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barbarella -- I don't think there is any hint that the girl remains with Celine and Julie after they (literally, at last) go boating. In fact, as I recall, the very end of the film shows them re-starting their own "interpersonal" narrative (albeit in altered form). I've never known exactly what to make of that concluding "reboot".

I guess, in a way, they are in their own time loop, just like the characters in the house. But this time Celine and Julie are switched, so that sense of anarchy/indeterminism that carries through the film presumably persists – perhaps with wildly different outcomes, not even including the haunted house at all, this time – in contrast to the robotic characters going through their predetermined motions in the James story. That universe is over and a new one has begun, but at all levels everything is circular...

I subscribe pretty much wholecloth to the David Thompson interpretation of the film. He suggests that Celine and Julie are real characters "only to the extent that they conspire to make the world around themselves fictional" (may be interpreting slightly), and that at the end of the film they retreat to the real world, which is then revealed to be "merely another closet of the imagination." The recasting of the leads in the final moments I think does give some credence to this interpretation; the suggestion being that the same story might have played out or might yet play out, even with the roles reversed, and with even less grip on reality (as I recall, Celine yells to Julie at the end she's forgotten...what was it? She identifies what Julie drops deliberately by the wrong word.).

The final shot of the cat is so peculiar that I sometimes like to read it as the cat being the observer/viewer, and - not literally musing on if this is the kind of narrative logic that a cat could conceive of but- using the cat as a foreign vessel to insinuate the many valid sources of perception that influence our 'reality'

Right, and I think the cat suggests play and enchantment, as well; even though Celine and Julie and Madeleine have passed from one world to another and another, we've never left that state of enchantment, because we're still wrapped in this larger parcel of fiction. Part of what makes this the ultimate Rivette movie for me is the playful way it suggests that fiction need hew only so close to reality––that the two states are made of similar stuff, but put together entirely differently. At the beginning of the film, Julie observed one of the cats, lost its' own intrigue, its own fiction––or maybe we observed the cat? I'm not sure Julie ever looks at it. And then in the end of the movie, the cat is observing us, lost in the fiction we're seeing. So we've gone from observer to the observed, as we become more engrossed in what's going on. But I think the film never loses that level of critical distance that makes you aware that what you're watching is entirely constructed––and in some cases seemingly constructed on the fly. This is what makes it to me the Rivette film that encompasses and surpasses all others––it's a work so self-aware and presented with such confidence that it can afford to be funny, and, more importantly, it can afford to seem light. Rivette's films before this––and even films afterwards, like La Belle Noiseuse––seemed to demand more stakes to work, and most of them exist in a world that attempts to be more "real" (barring his immediate attempts to follow Celine and Julie, from Noirot to Merry-go-round, which try and go in the other direction, towards pure, liberating fantasy). Celine and Julie doesn't need to do this, because its' intellectual address of imagination is more thorough. Celine and Julie the characters are ensorcelled by fiction, trying to tell it, then to experience it almost like spectators of a movie screen (through the middle portion of the film they seem to "watch"––and comment upon––the drama that plays in their minds. They are so immersed and involved in this fiction they are inspired to pass through it, moving from spectators to actors within it––and I think if we've been engrossed in the film when that ending with the cat arrives, we might realize we've been inspired to follow that same movement, in the same way. The feeling of the film is that of constantly moving deeper into level upon level of story, but with each level revealed as insubstantial when we encounter it. But no one in the film is at all bothered by that lack of substantiality. Play is where the characters find themselves, find what meaning they can, and I think that play is analogized with that of the cats, one of whom stares at us in this ending as a challenge to our sense of center, to our sense of perception. The cat may bolt, or it may find a game to play with us, the audience. What do depth and stakes matter? What immerses us is the sense of play. The ideas in this drama have no deeper meaning than that which inspires the characters, and the spectators, to play.

Great post, feihong. I do think Up, Down, Fragile retains this same ethos in its musical skeleton that refuses to overwhelm its characters (well, at least two of them) with traditionally grave plot points. The ruse of the nefarious group and the father's duplicitous evidence, the criminal ties and potentially devastating romantic triangle, become trivialized and carelessly discarded through play (not always in musical numbers, but Ninon and Louise's separate and linked experiences convey this spirit that renders all attempts at melodrama- like in the repetitive, constricting house narrative in C+J- impotent). I agree that C+J is more analytically transparent about this in its formalism, perhaps making it the ultimate Rivette to study, but I find the later film to be better for many reasons, but to offer up one: because in contrasting the two aforementioned girls with the corporeal character of Ida, who is not self-actualized enough to access this third-eye perception to brush with fiction, we can observe and experience the breakdown of our potential as well as our self-imposed limitations to engage with films, and life, on this ethereal level.

Heh. I'll have to watch Up, Down, Fragile and see what I think. Of the later films I've seen, the one I like most is Secret Defense, but I do really want to see Up, Down, Fragile, and your recommendation makes it sound like I should try to see it as soon as I can.

If it helps further, my 'other' favorite later Rivette is hands-down Secret Defense as well

The reboot at the end is anticipated from the jump with "Usually, it began like this..."

_shadow_ wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 3:13 am The reboot at the end is anticipated from the jump with "Usually, it began like this..."

I think the idea of this is that the whole film is the kind of looping narrative that outsiders get to experience / play with. The film is to us as the house is to Celine and Julie.

zedz wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:26 pmThe film is to us as the house is to Celine and Julie.

Good theory.

Bluray.com

Say what you will about Svet (I don't care for his rant 'n' raving like most folks) but at least he doesn't completely half-ass a review (at least when it's not audio) like Lumbard.

Importantly, the part about this new restoration is very perfunctory. I'm glad to know that this release is free of debris and burns. Have any remotely recent transfers released by Criterion been lacking in the debris and burns department?

ChunkyLover wrote:Bluray.com

Say what you will about Svet (I don't care for his rant 'n' raving like most folks) but at least he doesn't completely half-ass a review (at least when it's not audio) like Lumbard.

I just read his 2 recent UHD reviews (German releases of The Princess Bride and Shadow in the Cloud), and these felt like reviews rushed in 5 minutes each without even needing to watch some bits of the discs. I'm pretty sure I could have written the PQ sections just by looking at screencaptures.

tenia wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:26 pm I just read his 2 recent UHD reviews (German releases of The Princess Bride and Shadow in the Cloud), and these felt like reviews rushed in 5 minutes each without even needing to watch some bits of the discs. I'm pretty sure I could have written the PQ sections just by looking at screencaptures.

That's pretty much all of his reviews. For his "A Soldier's Prayer" review of the Criterion "The Human Condition" he praises the mono track despite the fact there's only a 4.0 stereo track on the disc and the Film Movement review of "The Titfield Thunderbolt" he barely has a full paragraph for the video portion and just links Svet's old StudioCanal review.

I have the Criterion Channel. I love this film. Is it of any value to also purchase the Blu Ray set?

Can you listen to Adrian Martin's commentary on the Criterion Channel? If not, then yes. If so, the other extras are reportedly great as well, so yes. If all the extras are available on the Channel, and you don't care about physical media, you can read the essays on their website, so no?

That, and plus there's zero assurance that the film will stay on the Channel permanently.

Also, I strongly doubt that the Criterion Channel stream compression will be on par with the Blu-ray in terms of video quality, especially for a grainy film like this (even though Criterion's Blu-rays could themselves be better there).

markpsf wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 12:24 am I have the Criterion Channel. I love this film. Is it of any value to also purchase the Blu Ray set?

If you love the film then yes.

(Edit: also for reasons listed by the last 3 posts)