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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.^[1] 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).

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 Divertissement (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, Robert Aldrich and Fritz Lang. In 1958, he began to work on his first feature using borrowed equipment, a loan of 80,000 francs from Cahiers du cinéma and short ends of film stock. He finished Paris nous appartient two years later with the financial assistance of Chabrol and Truffaut. It was not a financial success.

In 1963, Rivette was made editor in chief of Cahiers du cinéma after Eric Rohmer was forced out. In 1965 he directed his second feature, La Religieuse staring Anna Karina. The French government blocked its release for over a year on moral grounds and the publicity helped turn it into a hit film. After stepping down from the editor position at Cahiers in 1965, Rivette would devote the rest of his life to filmmaking. His next film was L'amour fou in 1968, a four hour film about a theatrical production. He then made two versions of the film Out 1, a 13 hour version in 1971 that was only screened once and a 4 and a half hour version produced in 1972. The film stars Jean-Pierre Leaud and Juliet Berto as two youths trying to figure out if 13 people that they have been spying on are part of a secret society.

Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie Go Boating/Céline and Julie Lose Their Minds) (1974) is possibly Rivette's most critically regarded film. Reminiscent of Jean Cocteau and Lewis Carrol, the film tells the story of two young women who discover a mysterious house where the exact same story plays out every day. It was Rivette's first film to use romantic fantasy elements, which would be one of Rivette's signature themes throughout his career with such films as Duelle (1976), Noroit (1976), Merry-Go-Round (1981), Le Pont du Nord (1982), and L’Amour par terre (1984).

In 1988 Rivette received critical acclaim for his film La Bande des quatre (Gang of Four), a film about four students who are each told a separate moral story from a strange visitor. This film directly lead to La Belle Noiseuse, Rivette's most acclaimed film of his later career. Loosely based on a short story by Honoré de Balzac, the film depicts the relationship between a painter and his muse. It starred Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Béart and was an international hit. It won Rivette the Grand Prix at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival and his only César Award nomination for Best Director.

The next twenty years would be the most active of Rivette's career, with such internationally acclaimed films as Up, Down, Fragile (1995), Va savoir (2001) and The Story of Marie and Julien (2003), making the later part of his career the most fruitful.

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, and every DVD release globally of Va savoir) are from edited or otherwise incomplete versions of his films. The complete version of his two-part film Jeanne la pucelle was released by Artificial Eye on Region 2 DVD in the UK in 2009.

• 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 Nuisance) (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 (Top Secret) (1998; 173 minutes)
• Va savoir (Go Figure) (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)

References

Further reading

• Rosenbaum, Jonathan, ed. (1977) Jacques Rivette: Texts and Interviews; trans. by Amy Gateff and Tom Milne. London: BFI Publishing

External links

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