Jacques Rivette

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.