{"id":11746,"date":"2017-01-17T21:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T03:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=11746"},"modified":"2017-01-16T22:23:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T04:23:52","slug":"inventory-jacques-rivette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/11746","title":{"rendered":"Inventory: Jacques Rivette"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago I bought tickets to see Rivette’s Out 1<\/em> over two days in New York, having only previously watched his The Nun<\/em> (on cable I think, or VHS). In preparation for the big event I watched the three Rivette movies I could most quickly get my hands on, from the early 1960’s to the late 90’s, giving me a weird sense of his cinema. And after Out 1<\/em>, I was in love, resolving to watch every Rivette movie.<\/p>\n

I suppose I completed this goal two years ago when Spectre<\/em> came out on DVD, coming full circle from the Out 1<\/em>-initiated quest. But I’ve been meaning to watch his three-part Renoir documentary. And I’d like to see the extended version of Joan The Maid<\/em>. And three early shorts are being restored and will hopefully come out on video next year. And I wanted to rewatch Lumi\u00e8re and Company<\/em>. And his 1980’s and 90’s features are playing U.S. theaters this year, so one can dream of a blu-ray box set. And rewatching Duelle<\/em> and Noro\u00eet<\/em> in HD last week gave me a new appreciation and understanding of them, so I should rewatch more of the movies.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of thinking that keeps me from wrapping up these little completism projects I set myself and starting new ones. It’s not like I’m closing the door on Rivette, just rounding up some first passes at his work. Anyway, some of these I know are masterpieces, some I wasn’t fond of, and all I’d like to watch again. I cleaned up some of the posts linked below, but the Out 1<\/em> entry remains a sprawling mess – after watching it for what I assumed would be the only time, I wanted to map out every person and scene, because I knew I wouldn’t forget the overall experience but knew I would forget half the scenes and character names pretty soon.<\/p>\n

Rivette, on why ranking the films is ill-advised:<\/p>\n

One always speaks of films as if they were absolutes; yet we always see them in particular circumstance, be it only because of the different projection conditions of each theatre. All that matters enormously. So, it often happens that I see a film I know has objective value and yet sit through it absolutely bored even though I know, at the moment I’m watching it, that I will find it remarkable if I watch it again in three months time; and vice versa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Films:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1956 – Le Coup du Berger<\/a><\/em>
\n1961 – Paris Nous Appartient<\/a><\/em>
\n1966 – The Nun<\/a><\/em>
\n1969 – L’Amour Fou<\/a><\/em>
\n1971 – Out 1<\/a><\/em>
\n1972 – Out 1: Spectre<\/a><\/em>
\n1974 – Celine and Julie Go Boating<\/a><\/em>
\n1976 – Duelle<\/a><\/em>
\n1976 – Noro\u00eet<\/a><\/em>
\n1981 – Merry-Go-Round<\/a><\/em>
\n1981 – Le Pont du Nord<\/em> and Paris s’en va<\/em><\/a>
\n1984 – Love on the Ground<\/a><\/em>
\n1985 – Hurlevent<\/a><\/em>
\n1989 – Gang of Four<\/a><\/em>
\n1990 – Jacques Rivette, Le veilleur<\/a><\/em>
\n1991 – La Belle Noiseuse<\/em> \/ Divertimento<\/em><\/a>
\n1994 – Joan the Maid<\/a><\/em>
\n1995 – Up, Down, Fragile<\/a><\/em>
\n1998 – Secret Defense<\/a><\/em>
\n2001 – Va Savoir<\/a><\/em>
\n2003 – Histoire de Marie et Julien<\/a><\/em>
\n2007 – Don’t Touch the Axe<\/a><\/em>
\n2009 – Around a Small Mountain<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Other Works, more or less related:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aux quatre coins<\/em> \/ Le quadrille<\/em> \/ Le divertissement<\/em> (1949-1952)
\nB\u00e9r\u00e9nice<\/a><\/em> (1954, Eric Rohmer)
\nUne Visite<\/em> (1955, Truffaut)
\nLa sonate \u00c3\u00a0 Kreutzer<\/em> (1956, Rohmer)
\nChronicle of a Summer<\/a><\/em> (1961, Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin)
\nCin\u00e9astes de notre temps: La nouvelle vague par elle-m\u00eame<\/em> (1964)
\nJean Renoir, le patron<\/em> (1967)
\nPiege<\/em> (1968, Jacques Baratier)
\nLes Idoles<\/em> (1968, Marc’o)
\nSurreal Estate<\/a><\/em> (1976, Eduardo de Gregorio)
\nEvery Revolution is a Throw of the Dice<\/a><\/em> (1977, Straub\/Huillet)
\nLa m\u00e9moire courte<\/a><\/em> (1979, Eduardo de Gregorio)
\nThe Third Generation<\/em> (1979, Rainer Fassbinder)
\nSerge Daney: Journey of a Cine-Son<\/em> (1992)
\nLumi\u00e8re and Company<\/em> (1995)
\nSmall Cuts<\/em> (2003, Pascal Bonitzer)
\nMysteries of Paris: Out 1 Revisited<\/a><\/em> (2015)<\/p>\n

–
\nRivette in 1981:<\/p>\n

I have on occasion seen films on television at friends’ homes, and since I’m not used to it, I’ve always had the impression that I was not watching the film, that I was seeing something else, a reflection … television is great for a second viewing, but not for discovering a film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rivette in 2007:<\/p>\n

Films today have a completely different life with DVD, which I think is the greatest … that’s practically the only way I watch films anymore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

–
\nRivette, on wanting to be a filmmaker after reading Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast<\/a><\/em> diaries: “Cinema was a place where things happened, where one debated with people, where one invented and tried things, whether they worked or not.”<\/p>\n

I detest the formulation “a film by”. A film is always by at least fifteen people. I don’t like “r\u00e9alisation” very much either, which seems to me very portentous, maybe because its root is “reality.” Mise en sc\u00e8ne is a rapport with the actors, and the communal work is set with the first shot. What’s important for me in a film is that it be alive, that it be imbued with presence, which is basically the same thing. And that this presence, inscribed within the film, possesses a form of magic. There’s something profoundly mysterious in this. It’s an alchemy that one procures, or does not … It’s a collective work, but one wherein there’s a secret, too. For that matter, the actor has his secrets as well — of which the director is the spectator.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago I bought tickets to see Rivette’s Out 1 over two days in New York, having only previously watched his The Nun (on cable I think, or VHS). In preparation for the big event I watched the three Rivette movies I could most quickly get my hands on, from the early 1960’s to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1588,9],"class_list":["post-11746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-inventory","tag-jacques-rivette"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11746"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11802,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11746\/revisions\/11802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}