Jacques Rivette

[furbicide]

Hmm, well, that doesn’t sound promising.

I wonder what the prospects are of Artificial Eye bringing it out again (they handled the DVD in the UK back in the day).

[JSC]

For some reason, I thought Va Savoir was the one late period Rivette that Cohen didn’t have the rights to.

According to the original press release, the remaining films that Cohen licensed but haven't released are: Wuthering Heights,
La belle noiseuse: divertimento, and The Story of Marie and Julien.

As for the remaining later films:

Apart from Va Savoir (if I remember correctly), Cinema Guild released 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup (Around a Small Mountain)
on dvd, and Artificial Eye brought out a dvd of Ne touchez pas la hache (The Duchess of Langeais).

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

IFC released The Duchess of Langeais in the U.S. Their DVD was one of those infuriating "Blockbuster exclusives" and doesn't seem to have ever been reissued, but IFC still distributes it digitally. Maybe they'll release it through their new venture with OCN, but I can't imagine it's high on their priority list.

[TMDaines]

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

[soundchaser]

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

Which ones have you tried? For me, Rivette gets really interesting in the 80s and 90s; I find his Nouvelle Vague-era work his least exciting, generally. (Although I adore C&J, so your mileage (in a boat) may vary!)

[therewillbeblus]

Same, except his first feature is his best

[domino harvey]

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

If Celine didn’t do it, abandon ship. I don’t know why others are encouraging you— do y’all really think it’s going’s get better for someone who doesn’t at least vibe with that one? It’s fine to not like Rivette or any director, and three tries is a good effort put into it

[FrauBlucher]

I don’t know why others are encouraging you—

This came to mind...

[therewillbeblus]

I didn't like Godard despite seeing nearly all of his first slate, and would've placed Pierrot le fou amongst my least favorite films ever, back when I first took a crack at him. A little while later, the opposite of all of that is now true. Perhaps taking a break and returning later if you're motivated to tackle his work under a fresh mindset is the better call.. but nobody has to do anything, regardless of encouragement. I like to give people the benefit of believing that they know they are allowed to walk away from art etc. when they want to. If any encouragement is taken, it means that was really sought with enough intrinsic motivation at inception, at least as much as the degree the encouragement was helpful in isolation. I'm also not sure one makes a post like that in the first place if they're not welcoming a response of either encouragement or 'Yeah, Rivette sux'

[Michael Kerpan]

Pont du Nord (seen unsubbed) was the Rivette film that cemented my love for (most of) his work. On the other hand, it took me 3 viewings to really fall under the spell of Celine and Julie (ironically, it was the unsubbed French DVD, which just plain looked better than what I had seen before) which sealed the deal. Still, not sure that C&J gets even a second-place finish (were I to actually rank things). Despite my affection for his work, I can EASILY see someone being completely unable to sync with his peculiar cinematic rhythm.

[soundchaser]

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

If Celine didn’t do it, abandon ship. I don’t know why others are encouraging you— do y’all really think it’s going’s get better for someone who doesn’t at least vibe with that one? It’s fine to not like Rivette or any director, and three tries is a good effort put into it

More out of curiosity than anything — if the three were, for example, The Nun, Noroît, and Céline & Julie, I’m not surprised the poster bounced off his work! I agree that it’s unlikely they’d fall in love with him as a filmmaker, but I know of at least one person who can’t stand C&J but likes other Rivettes, so it’s possible!

[MichaelB]

I needed a second go at Céline et Julie - I simply wasn’t in the mood first time round.

[TMDaines]

I watched Le Pont du Nord many years ago, Paris nous appartient last year and now this last night. Rare evening to myself, wife out, child fast asleep. Perfect setting. Paris I just found a bit dull and overly long, but it is close to some films that I actually do really like, but overall they just feel a little bit amateurish, wink-wink, cooky, nudge-nudge, and I'm not in the on jokes or the conspiracy. I still have lots of his work on Blu-ray to watch. I'd like to watch The Nun, L'amour fou, La Belle Noiseuse and Joan the Maiden at some point. The Arrow boxset just literally terrifies me at this point though.

I watched the BFI Blu-ray of Celine and that has the fake playlists anti-piracy feature whereby if you are playing the disc on a PC and not a licensed Blu-ray player, you could potentially not be able to work out the real film from hundreds of remixed/re-edited fakes. I genuinely had to stop the film halfway through at one point and check I wasn't accidentally watching one of the remixed fake playlists, when they kept going in and out of the house and scenes kept repeating in the second half of the film.

.

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

If Celine didn’t do it, abandon ship. I don’t know why others are encouraging you— do y’all really think it’s going’s get better for someone who doesn’t at least vibe with that one? It’s fine to not like Rivette or any director, and three tries is a good effort put into it

I've seen your LB scores for his works, and I've noticed we often dip into similar pools of films of the beaten path, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. Because of that, I thought this was one might click for me. I've seen you are generally quite polarised by his works.

I don’t know why others are encouraging you—

This came to mind...

Considering that is my current life between the hours of 17:30 and 19:00 every single evening, feeding a child and then being fed Rivette myself feels painfully like a double bill.

[tenia]

I can't say I liked most of the Rivette I saw, but still, I quite liked Jeanne la pucelle and Secret défense.

I watched the BFI Blu-ray of Celine and that has the fake playlists anti-piracy feature whereby if you are playing the disc on a PC and not a licensed Blu-ray player, you could potentially not be able to work out the real film from hundreds of remixed/re-edited fakes.

They thankfully stopped doing that a couple of years ago now (especially since it didn't prevent managing to pirate it anyway).

[furbicide]

Celine and Julie makes it 3/3 Rivettes that have simply bored my absolute tits off. I'll keep trying others. I may just have to accept that Out 1 eventually will just be a write-off of a day of my life.

If Celine didn’t do it, abandon ship. I don’t know why others are encouraging you— do y’all really think it’s going’s get better for someone who doesn’t at least vibe with that one? It’s fine to not like Rivette or any director, and three tries is a good effort put into it

This was my instinctive response too, but I think there might be something to be said – if there's a desire to take in an eclectic range of Rivette's work before abandoning him forever – for checking out something like La Belle Noiseuse or Va savoir, which I think are likely to appeal to someone who likes, say, Rohmer films but isn't so much into the more radical/playful tone of Celine and Julie. I do think there's a real shift in his work after maybe the mid '80s where he started being a little less formally experimental/"difficult".

TMD, I definitely wouldn't bother with anything from the Arrow set except maybe Out 1 if you're feeling particularly brave/masochistic; I reckon the '70s films are all squarely in the "if you hate C+J, you'll loathe these" territory (and same with L'amour fou when it comes out).

[JSC]

It's fascinating how one's personal tastes can completely change and alter over time. Like a lot of people I was first
exposed to the nouvelle vague through The 400 Blows, Breathless, and Jules et Jim et al. Rivette, Rohmer, and
Chabrol (for me) were outliers for a long time.

These days, however, I probably watch Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol far more than I do Truffaut or Godard (I've seen the
full version of Out 1 twice... and I try to watch Celine et Julie at least once a year). However, what amazes me about
each of the 'big five' is that despite a shared early passion for cinema, they took their own distinct and personal routes.

[TMDaines]

TMD, I definitely wouldn't bother with anything from the Arrow set except maybe Out 1 if you're feeling particularly brave/masochistic; I reckon the '70s films are all squarely in the "if you hate C+J, you'll loathe these" territory (and same with L'amour fou when it comes out).

Hah, still gotta buy that as I love Radiance's direction and I'll give it a chance sometime. Days when I can watch 3+ hour films alone are few and far between though.

In terms of what I like the most from the French New Wave, I love most of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales and the other works I have seen, also most of Godard's feature films from that period (with a few exceptions like Pierrot and Le petit soldat), plus most of the usual canonical key works I find somewhere on a scale from good to a masterpiece. There's virtually very little that I have seen that I haven't liked, although I won't pretend to have covered everything like some have here. The genuine negative experiences have pretty much been just the Rivettes, the odd Godard and Muriel.

[hearthesilence]

I can't recommend Rivette to everyone either - when I saw Celine et Julie at Film Forum years ago (back when it was still hard to find), I remember one guy behind me moaning out loud close to the three hour mark. I'm guessing he had an ailment and was probably in physical pain from sitting that long, but it was easy to imagine that he just couldn't take the film anymore, and the stifled laughter from other patrons gave me the impression the same thought occurred to them. I loved it though and most of the audience in that sold out screening applauded at the end - but if you don't get a film, 192 minutes of it is going to be punishing.

[furbicide]

Yep, on paper it's easy to sympathise, and the film defeated me on my first attempt too; I returned the tape to the video store halfway through and only came back to give it another try a year later.

On the other hand, I showed it to my (then) eight-year-old son across two sittings and he loved it! I think it helped that I'd taken him to see the house in Garches when we were in Paris last year and, as a result of his questions, I'd given him basically the entire synopsis ahead of time. Plus he'd only just gotten into reading in a big way and so I think took some pride in being able to read the subtitles, though of course there were plenty of things I needed to explain and contextualise (... and, in a couple of cases, gloss over). Personally, I can't imagine not adoring – or, at least, getting something out of – the film now, but then I also sometimes find it hard to explain precisely why it is that I love the film so much.

[therewillbeblus]

Rivette is an acquired taste, and I certainly get a lot more out of all of his films now that I've seen them all and get what he's up to. That's a big part of the attraction to him for me, revisiting certain films after acclimating further to his idiosyncratic tone of anxious anti-paranoia, and specific sense of play and approach to role playing. There are several films that I'd imagine would have been unbearable if I saw them first! I certainly didn't love Celine and Julie on a first watch, and could still confidently leave it off of a Top Five Rivette list sans guilt. I also didn't truly fall in love with Rivette until I fell in love with Pynchon's work, as I find the overlapping theme of anti-paranoia more fascinating than a lot of the authors' respective differences in interests and style.

[Michael Kerpan]

Well, perhaps luckily my introduction to Rivette was Va savoir -- and I acquired a taste for his work immediately.

[therewillbeblus]

What's funny is the finally-subbed long version of that film may be the best entry point for many viewers, as it's most transparently just a light, silly screwball comedy that can now breathe, while also communicating Rivette's vibe and interests effectively with no real stakes compared to his other anti-paranoia work.. but watching the truncated version is perhaps the worst way to begin!

[Michael Kerpan]

Never had a chance to see the long version yet -- just the short version supplemented by the full translated version of the encapsulated Pirandello play. Hoping to run across a subbed long version one of these days.

[feihong]

Coming at it from a different angle, I have never met anyone who has seen Celine & Julie and not been moved and won over by it––except some members in this forum. This is less about guilting people for their reactions than just to say that I don't understand how some people have encountered this movie and not been changed by it? It's hard for me to imagine why not.

My own introduction to the picture was incredibly protracted. I had rented the 2-tape VHS of the film from a DVD rental place, Videotheque, in South Pasadena (where Halloween was filmed––in fact, a few buildings down from the Michael Myers house, apropos of nothing). I watched the film over two days, in 5-to-6-minute increments, while I rendered out FX shots for a video project. Constantly interrupted, I couldn't wait to get back to the film, and every time I returned to it was like a validation of my love of movies, of play, of the power of imagination, etc. It was bracing. I returned the tapes to the shop, and the owner raised his eyebrow when he saw them. Few people took out the VHS selections he stocked, and he had obviously seen Celine & Julie.

"What'd you think?" he asked, with a mirthful air of conspiracy. As I struggled to put it into words, he nodded like he got it. That same, transformational experience––he had it, too. That's why he stocked the tapes, even though hardly anyone ever rented them.

I've seen the movie in so many compromised viewings since. Going to a screening at UCLA once, the programmer came out and apologized because the print––which looked beautiful when he saw it a year prior––was so red as to be monochromatic. He offered everyone their money back, but the whole audience stayed (I think maybe one person did leave? But no more than that). The first reel was mistakenly framed in 1.85:1, cutting subtitles off (the projectionist corrected this by the second reel, to audience applause). In spite of that labor, the film got constant audience engagement, and a standing ovation from the whole audience at the end.

I tend to agree with David Thomson, that the movie is "the most innovative film since Citizen Kane." In later viewings I've projected the film on a bedspread, watched it on bootleg DVD, enjoyed it without subtitles on French blu ray, and finally appreciated in Criterion's blu ray release. No matter how non-optimal the screening, I've never known anyone to be less than profoundly transported by what they're seeing. The film is a live document of its own invention, a vindication of creativity as a force stronger than lumpen reality. In my experience, it makes people long to make movies themselves.

I've appreciated other Rivette films, but not perhaps to the same degree. Paris Belongs to Us has had some of the same "we're making a movie now" energy––though the self-conscious performances and some sub-par writing compromises the endeavor somewhat––but I think one can imagine seeing that film at the time that the French New Wave was happening and realizing you were seeing a new approach to making movies. I appreciated some of the same spontaneity in Norwest, Duelle, and Merry-Go-Round, without feeling the same sense that the movie was working, that it was coming together. I felt a similar attempt in Gang of Four, without the joy or exuberance (though with some measure of cleverness and with a performance by Ines de Medeiros which was very good), and in Up Down Fragile, without a strong sense that the film ever came together. I've liked Secret Defense quite a bit, and I'm looking forward to seeing L'amour Fou. Personally, I got very little out of La Belle Noiseuse––that view of the artist's work seemed overly-precious to me. I've made an attempt at Out 1––I got about 3 1/2 hours in––and I mean to go back to it one day, maybe. Le Pont du Nord is an odd one for me, where I would think to appreciate each aspect of the film, but I find myself unable to appreciate them all together. I've loved Bulle Ogier in so many movies before, I think Pascale gives a very special performance in Le Pont du Nord. I've liked Pierre Clementi before, but his age and his mellowness shocked and displeased me in the Rivette film. I love Astor Piazzolla, and applauded the use of his music in the Paris setting. I love the Fassbinder film The Third Generation, which Bulle Ogier had intended Le Pont du Nord to follow (as if her character from that movie were released from prison into the Rivette film). I just didn't like all of that when it got mixed together and became Le Pont du Nord. I have to say that none of the films have transported me with the same verve and inspiration as Celine & Julie. I don't have any great analysis of the film, but I'm frankly mystified what people don't see in that movie, that they want to. To me, Celine & Julie simply is what film should be, what any art should be: exuberant joy––joy at the freedom to imagine, to reinvent the game as it is being played, to make a comedy of so many layers of human absurdity. The film is funny, literate, and seemingly vacant of the pressure of its own existence––it does not sweat to entertain. I can only feel the pull of constant invention as I watch––it is always in the process of transforming before my eyes. No other movie has seen to do this for itself so shockingly, and so well. So to me it is a film by which others are measured.

[furbicide]

Beautifully articulated, feihong. You've written a lot that I've felt for the film but not been able to put into words, particularly here:

To me, Celine & Julie simply is what film should be, what any art should be: exuberant joy––joy at the freedom to imagine, to reinvent the game as it is being played, to make a comedy of so many layers of human absurdity. The film is funny, literate, and seemingly vacant of the pressure of its own existence––it does not sweat to entertain. I can only feel the pull of constant invention as I watch––it is always in the process of transforming before my eyes. No other movie has seen to do this for itself so shockingly, and so well. So to me it is a film by which others are measured.