles though.

-L'Amour Fou has been restored and is being shown at Cannes. Info and clip here: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/l-amour-fou/. Hopefully Blu-ray to follow eventually!

MUBI's got the Joan films. Watch'em, right?

Yeah, it’s really good!

I saw them both at TIFF in 1994 and found them his most tedious films, then I saw the cut-down version and quite enjoyed it. I suppose a final judgement is yet to come.

No hurry

the first is absolutely incredible, a great marxist film (in the historiographical sense), while the second might be my least favourite rivette

assume these are the recent restorations? for fans of dappled light, the exterior scenes in part 1 are possibly the best work lubtchansky ever did

Great news.

L'amour fou, restored in 4K, coming to UK cinemas in 2024

Trailer: https://t.co/VbCjrXVht1

Check out our new poster 👇 pic.twitter.com/NvnAYFIQ3X

— Radiance Films (@FilmsRadiance) December 22, 2023

I’ve been lucky enough to see this twice (projected at Lincoln Center and MoMA) before the restoration was announced, and it’s really a godsend - the first time I saw it was from a pristine looking print, but the second time (just a couple of years ago) was missing an entire reel that had to be replaced with a crummy old video transfer. That was in addition to the visible damage around the reel changes, so it’s probably been awhile since a decent English-friendly print has circulated.

Only seen it as a torrent rip so really looking forward to it

I call it great upthread, but I really don't remember this one too well. He's a director who "should" be in colour for me.

FWIW, one thing that probably gets lost in video rips is that he shot the film in 35mm and 16mm (the rehearsals are in 16mm, and you can even hear the camera motor, like so many of the classic cinema verite films back in the day). The visual differences should be very apparent when you see this in theaters.

Details about the Radiance Blu Ray of L'Amour Fou (take my money etc)

https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/products/lamour-fou-le

This weekend: https://www.ica.art/films/lamour-fou-4k

Nice. Like the trailer they've made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW2XWbzFCyw

I saw it in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. Highly recommended. Very poorly attended - I went to the first of two screenings and there were about 12-15 people there, and I think a few left at the interval. The last time I saw it was at the same venue back in 2007 (I think) on a very poor print.

It bore the Janus Films logo... maybe it will be released by Criterion, or at least they'll feature it on the channel.

It's coming out on Radiance! Thus the trailer above.

Yes, I preordered that - looks like a great package with some nice extras. But it's Region B so just speculating that there might also be a North American Criterion release.

The screening at the ICA was nearly sold out.

I saw a poor torrent rip of this 10 years ago and didn't get as much out of it as in this viewing as you just don't have to work so hard.

Interesting how this and "La Maman et la Putain" got a clean up and re-release in the same year, as they are of a similar vein. Though here the relationship disintegration is set alongside a piece of art coming together. A strangled death and a painful birth. The half an hour destruction of the flat as the couple try to rebuild their relationship looks forward to "In the Real of the Senses" too.

Probably the film in which he became a really great filmmaker.