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Celine and Julie is probably the best entry point (after which I'd rec Le Pont du Nord), both of which were thankfully among the first of his films on Blu-ray

That’s true: there are a few good entry points out on Blu-Ray, La Belle Noiseuse being another. I just have a bee in my bonnet about most of his post-70s work languishing on DVD (or worse!).

I'm still counting on this happening

soundchaser wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:26 am I’d say several of the best Rivettes don’t have good releases — my absolute favorite hasn’t been released with English subtitles since the VHS days.

Up, Down. Fragile?

swo17 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:31 am Celine and Julie is probably the best entry point (after which I'd rec Le Pont du Nord), both of which were thankfully among the first of his films on Blu-ray

I'll second Celine and Julie as a great starting point as it was the film that really won me over with Rivette (the BFI edition also has a really great commentary by Adrian Martin). Still waiting for Haut bas fragile which is the only other title of his that hasn't been released or mentioned as being restored (L'Amour fou is forthcoming from someone, right?) that I would really love to see come out. I think it only ever got a VHS release which is how I first saw it back in the day.

Read my link! It's supposed to be coming soon

Michael Kerpan wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:42 am

soundchaser wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:26 am I’d say several of the best Rivettes don’t have good releases — my absolute favorite hasn’t been released with English subtitles since the VHS days.

Up, Down. Fragile?

That’s the one. (Cohen’s supposedly got it, but they’re taking their sweet time...)

swo17 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:47 am Read my link! It's supposed to be coming soon

Oh fantastic! (I had the reply window open long enough that I missed that post).

swo17 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:42 am I'm still counting on this happening

I’d love Secret Defense on blu ray. One of my favorites, partially because of it serving as a joke to the majority of Rivette’s preceding body of work by pivoting away from the Pynchoneque meditation on anti-paranoia (to steal from Rosenbaum’s essay on the BFI, pretty much the only validation I’ve gotten on my Rivette/Pynchon comparison) and actually

Spoiler

solving the mystery (through pretty conventional means)

My first Rivette was Va savoir -- which I loved. Followed by Gang of Four, which I also loved. Curiously, it took several viewings for me to begin to love Celine and Julie (as opposed to finding it "interesting"). Pont du Nord, however, became my favorite as soon as I first saw it (unsubbed) -- and even Marie and Julien did not dislodge this from first place. To tell the truth, however, there is not much Rivette that I don't love (or like very very much). Still have yet to see Up, Down, Fragile with subs -- but still like it.

I resisted liking Rohmer until encountering Green Ray. After that, I became more friendly (but still find some of his early stuff too cold and mean).

Thanks for the recommendations guys, I have all the Rivette released on blu so far so I definitely will make some headway into Rivette and Rohmer this year.

Fragile is his only film I haven't seen. I'm not sure about L'amour Fou. I have a bootleg of it that i watched a few years ago and didn't think much of. I'm going to give it another try shortly. Gang, Defense and Marie & Julien are all masterpieces though and Noiseuse is one of the greatest films ever made. La Collectionneuse and Pauline are my two favorite Rohmers. Is the criterion box getting an upgrade? It's not OOP for good, is it?

L'amour fou _screened_ was pretty overwhelming (luckily we did get an intermission). I'd hold off re-visiting the blurry TV quality version floating around -- wait for a real release. Not sure the sort-of-available version represents the film well enough.

Collectioneuse is, I'm afraid, one of my least favorite Rohmer films....

Collectioneuse isn't anyone's favorite Rohmer, even though it looks beautiful

It's mine.

Probably mine too, though very close with others.

My top 4 right now:
1. L'Ami de mon amie (in my top 5 of all time right now)
2. Ma Nuit chez Maud
3. La Collectionneuse
4. Conte d'été

Pauline, The Aviator's Wife, Rayon, the Marquise are all up there as well. Claire's Knee used to be higher up, but man is that film beautiful.

knives wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 4:36 pmIt's mine.

Why am I not surprised? It isn't bad by any means, but it's the least complicated or delightful of everything I watched so far.

I would disagree. In making us identify with his most cruel protagonist it naturally must become complicated. I'd agree it's not delightful, but that seems like dinging a duck for not being a puma.

I haven’t seen it in a while but I believe it triggers an identification with narcissism and selfishness, both innate and situational, that validates them as part of natural human condition as well as defense mechanisms as protection from psychological truths. I think Rohmer does this throughout his work but this is one of his riskiest and most morally dense projects.

A more astute explanation. I think that also connects the film well to his later The English Woman and the Duke which deals with French history in a similar fashion as these human men.

I'd divide my list of favourite Rohmer films accordingly:

1. Perceval
2. A Summer's Tale
3. Pauline at the Beach

and then (really enjoy all of these, but not quite in the same tier as the three above):

4. Love in the Afternoon
5. Claire's Knee
6. Catherine de Heilbronn (had the good fortune of seeing this one with English subtitles on the big screen – kind of like the dark cousin of Perceval!)
7. My Night at Maud's
8. 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle
9. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
10. The Aviator's Wife
11. The Marquise of O
12. The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
13. The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque
14. An Autumn Tale
15. A Tale of Winter
16. The Green Ray

Plenty of others that I like – I'm not sure there's ever been a Rohmer film I've disliked, with the exception of The Sign of Leo and maybe the slightly throwaway Rendezvous in Paris – but I could watch all of the above pretty much endlessly.

Rayon Vert wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 5:16 pm 1. L'Ami de mon amie (in my top 5 of all time right now)

Love this placement, I’ll have to rewatch it soon. I recall being blown away by this one especially in the Comedies and Proverbs set when going through it before the extra films and wondering why it wasn’t talked about more - glad to finally be validated

That's based on the last time I went through all the films, which was the release of the Potemkine set. The six films in that cycle are all terrific, and to my mind equal to the first series, and it's hard to pick favorites, but this one definitely stood out more for me this time out. My write-up:

Rohmer rounds out the Comédies et proverbes cycle with another near-perfect film following Le Rayon vert. Once again we have fairly young, somewhat superficial people whose romantic quests nevertheless have something mysteriously important about them. It’s a meditation on friendship and the true nature of love that at the same time is also an interesting sociological study of an artificial new town. The film has a formal narrative structure that is near-perfect in its symmetry and uses a neat color aesthetic (blue and green, which the opposed characters wear, and which mirror the sky, water and trees of their surroundings) and a quasi-mystic feeling of nature once again, as in Le Rayon vert, in the middle of it. A jewel.

L’Ami de mon amie is probably number three on my list of favorite Rohmer films. Whenever I think of this film, the scene posted above always comes to mind. It’s a gorgeous scene.