Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette | |
---|---|
Movement | French New Wave |
Spouse(s) | Marilù Parolini (divorced) Véronique Manniez-Rivette (his death) |
Awards |
Jacques Rivette (French: [ʒak ʁivɛt]; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. He made twenty-nine films, including L'Amour fou (1969), Out 1 (1971), Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), and La Belle Noiseuse (1991). His work is noted for its improvisation, loose narratives, and lengthy running times.
Inspired by
Although he was the first New Wave director to begin work on a feature film,
During the early 1980s, he began a business partnership with producer Martine Marignac, who produced all his subsequent films. Rivette's output increased from then on, and his film La Belle Noiseuse received international praise. He retired after completing Around a Small Mountain (2009), and it was revealed three years later that he had Alzheimer's disease. Very private about his personal life, Rivette was briefly married to photographer and screenwriter Marilù Parolini during the early 1960s and later married Véronique Manniez.
Biography
1928–1950: Early life and move to Paris
Jacques Pierre Louis Rivette was born in
Although Rivette submitted his film to the
He and his friends also attended screenings at the Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin, which was run by Rohmer. Although Rivette began to write film criticism in 1950 for the Gazette du Cinéma, founded by Rohmer with Bouchet as his assistant, the magazine ceased publication after five issues; Rivette said that being a critic was never his aim, but called it "a good exercise".[18] That year he made his second short film, Le Quadrille, produced by and starring Godard, who raised the money by stealing and selling his grandfather's collection of rare Paul Valéry first editions.[19] Rivette described Le Quadrille as a film in which "absolutely nothing happens. It's just four people sitting around a table, looking at each other."[20] According to film critic Tom Milne, it had "a certain hypnotic, obsessional quality as, for 40 minutes, it attempted to show what happens when nothing happens".[19] When the film was screened at the Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin, Rivette recalled, "After ten minutes, people started to leave, and at the end, the only ones who stayed were Jean-Luc and a girl."[20] Later calling it Lettrist, he said that Isidore Isou, the founder of Lettrism, considered the film "ingenious".[21]
1950–1956: Film criticism and Le Coup du berger
After casual acquaintanceship and collaboration, Rivette and his fellow cinephiles became close friends in September 1950 at the Festival Indépendant du Film Maudit (Independent Festival of Accursed Film), a film festival in Biarritz produced by film critics Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, André Bazin and members of Objectif 49 (a group of avant-garde artists).[22] Rivette, Godard, Truffaut and future cinematographer Charles Bitsch, arriving at the gala event in casual dress, were refused entrance by the doorman until Cocteau allowed them to enter.[23] Openly antagonistic to members of Objectif 49, they loudly criticised the festival. The evening cemented the group's friendship, earning them a reputation of bohemian "young Turks" and troublemakers.[23] Chabrol, Grualult, Rohmer, and Jean Douchet also attended and roomed together at the Biarritz Lycée dormitory for the festival.[24] Rivette criticised the festival in the November issue of Gazette du cinéma, calling Objectif 49 arrogant and claiming a victory over them.[25] He was quickly considered the leader of the group, whom Bazin called the "Hitchcocko-Hawksians."[26] Rivette and his new friends bonded by spending whole days watching repeated screenings of a film and walking home together talking about what they had seen.[27]
In 1951, Bazin founded a film magazine,
While he wrote criticism, Rivette continued his filmmaking career; during the summer of 1952, he made his third short film, Le Divertissement. Charles Bitsch called it "a Rohmer-esque Marivaudage between young men and women."[34] Rivette, an assistant to Jacques Becker and Jean Renoir, was a cinematographer on Truffaut's short film Une Visite (1954) and Rohmer's short Bérénice (1954).[35] Eager to make a feature film, he talked about elaborate adaptions of works by André Gide, Raymond Radiguet and Ernst Jünger.[36] With financial support from Chabrol and producer Pierre Braunberger, Rivette made the 35mm short film Le Coup du Berger (1956). Written by Rivette, Chabrol and Bitsch, the film is about a young girl who receives a mink coat from her lover and must hide it from her husband; spoken commentary by Rivette describes the action like moves in a chess game.[1] Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Jean-Claude Brialy appeared in the film, with Godard, Truffaut, Bitsch and Robert Lachenay as extras.[37] Shot in two weeks in Chabrol's apartment, the budget went entirely to purchasing film stock.[38] It was distributed by Braunberger in 1957.[1] Truffaut called Le Coup du berger the inspiration for him, Chabrol, Alain Resnais and Georges Franju to make their first films: "It had begun. And it had begun thanks to Jacques Rivette. Of all of us, he was the most fiercely determined to move."[39] Rohmer praised the film's mise-en-scene and wrote that it had "more truth and good cinema than in all the other French films released in the past year."[40]
1957–1961: Paris Belongs to Us and the French New Wave
In 1957, Italian neorealist director Roberto Rossellini announced that he wanted to produce a series of films about life in France. Several members of the French New Wave submitted scripts that would become their first films, including Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), Rohmer's Sign of Leo (1959) and Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959). Rivette was eager to make a film with Rossellini's help and met him along with co-writer Gruault to discuss the Cité Universitaire as a "melting pot of cultures and ideas" in Paris. Rossellini suggested that they research the project; shortly afterwards, they received ₣100,000 for their script, entitled La Cité, but Rossellini abandoned the project and went to India to make a film of his own.[41]
Rivette and Gruault revised their story based on Rossellini's critique, and wrote
In Paris Belongs to Us, Anne (Betty Schneider), a young Parisian student rehearsing for a production of Shakespeare's Pericles, deals with the sudden death of the play's composer, a missing tape recording of its musical score, a secret society seeking world domination, an eccentric, paranoid American journalist, the suicide of the play's producer and the mysterious death of her brother. Chabrol, Godard, Jacques Demy and Rivette appear in minor roles.[1]
Le Beau Serge and The 400 Blows were successful, and at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Truffaut and Chabrol used their fame to promote Paris Belongs to Us and help Rivette finish the film.[45] According to Truffaut, who obtained funds for its completion, "The release of Paris nous appartient is a score for every member of the Cahiers du cinéma team". He helped Rivette premiere it at the Studio des Ursulines on 16 December 1961, followed by a run at the Agriculteurs cinema in Paris.[46] Although reviews of the film were mixed, it was praised by L'Express.[47] Pierre Marcabru of Combat said, "The connection between image and sound has never been so striking, evocative or necessary", and Jeander of Libération praised the film's depiction of "the moral and intellectual confusion of these young people who are repressed by their epoch for more than their elders".[48] Rivette, who later said "It's the film of a sixteen-year-old child, but maybe its naïveté is where its strength lies",[49] won the Sutherland Trophy for best first film from the British Film Institute.[50]
Despite being the first of his friends to begin work on a feature, Chabrol, Truffaut and Godard had their feature-film debuts distributed before Rivette in what the French press called New Wave cinema.[1] Rivette later compared the New Wave to impressionist painting; the availability of paint in tubes, which allowed artists to paint outdoors, was similar to technological advancements enabling filmmakers to shoot in the streets. Technical innovations such as faster film stock and the portable Nagra sound recorder became available after the director finished Paris Belongs to Us.[5]
1962–1967: Editor of Cahiers du cinéma and The Nun controversy
After the financial failure of Paris Belongs to Us, Rivette unsuccessfully pitched a film adaptation of Denis Diderot's novel La Religieuse to producer Georges de Beauregard.[51] Undaunted, Rivette and co-writer Gruault began writing the script. In 1962, Rivette suggested that Godard's wife, Anna Karina, would be perfect in the lead role. Godard agreed, but de Beauregard and producer Eric Schulmberger rejected the idea after a Commission de Controle (the French censorship board) review said that it would be banned.[52]
Godard and Karina received funding from theatrical producer
After André Bazin's death in 1958, Rohmer became editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma. By 1962, Rohmer was often at odds with his staff for not promoting New Wave filmmakers.[57] After several financial failures, the directors wanted better publicity, with Cahiers an "instrument of combat" of the New Wave. Rohmer profiled New Wave filmmakers in the December 1962 issue before his June 1963 resignation, when Rivette became his successor.[58] Rohmer later said that the pressure to leave Cahiers was the best thing that ever happened to him as a film director.[59]
Under Rivette's leadership, Cahiers changed from a nonpolitical film magazine to a
Immediately after Rivette left Cahiers, Beauregard was ready to make The Nun (1966) and Rivette and Gruault again revised their script.[66] Rivette called the script a record of the stage play, with a "highly written texture".[17] On 31 August 1965, the censors told Beauregard that the film "run[s] the risk of being totally or partially cut". Beauregard ignored the warning, and Rivette began shooting in October. The film was controversial before its completion; members of the Catholic Church in France began a letter-writing campaign in opposition, and pressurised Paris police commissioner Maurice Papon and Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte to take action. Both said they would ban it.[66]
Rivette finished The Nun in 1966. Although it was approved twice by the censorship board in March, new Minister of Information Yvon Bourges overrode the approvals in April and banned the film.[67] In response, Beauregard began a public campaign in its defense; many journalists, including Godard and Chabrol, wrote editorials demanding the film's release. A "Manifesto of the 1,789" in support was signed by Jacques Prévert, Raymond Queneau, Marguerite Duras and several major French book publishers, and many Catholic priests and nuns denounced the ban's effect on freedom of speech.[68] Rivette told Le Figaro Magazine, "It was as though they had guillotined us",[67] and in Rouen his father André vehemently defended the film against the city's efforts to ban it.[2]
Godard wrote a lengthy editorial criticising Minister of Culture André Malraux.[68] Shortly afterwards, Malraux publicly defended The Nun, allowing it to premiere at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, where it was not subject to censorship. At Cannes the film was critically praised, and Beauregard later successfully sued the censorship board. French President Charles de Gaulle called the controversy "silly", and ordered newly appointed Minister of Information Georges Gorce to lift the ban. The Nun was finally released on 26 July 1967,[69] with the publicity helping make it Rivette's only hit film to that point.[1] Although it received many good reviews, Guy Daussois of Le Populaire said that it was "marked by a schematisation and over-simplicity that is rarely encountered, with absolutely no human depth".[67]
The Nun starred Karina as Suzanne Simonin, as a young woman forced into a convent by her family, who is physically and psychologically tortured. She attempts to escape while dealing with her hateful mother, an empathetic mother superior, an indifferent attorney, a lesbian nun and a sympathetic-but-lustful monk.[1] According to Rivette, "The shooting of La Religieuse was difficult ... I was troubled because we had done the piece before as a play with the sentiments, rehearsals, etc, and I realized when I shot the film that since the people were doing the same text, the same words, my mind was wandering and I was no longer listening to the words".[70] Karina described Rivette's direction as hyperactive; he was constantly "darting in and out of all corners ... always looking at this or that detail."[71]
After the controversy surrounding The Nun, Rivette made a series of documentaries on director Jean Renoir for the French television series Cinéastes de notre temps which aired in 1966 as Jean Renoir, le patron. Around this time, Rivette and Gruault worked on a script for The Taking of Power by Louis XIV; Rivette decided that he did not want to direct another costume drama, and Rossellini directed the film in 1966.[72]
1968–1972: Political activism and cinematic style
In February 1968, Henri Langlois was ousted from the Cinémathèque Francaise by Malraux and Minister of Cultural Affairs Pierre Moinot; a government-appointed board of directors assumed control, and Rivette and his old friends reunited to fight for Langlois' reinstatement. With the Cahiers du Cinéma office as their headquarters, current and former staff members, including Rivette, Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer and Chabrol, began mass letter-writing and telephone campaigns to recruit support.[73] Within days, filmmakers from around the world announced that they would halt screenings of their films unless Langlois was reinstated. Journalists from Le Monde and Combat expressed support, and on 12 February several hundred members of the film industry protested outside the Cinémathèque.[74] Two days later, a protest by over 3,000 people was met by club-wielding police. Rivette spoke at a press conference and led a charge past one of the police barricades, briefly entering the Cinémathèque with Anne Wiazemsky.[75] In March 1968, Rivette was appointed to an advisory committee,[76] and the following month Langlois was reinstated in the Cinémathèque.[77]
The protests led to the creation of the Etats généraux du cinéma Francais, a committee of film-industry workers who wanted more freedom to make films and less control by the
Rivette's next film was
The film has several layers, including a theatrical group rehearsing a production of Jean Racine's Andromaque; a TV documentary crew filming the making of the play in 16mm, and a backstage story about the relationship between the stage director (Kalfon) and his wife and lead actress (Ogier). The film ends with an hour-long argument between Kalfon and Ogier, during which they destroy their apartment and its contents.[1] Kalfon was allowed to direct the stage play during filming.[83] Rivette cast André S. Labarthe as the director of the TV crew after working with him on Cinéastes de notre temps, allowing him to direct the 16mm footage. Rivette and cinematographer Alain Levent then filmed the stage performers and TV crew in 35mm from a distance without intervening.[84] The film was entirely improvised, including the scene in which Kalfon and Ogier destroy their apartment (which had to be done in a single take for budgetary reasons).[85] Released in 1969, the 252-minute film received positive reviews.[1] L'amour fou gave Rivette his second Sutherland Trophy from the British Film Institute.[86]
The director found his cinematic style during the making of this film. According to Rivette, "With improvisation, you automatically listen" and an author is an "analyst, a person who must listen to what the people say—all words are important. You must listen to all and not have any preconceived ideas as a director".
Out 1 starred Jean-Pierre Leaud as Colin, a Parisian con artist who pretends to be a deaf-mute and begins receiving anonymous messages referring to
Out 1 was shown only once in its 760-minute original version at the Maison de la Culture in
1973–1982: Fantasy films and nervous breakdown
During the summer of 1973, Rivette attempted to make Phénix, a film about the early-1900s Paris theatrical world which would have starred
Filled with references to Alice in Wonderland, Jean Cocteau and
Rivette then conceived and obtained funding for a series of four films, Scènes de la vie parallèle. Each film would revolve around two female leads. Part one was to be a love story, part two a fantasy, part three an adventure and part four a musical comedy. According to Rivette, his intention for the film series was "to invent a new approach to film acting where speech, pared down to essential phrases, precise formulas, would play the role of poetic punctuation. Neither a return to silent cinema nor a pantomime, nor choreography: something else, where the movements of the bodies, their counterpoint and inscription in the space of the screen, will be the basis of [a] mise-en-scene."[1] The tetralogy, reflecting the political situation in France, including the conservative backlash after May '68 and the election of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, would be tied together by improvised musical scores.[93] Rivette collaborated on the scenarios with de Gregorio and Parolini.[94]
In Duelle (Une quarantaine) (1976),[a] the Queen of the Night (Juliet Berto) battles the Queen of the Sun (Bulle Ogier) over a magic diamond which will allow the winner to remain in modern-day Paris. In Noroît (Une vengeance) (1976),[b] the pirate Morag (Geraldine Chaplin) seeks revenge against the pirate Giulia (Bernadette Lafont) for killing her brother.[1] Duelle was filmed in March and April 1975, and Noroît was shot at Brittany in May.[96][97] De Gregorio saw Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, and suggested it to Rivette. The script, written in 15th-century English, caused some difficulty for the actresses.[97]
In August 1975, Rivette began filming part one of the series: Marie et Julien, a love story starring
According to the director, it took over a year to recover from his breakdown.[105] Producer Stéphane Tchalgadjieff had renegotiated the contract for the Scènes de la vie parallèle series to require only one more film, the intended first or fourth part. Rivette decided that he wanted to film both or neither and made an unrelated film, Merry-Go-Round (1981). Tchalgadjieff had told him that Maria Schneider wanted to make a film with him and actor Joe Dallesandro and Rivette agreed.[99][100] Shot in 1978 but not completed until 1981, the film is a detective story about a missing sister and inheritance.[1] Rivette relied on improvisation during its production, which he described after a few days as "going very badly".[100] Although Schneider was also recovering from an illness and she and Rivette wanted to abandon the project, they were persuaded to continue by the cast and crew. Rivette said, "There were two people in poor health during filming, and there wasn’t any money at all". Over a year after filming was completed, he added footage of the film's composers, Barre Phillips and John Surman, in performance despite its lack of relation to the plot or characters.[107] Merry-Go-Round, theatrically released in 1981, received mediocre reviews.[108]
In 1980, Rivette decided to remake Out 1. Ogier, the only original-cast member available for the project, and her daughter
1983–1991: Partnership with Marignac and increased recognition
Rivette's difficulties in securing financial backing for his films during the late 1970s led him to a business partnership with Pierre Grise Productions and producer Martine Marignac[111] (1946–2022).[112] The company was the chief distributor and financier for all his subsequent films. Their first film, Love on the Ground (1984), again concerned a theatrical group and the blurring of fiction and reality. Geraldine Chaplin and Jane Birkin star as members of a theatrical troupe who are invited to appear in a new play resembling the real life of its director (Kalfon) and the mysterious disappearance of his wife.[1]
In a break from his experimental, complex style, Rivette next adapted Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Based on the novel's first part and set in 1930s southern France, Hurlevent starred three unknown actors: Fabienne Babe as Catherine, Lucas Belvaux as Roch (Heathcliff) and Oliver Cruveiller as Catherine's brother, William. Hurlevent, Rivette's first film in years without his usual troupe of actors and technicians and modeled on Balthus' India ink illustrations, was released in 1985.[113]
Rivette received critical acclaim for his 1988 film La Bande des quatre (Gang of Four), about four drama students whose lives playfully alternate from theatre to real life and make-believe.[114] According to the director, who wanted to make a film about young people working on a play, "The work is always much more interesting to show than the result".[114] The film received an honorable mention at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.[115]
He enjoyed working with the four young actresses in La Bande des quatre so much, that Rivette returned to the theatre. The actresses had performed a scene from Pierre Corneille's Suréna in La Bande des quatre, so Rivette, the actresses and additional performers rehearsed Corneille's Tite et Bérénice, Jean Racine's Bajazet and a play by Pierre de Marivaux (which was eventually dropped "because he was too hard"). After several weeks of rehearsals, the actresses were ready to perform the two plays, which ran at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint-Denis from 18 April to 20 May 1989. According to Rivette, Corneille's play was more interesting for the actresses; he was "very deep. He's an author I find very dense, so full of history, of thought".[116]
Saul Austerlitz called La Bande des quatre's success "Rivette’s second wind as a filmmaker";
1992–2009: Later films and retirement
Rivette then made a two-part film about the life of
With its large budget, the film was not a financial success. Because of this, Martine Marignac wanted to make a quick, inexpensive film; Rivette, short of ideas, began assembling a cast. He contacted Nathalie Richard, Marianne Denicourt and Laurence Côte, who gave him an idea for a film about 1920s New York City taxi dance halls; this led to Up, Down, Fragile (1995).[123] Richard, Denicourt and Côte star as three women struggling to overcome personal obstacles, with musical numbers at a mysterious nightclub commenting on their lives.[124] In the film, a nod to 1920s and 1930s Hollywood backstage musicals, Anna Karina appears as a nightclub singer whose songs refer to her previous films with Godard.[125] Up, Down, Fragile was screened at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.[126]
Rivette's
In 2002, Rivette published a book of scripts from three of his unmade films, including Marie et Julien.[96] The script for Marie et Julien had never been completed, and the footage from the three days of shooting was lost; Rivette worked from "cryptic notes" taken by his assistant, Claire Denis, which cinematographer William Lubtchansky had kept for decades. His work on a readable script for the publication led him to resurrect the project.[134] Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent collaborated on the script with the actors during production of the revised The Story of Marie and Julien (2003).[104] Rivette cast Béart and Radziwilowicz in the lead roles, saying that it was "more interesting and more exciting" to work with actors with whom he had previously worked,[134] and some dialogue in the original notes was unchanged.[135] Although the film lacked the improvised musical score connecting the first two films, the Madame X character resembles the moon goddess and Marie the sun goddess.[136] It premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival.[137]
In 2007, Rivette made The Duchess of Langeais, a faithful adaptation of Balzac's novel, and the second of Balzac's trilogy, Histoire des treize, the introduction to which inspired Out 1.[138] Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu star as lovers in early 1823 Majorca who are involved in a tormented, frustrating relationship.[139] The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.[140] In 2009, Rivette made 36 vues du pic Saint-Loup; Jane Birkin starred as a woman who returns to her childhood circus troupe after her father dies, and begins a romance with a wealthy Italian drifter (Sergio Castellitto).[141] The film, which premiered at the 66th Venice International Film Festival,[142] was the director's last.[143]
Personal life
Rivette's early years in Paris were impoverished and he was known to live ascetically on minimal resources; Chabrol said that he was very thin and hardly ate, comparing his smile to that of the Cheshire Cat.[144] Gruault described Rivette as "slight, dark-haired and [having] very lively dark eyes in an emaciated visage of a waxy pallor...add to that a forced, nervous smile of someone who has to make constant efforts to win acceptance by a society that he seemed to regard as irremediably hostile."[145] His opinions were highly regarded among his peers and according to Douchet, "[Rivette] was the great talker. He was the group's secret soul, the occult thinker, a bit of a censor."[144] Godard said, "I might like a film very much, but if Rivette said 'It's no good' then I would agree with him ... it was as though he had a privileged access to cinematographic truth."[146] Truffaut considered Rivette his best friend, and they were frequently seen at screenings.[147] Truffaut said that in the 1950s, Rivette was the only member of the group already capable of directing a feature film.[36]
Rivette's friendship with Rohmer was complex due to Rivette's direct role in getting Rohmer fired from Cahiers du Cinéma. Rivette and Rohmer respected each other, but fought over Cahiers' political and aesthetical positions and financial issues.
According to David Thomson, Rivette was "famous for having little or no home life, certainly not a private life that overlaps with his work. On his own, he would rather sit in the dark with another movie"; in 1956, he was described as "too aloof and forbiddingly intellectual".[153] Bulle Ogier described Rivette as very secretive about his life: "I've no idea what he does. I only see him when we're filming" or when she bumped into him in public, although she felt close to him. According to Ogier, he had neuroses and anxiety which often prevented him from answering the phone, and talking about his personal life would be indiscreet and a betrayal.[5] Laurence Côte said that joining Rivette's inner circle of trusted friends was difficult and required "a number of hurdles to overcome and to respect codes." Martine Marignac said that Rivette was very modest and shy, and that his circle of close friends grew used to not hearing from him for prolonged periods of time. Marignac also said that "He spends his life going to the movies, but also reading, listening to music. It is clear that the world of reality assaults him."[154] Jonathan Romney reported that in the 1970s "Rivette sometimes went AWOL from his own shoots, he would invariably be found watching some rarity in one of the Left Bank art cinemas."[155] Jean-Pierre Léaud, who described Rivette as a close friend, said that he "was the only person who saw everything in a film. And he transmitted everything he saw to us, setting in march our own aesthetic ideas".[156] The director was the subject of a 1990 documentary, Jacques Rivette, the Night Watchman, directed by Claire Denis and Serge Daney.[5] Travis Mackenzie Hoover wrote that the documentary portrays Rivette with "lonerish tendencies" and as "a sort of transient with no home or country, wandering about or loitering in public space instead of staking out some personal terra firma."[157]
In 1960, he appeared briefly with girlfriend
On 20 April 2012, film critic David Ehrenstein posted online that Rivette had Alzheimer's disease.[159] Bonitzer and Marignac later said that he began to feel the disease's effects during the negative experience of filming 36 vues du pic Saint-Loup. Shooting days were four hours on average and Rivette often lost track of what had already been filmed, which led to the shorter running time than his previous films.[160] In the mid-2000s, Rivette met his second wife Veronique Manniez. They married shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Marignac said that, "Thanks to her, he avoided hospitals and was able to stay home."[161] Rivette and his wife lived in the Rue Cassette section of Paris, where caregivers and doctors attended to him for the last eight years of his life.[3]
Ever since Parmenides, and his duel
between being and not-being, the
greatest minds have jabbered
on and on about this
brotherly squabble, wringing hands over
Socrates' alphabet, in vain until
Google:
power and glory,
liberty and fraternity,
peace and war,
infinity and totality,
penury and democracy,
terror and virtue,
poetry and truth,
et cetera,
I actually for a second wanted to add
nature and metaphor
to all this charivari,
believing to grasp reality, like
it's said by the pros and the
amateurs of the profession,
mixing shot and reverse-shot,
but this evades one
last time all those
vanities, that the little boy
from Rouen, having in the end taken back
his mind from his movie life,
as a man simple and complicated
as he was, a match for
himself and justly proclaiming:
secret and law — for the screen
did not hide anything from anything. — Jean-Luc Godard, in the interview "Le secret et la loi" in the March 2016 issue of Cahiers du Cinéma[162]
Death
Rivette died on 29 January 2016 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 87, in his home in Paris. He was memorialised by President
Rivette was buried on 5 February 2016 in the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris, not far from François Truffaut's grave. Bonitzer, Marignac and Narboni all spoke at the funeral. Rivette's sister and nephews also attended. Véronique Manniez-Rivette told the funeral goers that just as angels are said to sing during moments of silence at twenty minutes past the hour, Rivette had died at 12:20pm.[3] The March 2016 issue of Cahiers du Cinéma was dedicated to him.[162] In May 2016 the Cinémathèque française announced that Rivette's first three short films had been rediscovered by his widow and were being restored and then screened at the Festival Coté Court that June.[175]
Works
- Jacques Rivette filmography
- Jacques Rivette bibliography
- Themes and style in the works of Jacques Rivette
Notes
- ^ Both the french title – the feminine form for the noun "duel" – and the director's chosen English title Twhylight – a contraction of twilight and why – are neologisms.[95]
- ^ The title being a contraction of nord-ouest, "north-west," meaning the direction or the wind from that direction, in English a "nor'wester" [95]
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Wakeman 1988, pp. 895–902.
- ^ a b c Ruellan, André. "Jacques Rivette" (in French). Art-Culture-France. Archived from the original on 7 February 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
- ^ a b c Heliot, Armelle (5 February 2016). "Obsèques de Jacques Rivette: l'adieu de Bonnaire, Béart, Balibar..." Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 6 February 2016.
- ^ "Jacques Rivette". Lycée Pierre-Corneille. 29 January 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f Denis, Daney & 24 February 1994.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 16.
- ^ Baecque 2010, p. 55.
- ^ Baecque 2010, p. 39.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 16; Wiles 2012, p. 2.
- ^ Wakeman 1988, pp. 895–902; Denis, Daney & 24 February 1994.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 49; Baecque 2010, p. 36.
- ^ Monaco 1976, p. 305; Baecque 2010, p. 36.
- ^ Baecque 2010, p. 37.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 17.
- ^ MacCabe 2003, p. 150; Brody 2008, p. 16.
- ^ Baecque 2010, pp. 36–37.
- ^ a b Monaco 1976, p. 305.
- ^ Denis, Daney & 24 February 1994; Baecque 2010, p. 39; Baecque & Herpe 2016, p. 51.
- ^ a b Monaco 1976, p. 313.
- ^ a b Brody 2008, p. 19.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 20.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 47; MacCabe 2003, p. 67; Baecque 2010, pp. 41–42.
- ^ a b MacCabe 2003, p. 67.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 48; Baecque 2010, p. 41.
- ^ Baecque 2010, pp. 41–42.
- ^ Brody, Richard (11 September 2010). "Notes on Cahiers". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
The best critics in the history of art are themselves artists or philosophers (I vote for Nietzsche); and the best critics in the history of cinema are the "Hitchcocko-Hawksians," the future New Wave, because their writings were already a part of an artistic project and point in the direction of an artistic practice that is remarkably fertile to this day.
- ^ Denis, Daney & 24 February 1994; Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 49; Brody 2008, p. 17.
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- ^ Wakeman 1988, pp. 895–902; Wiles 2012, p. 3.
- ^ a b Jacob & de Givray 1988, p. 90.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 15.
- ^ Wakeman 1988; Truffaut 1994, p. 320.
- ^ Marie 1997, p. 83.
- ^ Truffaut 1994, p. 323.
- ^ Jacob & de Givray 1988, p. 172; Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 150.
- ^ Jacob & de Givray 1988, p. 172.
- ^ Monaco 1976, p. 314.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 145.
- ^ "Paris Belongs To Us". Mubi. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ^ a b Brody 2008, p. 142.
- ^ MacCabe 2003, p. 142; Brody 2008, p. 142.
- ^ Monaco 1976, p. 306; MacCabe 2003, p. 143; Brody 2008, p. 144.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 23.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 144.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 176.
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- ^ Brody 2008, p. 177.
- ^ a b c d Austerlitz, Saul (24 January 2003). "Jacques Rivette". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 200.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 26.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 206.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 207.
- ^ Neupert 2007, p. 273.
- ^ a b Brody 2008, p. 273.
- ^ a b c Wiles 2012, p. 24.
- ^ a b Brody 2008, p. 275.
- ^ Brody 2008, p. 276.
- ^ a b Monaco 1976, p. 310.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 22.
- ^ Gallagher 1998, p. 571.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 236.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 237.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 238; MacCabe 2003, p. 203.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 239.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 240.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 243.
- ^ Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 244.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 42.
- ^ Wiles 2012, pp. 45–46.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 140.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 46.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 44.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 51.
- ^ "L'amour fou". Mubi. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
- ^ Monaco 1976, p. 307; Wakeman 1988, pp. 895–902.
- ^ a b Wiles 2012, p. 53.
- ^ a b Monaco 1976, p. 307.
- ^ Lim, Dennis (4 June 2006). "An Elusive All-Day Film and the Bug-Eyed Few Who Have Seen It". The New York Times. New York, NY. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
- ^ a b Rosenbaum, Jonathan (28 June 1983). "Jacques Rivette [chapter from Film: The Front Line 1983]". jonathanrosenbaum.net. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 141.
- ^ Wiles 2012, pp. 62–63.
- ^ a b c di Laurea, Tesi (2012). L'amica delle rondini. Marilù Parolini dalla scena al ricordo. Memorie e visioni di cinema e fotografia (PDF) (in Italian). Anno Accademico. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
- ^ The Chicago Reader. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
- ^ a b c Azoury, Philippe (20 March 2002). "Ces Rivette qu'on aurait dû voir". Libération (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ a b Wiles 2012, pp. 141–143.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 63.
- ^ a b Rosenbaum, Jonathan (1983). Jacques Rivette: Texts and Interviews. London, UK: British Film Institute.
- ^ Cahiers du cinéma. Paris. pp. 42–49. Archived from the originalon 9 March 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 120.
- ^ "Histoire de Marie et Julien press conference". Reeling Reviews. September 2003. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 62.
- ^ a b Megahey, Noel (7 March 2005). "Histoire de Marie et Julien (2003) Region 2 DVD Video Review". The Digital Fix. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ a b Wiles 2012, p. 143.
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- ^ a b Wiles 2012, p. 74.
- ^ Morrey & Smith 2010, p. 2.
- ^ a b Wiles 2012, p. 146.
- ^ Goodfellow, Melanie (18 July 2022). "Martine Marignac Dies: Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Leos Carax Producer Was 75". Deadline. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
- ^ Wakeman 1988, pp. 895–902; Wiles 2012, p. 31.
- ^ a b Wiles 2012, p. 115.
- ^ "Berlinale: 1989 Prize Winners". Berlin International Film Festival. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 35.
- ^ "Le Palmarès 1991 : Compétition". Cannes Film Festival. Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
- ^ "Liste Des Prix du meilleur film français depuis 1946" (in French). Le Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma. Archived from the original on 31 January 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- Allocine. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 38.
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- ^ "1995 Awards" (in Russian). Moscow International Film Festival. 1995. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 87.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 86.
- ^ Wiles 2012, pp. 92–94.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 92.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 160.
- ^ a b "Histoire de Marie et Julien". Écran Noir (in French). 12 November 2003. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ Interview with Jacques Rivette, The Story of Marie and Julien DVD special feature.
- ^ Wiles 2012, pp. 120, 122.
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- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 127.
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- ^ "TIFF announces 32 titles for September". Screen Daily. 26 June 2007. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ Wiles 2012, p. 132.
- ^ "66th Venice International Film Festival: 7 September". Venice Biennale. Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
- ^ Kupecki, Josh (9 January 2015). "Revisiting Rivette". The Austin Chronicle. Austin, TX. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
- ^ a b Baecque & Toubiana 1999, p. 49.
- ^ Baecque & Herpe 2016, p. 48.
- ^ MacCabe 2003, p. 142.
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- ^ Baecque & Herpe 2016, pp. 158–159, 162.
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- ^ Thomson, David (23 September 2001). "Jacques Rivette: A Film, Like a Face, Is Part of a Body". The New York Times. New York, NY. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
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- ^ Fairfax, Daniel (July 2014). ""Thirteen Others Formed a Strange Crew": Jean-Pierre Léaud's Performance in Out 1 by Jacques Rivette". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
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- ^ "Some Came Running: "Girls," circa 1974". Somecamerunning.typepad.com. 20 April 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
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- ^ Kehr, Dave (29 January 2016). "Jacques Rivette, French New Wave Director, Dies at 87". The New York Times. New York, NY.
- ^ a b "Cahiers du Cinéma number 720". Cahiers du cinéma. Paris. March 2016. Archived from the original on 23 April 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
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Bibliography
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- Baecque, Antoine de; Herpe, Noël (2016). Éric Rohmer: A Biography. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-17558-6.
- Baecque, Antoine de; Toubiana, Serge (1999). Truffaut: A Biography. New York, New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-375-40089-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-8015-5.
- Denis, Claire; Daney, Serge (24 February 1994). Jacques Rivette, le veilleur, part 1: "Le Jour", part 2: "La Nuit" (TV). Cinéma, de notre temps, Arte.
- Gallagher, Tag (1998). The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini. New York, New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80873-0.
- Jacob, Gilles; de Givray, Claude (1988). François Truffaut: Correspondence 1945-1984. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-13001-5.
- MacCabe, Colin (2003). Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-571-21105-0.
- Marie, Michel (1997). La Nouvelle Vague: Une ecole artistique. Paris, France: Editions Nathan. ISBN 978-2-091-90690-4.
- Monaco, James (1976). The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Charbrol, Rohmer, Rivette. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-195-01992-6.
- Morrey, Douglas; Smith, Allison (2010). Jacques Rivette (French Film Directors). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-719-07484-4.
- Neupert, Richard (2007). A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-21703-7.
- Truffaut, François (1994). The Films in My Life. New York, New York: Da Capo press. ISBN 0-306-80599-5.
- Wakeman, John (1988). World Film Directors, Volume 2. New York, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. ISBN 978-0-824-20757-1.
- Wiles, Mary (2012). Jacques Rivette (Contemporary Film Directors). Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07834-7.
External links
- Jacques Rivette at IMDb
- Jacques Rivette at AllMovie
- Jacques Rivette at AlloCiné (in French)
- jacques-rivette.com- a website devoted to Rivette's film and journalism careers
- Biography on newwavefilm.com
- sensesofcinema.com Great Directors article
- Jonathan Rosenbaum: Jacques Rivette [chapter from Film: The Front Line 1983]
- Edition de « De l'abjection » (1961) par Jacques Rivette, sur le site d'analyse L'oBservatoire (simple appareil). (in French)
- Craig Keller obituary