Jacques Rivette

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There's a previously unpublished '71 interview with Rivette in French film mag "La Septième Obsession" this month.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