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Le Pont du Nord



The culmination of New Wave master Jacques Rivette's legendary middle period (which ranged from L'Amour fou through Out 1, Céline and Julie Go Boating, Duelle, Noroît, and Merry-Go-Round), Le Pont du Nord envisions Paris as a sprawling game-board marked off with tucked-away conspiracies, where imagination and paranoia intermingle; where the hinted-at stakes are sanity, life, and death.

Regular Rivette actress Bulle Ogier stars as Marie, a claustrophobic ex-con who, shortly after wandering into Paris, encounters the wild and potentially troubled young woman Baptiste (Pascale Ogier, Bulle's actual 22-year-old daughter). Baptiste, a knife-wielding, self-proclaimed kung-fu expert with a drive to slash the eyes from faces in adverts (including, in one instance, those on a placard for Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha), accompanies Marie on her quest to solve the mystery behind the contents of her former lover's (Pierre Clémenti's) suitcase: an amalgam of clippings, patterns, and maps of Paris that points to a vastly unsettling labyrinth replete with signs and intimations whose menacing endgame remains all too unclear.

Gorgeously shot by the master cinematographer William Lubtchansky, Le Pont du Nord is a free-wheeling, powerful experience whose hypnotic rhythm and ominous undercurrents resolve into a frightening and exhilarating portrait of post-revolutionary, early-'80s Paris - and in turn form a prime example of Rivette's uncanny, occult cinema. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Jacques Rivette's rare and essential feature Le Pont du Nord on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere in the world.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Glorious new HD presentation of the film in 1080p
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• 56-PAGE BOOKLET containing new writing by critics Francisco Valente and Sabrina Marques; a director's statement by Jacques Rivette, and six questions for the director by Jean Narboni, from the film's original press book; a parallel-text translation of the traditional French children's song "Sur le Pont du Nord"; vintage writing on the film by Serge Daney; excerpts from a long interview with Rivette conducted by Serge Daney and Jean Narboni; the complete script for a short-film homage to Rivette by actress and filmmaker Kate Lyn Sheil; and rare archival imagery.

BrokenFace wrote:Ooh Rivette joins MoC! Would've loved Duelle, but I like Le Pont du Nord a lot too. Hopefully more of his will follow.

The Rivette is being billed as a worldwide first... but it's out in Japan, no?

only on dvd though.

My very favorite Rivette film. Thank you, MOC!

Be great if they could snaffle the full Claire Denis doc on Rivette.

According to MovieMail, the extras are:

-A lengthy booklet with writing about the film by Arthur Mas, Andy Rector, Serge Daney, and Caroline Champetier
-writing from the original press-book by Jacques Rivette, and Jean Narboni
-rare archival imagery
-and more

Would love to see Paris s'en va included as part of the promised "more".....

I'm pretty sure the "more!" here is referring to additional booklet contents.

Fantastic news! I've been dying to see this and fearing a region 1/A dump to standard def sometime in the next two years. Thanks, MOC!

Fantastic news indeed! I hope this sells reasonably well and they can do some other sorely missed Rivettes later, most importantly "L'amour fou".

I may as well ask here: what's this film like? I've never seen a Rivette and would love to support MOC and blind-buy, but I have no idea what to expect. Could someone briefly clue me in?

Great news, this and Merry-Go-Round are probably in a tie for my favorite Rivette. I didn't think I'd see either released any time soon. It's nice to be surprised.

I'm anxious to see how this will turn out on blu-ray. I'm sure MoC will do a good job, but this film (at least how it looks on the Japanese DVD) is especially grainy. I wonder if anyone has seen that copy and the recent screening in Brooklyn. If so, could they comment on any difference?

Drucker wrote:I may as well ask here: what's this film like? I've never seen a Rivette and would love to support MOC and blind-buy, but I have no idea what to expect. Could someone briefly clue me in?

Like many other Rivette films, it's a sort of detective story which however turns into something quite different and 'magical'. It's about how your everyday surroundings can be transformed into a world of mysteries and hidden secrets. And also typical for Rivette, there are some playful and theatrical moments and an unbeatable duo of female protagonists. I think the film may not be the most profound of all Rivette films, but it's an ideal starting point for discovering the 'parallel world' of this great filmmaker. It's quite funny in places, too.

I tend to think of my favorite Rivette films like Celine and Julie Go Boating, Paris Belongs to Us, Gang of Four and Out 1 as inventing their own special genre. Call them "thrillers of everyday life" or "conspiracy stories next door." Like Tommaso says, they are also incredibly fun and often funny and full-on feminist in the least fussy manner (because Rivette simply loves and respects his female characters). Rivette was decades ahead of his time in his understanding of what films could do with narrative. There's still nothing quite like his work in all of cinema, though the latest generation of DIY Indies is finally edging closer to this territory with films like Lynch's Inland Empire and Shane Carruth's first two features.

Drucker wrote:I may as well ask here: what's this film like? I've never seen a Rivette and would love to support MOC and blind-buy, but I have no idea what to expect. Could someone briefly clue me in?

Well, I think it might be hard to recommend Rivette as a blind buy. The films are kind of stream of consciousness without being abstract. Perhaps Bertrand Blier is a little similar? I think Celine & Julie is widely available, so you might want to see that. It's not for me, but others love it.

I've been wanting Rivette to enter the collection for a while and I'm glad that it has finally happened. It would be nice if "more" turned out to be Jacques Rivette: The Night Watchman but if that's getting saved for a future Rivette release, I can hardly complain...

Bear in mind that "more" could also mean the cardboard box that they ship it in, as was the case for Bakumatsu taiyō-den.

sidehacker wrote:Great news, this and Merry-Go-Round are probably in a tie for my favorite Rivette. I didn't think I'd see either released any time soon. It's nice to be surprised.

Just as a bit of useless information unless you understand French: "Merry-Go-Round" has been released in Italy on its own and in Germany as part of a 4-film-set by arthaus (unfortunately already out-of-print and fetching massive sums at ebay). I've only seen the German release and it's pretty good, but of course there are only German subs. "Le pont du Nord", however, is truly new, unless you find a way to get the old Japanese disc, which I think will be bettered by this new transfer in any case.

And yes, 'more' should definitely mean the inclusion of "Paris s'en va", which is intimately related to the film, of course. If not here, where else?

Excellent news! What I'm wondering is will Masters of Cinema be using the recently restored print? I saw it a few months ago and it looked fantastic. Let's hope that Paris Goes Away can be included as a special feature.

I haven't seen much Rivette outside of this and Celine and Julie Go Boating (also restored last year) and have a special fondness for this one. It's an incredible amount of fun and feels like a long journey despite taking place only around the streets of Paris. And any film that would feature it's character being obsessed with kung-fu is always a guaranteed masterpiece by me.

Will buy this whatever but would buy with a bigger smile if cover art could be the poster that Nick put up.

Well, MoC didn't disappoint with this announcement. It's a wonderful film, fun and accessible (but I'm somebody who thinks almost any Rivette is fun and accessible, so what do I know?) and a great Paris movie.

Of course I'd also love to see Paris s'en va or the Denis doc come on board as extras, but getting this masterpiece out on its own is reward enough.

Tommaso wrote: And yes, 'more' should definitely mean the inclusion of "Paris s'en va", which is intimately related to the film, of course. If not here, where else?

Bad news from Twitter

"@calvinm We have been diligently trying to include it; there is a rights dispute between parties which is likely impossible to overcome."

Drucker wrote:I may as well ask here: what's this film like? I've never seen a Rivette and would love to support MOC and blind-buy, but I have no idea what to expect. Could someone briefly clue me in?

Well, the two stars here are Bulle Ogier and her (died-way-too-young) daughter Pascale. And the interplay between the two (as strangers who meet "by accident" in Paris) is absolutely wonderful. And no film I've seen has ever captured the back streets (so to speak) of Paris so well (though lots of what one sees in the film was already in the process of being urban renewed out of existence at the time of the film).

Sweet, I've had this on my comp forever but never got around to it, now I can indulge in it via Blu-ray-- whatta world we live in!

I may as well ask here: what's this film like? I've never seen a Rivette and would love to support MOC and blind-buy, but I have no idea what to expect. Could someone briefly clue me in?

The film draws on many stylistic, narratological, and thematic elements that occur in his earlier films (particularly CELINE & JULIE), though this film is pretty accessible and certainly not a bad way to introduce yourself to his work. It's also slightly shorter than his other films, which is an added bonus for an introduction.

While not a remake, PONT DU NORD is similar to PARIS NOUS APPARTIENT. If you can you should try to watch PNA in advance, though in my opinion PDN has a simpler and better executed construction... particularly fewer character and less exposition.