Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette (born 1 March 1928) is a French film director.

With Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette is one of the more experimental of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague) directors. In common with many of his peers, he has a background in film criticism, where he expressed his admiration for popular American cinema, especially genre directors such as Robert Aldrich, Howard Hawks and Frank Tashlin.

Rivette's films progress in unconventional ways - often following multiple plots that can be romantic, mysterious, and comic all at once and employing extensive improvisation. As a result, his films are often extremely long (the notable Out 1 lasts 13 hrs, although a 4½ hour cut was later produced) and many of his films are rarely seen.

Biography

Jacques Rivette was born in Rouen. In 1950, Rivette joined the Ciné-Club du Quartier Latin, and began to write film criticism for the Gazette du Cinema, a small film journal. During this time, he made his first short films, Aux Quatre Coins (1950), Le Quadrille (1950), and Le Divertissment (1952). In 1952, Rivette began to write for Cahiers du cinéma with several other young critics who would form the core of the French New Wave: Éric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Luc Moullet. Rivette championed American directors of the 1940s and 1950s, specifically the work of Howard Hawks, John Ford, Nicholas Ray, and Fritz Lang. In 1958, he began to work on his first feature using borrowed equipment and short ends of film stock. He finished Paris nous appartient two years later.

Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie Go Boating/Céline and Julie Lose Their Minds) is possibly Rivette's most critically regarded film. His other important films include Out 1, L'Amour fou, Paris nous appartient, and La Belle noiseuse.

Filmography

Alternative versions of his films

Along with Out 1, La Belle noiseuse, and Va savoir, Rivette also at one point cut an alternate version of L'Amour fou, while the current version of L'Amour par terre was cut from a longer and preferred version of the film. Duelle and Noroît were two episodes from an intended four part series "Scenes from a Parallel Life" and Histoire de Marie et Julien was later loosely based on an unfilmed episode. Due to the rare nature of Rivette's works, many DVDs (such as the Region 1 Facets release of Jeanne la pucelle) are from edited or otherwise incomplete versions of his films.

• Paris nous appartient (Paris Belongs to Us) (1960; 140 minutes)
• La Religieuse (The Nun) (1965; 140 minutes)
• L'amour fou (Mad Love) (1968; 252 minutes)
• Out 1 (Out 1: Noli me tangere/Out 1: Don't Touch Me) (1971; 750 minutes)
• Out 1: Spectre (1972; 260 minutes)
• Céline et Julie vont en bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris (Céline and Julie Go Boating: Phantom Ladies Over Paris) (1974; 192 minutes)
• Scènes de la vie parallèle: 2: Duelle (une quarantaine) (1976; 121 minutes)
• Scènes de la vie parallèle: 3: Noroît (une vengeance) (Nor'wester) (1976; 145 minutes)
• Merry-Go-Round (1981; 157 minutes)
• Le Pont du Nord (1981; 131 minutes)
• L’Amour par terre (Love on the Ground) (1984; 170 minutes—unapproved cut 127 minutes)
• Hurlevent (from Wuthering Heights) (1985; 130 minutes)
• La Bande des quatre (The Gang of Four) (1988; 140 minutes)
• La Belle Noiseuse (The Beautiful Troublemaker) (1991; 240 minutes)
• La Belle Noiseuse: Divertimento (1991; 120 minutes)
• Jeanne la pucelle: 1. Les batailles (Joan the Maiden, Part 1: The Battles) (1994; 160 minutes)
• Jeanne la pucelle: 2. Les prisons (Joan the Maiden, Part 2: The Prisons) (1994; 176 minutes)
• Haut/bas/fragile (Up/Down/Fragile) (1995; 169 minutes)
• Secret défense (1998; 173 minutes)
• Va savoir (Who Knows?) (2001; 154 minutes)
  • Va savoir+ (2002; 225 minutes) - preferred cut
• Histoire de Marie et Julien (Story of Marie and Julien) (2003; 151 minutes)
• Ne touchez pas la hache (Don't Touch the Axe) (2007; 137 minutes)
• 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup (36 Views from the Pic Saint-Loup) (2009; 84 minutes)

Short films

• Aux quatre coins (At the Four Corners, 1949) - lost
• Le Quadrille (The Quadrille, 1950) - lost
• Le Divertissement (Entertainment / The Diversion, 1952)
• Le Coup du berger (Shepherd's Mate / Scholar's Mate, 1956)
• Paris s'en va (Paris Goes Away, 1980)
• Une aventure de Ninon (One of Ninon's Adventures, 1995; a very short work made for the omnibus film Lumière et compagnie)

Work for television

Episodes from Cinéastes de notre temps

• Jean Renoir, le patron (Jean Renoir, The Boss) (1966; 128 minutes)
• Jean Renoir parle de son art (Jean Renoir Speaks About His Art) (1966; co-directed with Janine Bazin and Jean-Michel Coldefy)

External links

• Online collection of rare and out-of-print Rivette materials
• Jacques Rivette at the Internet Movie Database
• Jacques Rivette Bio
• (French) Edition de « De l'abjection » (1961) par Jacques Rivette, sur le site d'analyse L'oBservatoire (simple appareil).