Jacques Rivette

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

With Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette is considered to be the most experimental of the French New Wave directors. Like Godard, he had a background in film criticism, but he also loved popular American cinema, especially genre directors such as Robert Aldrich and Frank Tashlin.

Rivette's stories progress in unconventional ways - often following multiple plot lines that can be romantic, mysterious, and comic all at once and employing extensive improvisation. As a result, his films are often extremely long ( the infamous Out 1 clocked in at 13 hrs, although a 4 1/2 hour cut was later produced.) and many of them are rarely seen.

[edit] 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 the 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 perhaps Rivette's most famous and best loved work. His other important films include Out 1, L'Amour fou, Paris nous appartient, and La Belle noiseuse.

[edit] Filmography

Aux Quatre Coins (At the Four Corners, 1949)
Le Quadrille (The Quadrille, 1950)
Le Divertissement (Entertainment / The Diversion, 1952)
Le Coup du berger (Shepherd's Mate / Scholar's Mate, 1956)
Paris nous appartient (Paris Belongs to Us, 1960)
La Religieuse (The Nun, 1966)
Jean Renoir le patron (Jean Renoir, the Boss, 1966; made for the television series Cinéastes de notre temps)
Jean Renoir parle de son art (Jean Renoir Speaks About His Art, 1966; co-directed with Janine Bazin and Jean-Michel Coldefy for the television series Cinéastes de notre temps)
L'Amour fou (Mad Love, 1969)
Out 1 (Out 1, also referred to as Out 1: Noli me tangere, 1971, 750 minutes)
Out 1: Spectre (1972, 260 minutes)
Céline et Julie vont en bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris (Céline and Julie Go Boating / Céline and Julie Lose Their Minds: Phantom Ladies Over Paris, 1974)
Duelle (1976; Scènes de la vie parallèle: 2. Une quarantaine)
Noroît (Nor'wester, 1976; Scènes de la vie parallèle: 3. Une vengeance)
Merry-Go-Round (1978)
Paris s'en va (Paris Is Going Away, 1980)
Le Pont du Nord (The Pont du Nord, 1981)
L’Amour par terre (Love on the Ground, 1984)
Hurlevent (1985; an adaptation of Wuthering Heights)
La Bande des quatre (The Gang of Four, 1988)
La Belle noiseuse (The Beautiful Nuisance, 1991)
La Belle noiseuse: Divertimento (The Beautiful Nuisance: Divertimento, 1991; 120 minute version of La Belle noiseuse created out of completely different takes)
Jeanne la pucelle (Jeanne the Maid, 1994)
Haut bas fragile (Up Down Fragile, 1995)
Une aventure de Ninon (One of Ninon's Adventures, 1995; a very short work made for the omnibus film Lumière et compagnie)
Secret défense (Top Secret, 1998)
Va savoir (Go Figure, 2001; the director's preferred cut had a brief theatrical run in Paris in 2001, runs for 220 minutes, and is known as Va savoir+)
Histoire de Marie et Julien (Story of Marie and Julien, 2003)
Ne touchez pas la hache (Touch Not the Axe, 2007)