Jacques Rivette

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.

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.

https://ica.art/films/rivette

Booked a ticket for Merry go round. Have ppl here seen it?

Yes! Watched it some years ago and remember liking it. It’s a unique one in that remember this constant feeling of it being unmoored and barely held together.

Sounds really interesting.

Coming to Criterion Channel in three days.

This was good though ICA forgot to switch on subs and of wasn't noticed properly till half hour in as the first portion is effectively in English.

The person introducing it made some remarks on the problems the film had but you wouldn't know it too much from watching the film cold.

Might see his musical.

https://www.ica.art/films/rivette-haut-bas-fragile

one of his best!

the 35mm screening of hurlevant was a revelation after seeing the flat dvd scan

Had to give up on L’amour Fou. Love his work on occasion (Duelle, La Belle Noiseuse), but this one was frankly inept.

although i wouldn’t name it as one of my favourites there are moments with bulle ogier where he is catching lightning which seems to be the discovery of everything great to come

i watched la belle noiseuse for the first time a couple of weeks ago, pretty amazing stuff. i read that it was a very strenuous filming experience for emmanuelle beart, which makes sense

I love it. I'm afraid of watching it again for fear of ruining my first impression.

Inept is def not a word I would use for L'Amour Fou.

Just learned recently that Out 1, like Berlin Alexanderplatz, is a tv show, and not actually a film with a scary long running time.

Out 1 on a streaming service near you ASAP

L'Amour Fou is like top 3 Rivette.

Alas, I couldn't finish Love on the Ground a couple weeks ago.

L'Amour Fou is great

I can see not liking it but it never gave me the impression Rivette wasn't achieving what he set out to do.

out 1, although split into chapters, is absolutely long film and not a tv show like berlin alexanderplatz

Delighted to have been able to catch a one off theatrical screening of Céline and Julie Go Boating last night -- the program host joked that maybe they'd go for Out 1 one of these days. (Which, if they started at 8 am or so, I could manage.)

TIFF showed Out 1: noli me tangere in two six-hour slots over a weekend; as long as you don't watch anything between the two screenings I can't imagine anyone describing this as an adulterated viewing experience.