The Jacques Rivette Collection

[Numero Trois]

Still, I'd like to understand all the passion people have for the film. Thanks.

This is a start

[TMDaines]

It's difficult to dig through all the Rivette material on the forum to find actual in-depth discussion of Out 1, so can anyone suggest essays or articles to read about the film? I must admit that after watching two episodes...well...I just don't get it. Still, I'd like to understand all the passion people have for the film. Thanks.

I've only see Le Pont du nord and I didn't get that either. I'm going to go into this box with an open mind and see what I find.

[domino harvey]

I'm a Rivette fan and think Pont du Nord is terrible, so don't fret too hard on that one

[hearthesilence]

Pont du Nord is great. FWIW, here's Jonathan Rosenbaum's take, Jim Hoberman's and Michael Atkinson's.

[bearcuborg]

It's difficult to dig through all the Rivette material on the forum to find actual in-depth discussion of Out 1, so can anyone suggest essays or articles to read about the film? I must admit that after watching two episodes...well...I just don't get it. Still, I'd like to understand all the passion people have for the film. Thanks.

I doubt people will admit this, but part of the appeal of Out 1 is that it was difficult to see, and somewhat obscure even now. I've discussed this with Jonathan Rosenbaum over the years, about the films he and other critics of his kind (those who wrote for alternative papers), champion. They love to celebrate the lesser known.

I admit It piqued my curiosity as well when it was announced a screening at MOMI a decade ago.

Another reason I think is that its a long movie. Having seen Satantango many years before that, than Berlin Alexanderplatz - I saw many of the same people at the Rivette screenings. A lot of them shared their fondness for enduring such long movies.

Now I'm not saying that's the only reason, but that's part of it though. Even it is that for some of us here, it's only superficial. Because, once you sit with Out 1, it does work on you in a way that makes you forget the hype (if that was indeed the reason you were introduced into it's existence).

What's remarkable about Out 1 is how the plot doesn't even come together till hour 6 or so. That's something you might want to keep in mind.

For me, the first Rivette films I saw were Celine and Julie Go Boating, and Up Down Fragile in the mid 90s. Both films instantly drew me in because of their references to Lewis Caroll and MGM musicals, both things I loved as a kid. Of course they work for many reasons other than that... Rivette's take on Paris is something I found fascinating. Rosenbaum said this, "For Rivette, Paris is a city of secrets and puzzles, of hidden alliances and privileged locations--a park bench here, a courtyard there--forming the nexus of magical encounters."

Out 1 also has the greatest final shot of any movie I've ever seen.

[domino harvey]

Yes, the film's position as a scarcity fetish object shouldn't be discounted when considering the effusive praise, but it doesn't preclude honest positive reactions either. Like anything, if you don't like it, you don't like it (and vice versa)

[bearcuborg]

I hope he sticks with it, because by hour 6 it drifts toward delirious fiction from it's documentary like beginning. The hilarious Rohmer cameo is not to be missed either.

[knives]

Yes, the film's position as a scarcity fetish object shouldn't be discounted when considering the effusive praise, but it doesn't preclude honest positive reactions either. Like anything, if you don't like it, you don't like it (and vice versa)

Hopefully this doesn't wind up a White Dog situation though.

[Professor Wagstaff]

Thanks, everyone, for some of your own takes and for linking to the opinions of others. I assumed that part of the appeal of Out 1 was the scarcity as well as the length, but I knew the film offered more than that for its fans. Even though I am not responding to the film, I always find it valuable to understand why I don't like something and why so many do. The forum has been important to me over the years to help unpack my own reactions against others who felt differently.

I do plan to finish Out 1, though I'll likely take my time with it. Hopefully I'll have something to add - good or bad - once I make it through the set.

[swo17]

Part of the appeal is the cumulative impact of the film. There may actually only be one normal film's length of brilliant footage interspersed throughout (a lot of it backloaded) but there's something uniquely exciting about discovering these moments among others that deliberately (or even comically at times) test your patience. I think it's best to watch it in as few sittings as possible.

[zedz]

I agree with swo. This, like most really long films, works differently to regularly long films, or indeed most serialized television, and immersion helps. Out 1 is far from my favourite Rivette, though it was long on top of my must-see list because 1) there are several Rivette films that I absolutely adore; and 2) it seemed like I would never have a chance to see it. That said, it gets better and better as it goes along and accumulates incident, plot and resonance, and it includes one of the most incredible scenes I've ever seen in any film - which I'll let you find for yourself. It's the kind of thing that makes you think you might have momentarily left the film and started hallucinating, an unusual sensation that Rivette probably delivers more often than any other filmmaker this side of Ruiz.

[Michael Kerpan]

Pont du Nord is great.

It's not only great -- it is MY favorite Rivette (and one of my honorary top 5 films).

[charal]

To all those unsure of whether your order has shipped I can confirm via an email I received today that the final balance of orders will be shipping within the next 24 to 48 hours. This is due to a late delivery of protective packaging Arrow is using to protect the set; this packaging has just arrived at their warehouse. Don't assume you will get a despatch email (I didn't with my Boro set last year) I would suggest waiting until Monday before contacting them about your despatch date. Apparently non-UK orders won't be sent tracked signed for but by regular Royal Mail, does anyone know different?

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Pont du Nord is great.

It's not only great -- it is MY favorite Rivette (and one of my honorary top 5 films).

I Love Pont du Nord but it's ending/unraveling/dissolve/surveillance (or whatever else you want to call it) is troublesome. The first 120 minutes are mesmerizing.

[Ribs]

I didn't get an email but the listing in my order history updated yesterday to note that it shipped Friday.

[Michael Kerpan]

I Love Pont du Nord but it's ending/unraveling/dissolve (or whatever else you want to call it) is troublesome. The first 120 minutes are mesmerizing.

Spoiler

I think that Marie had (in effect) a death wish. I think Baptiste is (at least partly) freed from her obsession -- and freed to go home (or somewhere safer) by Max after his concluding karate lesson. Not certain I understand the shots through the scope. All in all, I am not unduly troubled. It might be akin to the final scene of Taste of Cherry.

[swo17]

Spoiler

Yeah, it's a playful reminder that it's just a movie, which is its own sort of whimsical game. Wonderful.

[tenia]

Il est arrivé en France ce matin.

I received mine too this morning.

I really like the artwork by Fitzpatrick, though it can look a bit (as a colleague of mine said) like the artwork for a cooking book !

Speaking of books, at first glance, I have to say I'm unimpressed by the 200 pages book of this release. What I like to have in a book(let) is, well, stuff to read. Needless to say I'm expecting to have a LOT to read with such a thick book. But in this one, out of the 200 pages, only 61 pages are for the writings on the movies. The rest of it is credits (movies, restoration, release) and an huge number of pictures. I don't mind having some rare behind-the-scenes pictures included, but in this case, it always feels they become a filler at some point.

Wild Side has done this in France for Lord Jim and Fat City : despite the books having more pages than the previous ones (Red River, Curse of the Demon and The Big Gundown), it has so many pictures that there is only 36 pages on Lord Jim (+ 2 pages of credits) out of its 204 pages book !

The other "complaint" I have is that all these pictures are not placed all together in a "portfolio" section, but are usually spread within the 200 pages. Through the Arrow Rivette book has regrouped a good chunk of them together (between the Out 1 articles and the other movies one), the articles still are interspersed by pictures, and so a 10 pages article is spread over 25 pages and become a bit more tiresome to read.

Anyway. [/Party-pooper]

[pzadvance]

Watched Duelle tonight for the first time, as a tribute to JR's passing. An enigmatic, hypnotic film--considerably more "staged" feeling than my other Rivette experiences, Out 1 and Celine and Julie, but in a fascinating way--Rivette feels more in control of the images and the pacing here than in those films, where the characters and actors seem to be leading the charge. Excellent, deliberate camerawork and the new Arrow transfer, to my untrained eyes, looked magnificent.

The newly-produced featurette, however, was a major disappointment--ten minutes of Hermine Karagheuz struggling to recount a synopsis of the film's plot with Bulle Ogier offering the occasional reliable tidbit of reminiscence. It's sort of astonishing--Karagheuz recalls so little of her experience and involvement with this film that I'm shocked the producers felt they had anything worth editing together. Fingers crossed the rest of the set fares better in the extras department.

[pzadvance]

Well, happy to say it absolutely does get better. The feature-length Out 1 doc is absolutely fantastic and one of the most compulsively watchable extras I've seen in some time. While I think it might've benefited from some critical insight occasionally (would've been nice to see Rosenbaum included to some degree), the extended clips from a 1990 Rivette interview are worth the price of admission alone.

As an added note, I love that the Arrow box set looks like it would be right at home on Bulle Ogier's bookshelf from Out 1:

[bearcuborg]

Good lord was she gorgeous... I met her in NY several years ago at BAM. She signed a friend's Duelle poster. She was so kind. I love the set, I hope you all get your sets soon. For me though, L'amour Fou is Rivette's and Ogier's best work. I'd love to have an upgrade over my existing bootleg DVD.

[hearthesilence]

FWIW here is Rosenbaum's feature for the Chicago Reader on both Duelle and Noroit back in February 27, 1992, when they had their first run ever in Chicago at Facets Multimedia, where they played for a week.

Also, here is his re-post of his Film Comment essay from 1976, preceded by some additional remarks written some time between 2009 and 2013, given the reference to Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. (The Limits of Control always felt like a Jacques Rivette film to me, but not in a way that's derivative or a copy - more like a Jarmusch film using Rivette's puzzle-like, structural breakthroughs as a framework for some trenchant views on the geopolitical landscape of the Bush/Cheney era. An under-appreciated film and close to a masterwork.)

[zedz]

I've made my way through this set over the past few days and it's a marvel.

It's a very strange feeling, having followed Rivette's work for nearly thirty years in tantalising drip feed mode (I've seen all but three of his features now, at the rate of four or five per decade since the 80s) to see three 'new' Rivette films in the course of two days, just after his death. It's kind of overwhelming, but I think I enjoyed Duelle, Noroit and Merry-Go-Round more because of the intensity of the encounter.

One of the things I love about Rivette is his willingness to embrace moments of magic in all of his films, but it seems that it's in his 70s output that the magic really comes to the fore. All four features discard realism at the level of plot in favour of magical transformations, potent talismans and fluid shifts of identity (while paradoxically getting ultra-realist in other ways: the extended improvs of Out 1; the on-screen improvised soundtracks of the vie parallel films). That tension is at the core of many of Rivette's films, and it threatens to tear some of these apart from within, but it was kind of bracing to see his whimsical side let loose with such abandon in Duelle and Noroit. I've heard Rivette's period films described as being like a school pageant, and Noroit has that quality in spades, but it's a quality I find charming.

I also realise that I've been reflexively avoiding spoilers about these unseen films for so long that I was in for a slew of delightful surprises ("wait, is this an adaptation of The Revenger's Tragedy?"; "Is that John Surman?!").

Merry-Go-Round is, frankly, a bit of a mess, but it's the most conventional Rivette film here (in that it has so many of the regular elements of chance encounters, obscure conspiracies, random clues, ominous unoccupied country houses) and I enjoyed its ramshackle nature. Joe Dallesandro and Maria Schneider are rare 'outsider' Rivette leads, but they both come from backgrounds that would seem to be sympathetic with his approach, and they both do well. The parallel wordless story that is intercut throughout is on one hand an obvious patch-job (after Schneider walked away from the project) but on the other the most compelling material in the film, and I love how the on-screen soundtrack idea of the two preceding films is expanded upon in this one - though Rivette is quite close to O Lucky Man!'s approach in this film.

The extras are all solid (except for the near-worthless one cited above), and the Out 1 making-of is exemplary. One of the most mysterious films ever made is laid bare with lucid explanations of process and intent from those responsible. I had little impression of Rivette as a person or personality before opening this set, now, with the interviews included herein, I have a very vivid portrait of him - which of course makes his death all the sadder.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Does anyone recommend watching Spectre first or last?

[spectre]

Spectre second I reckon. That's how I did it.