Jacques Rivette

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I'd hope that Criterion would like Rivette. They like Godard and Rohmer so I don't see why not Rivette. In any case I'd happily pay $80 for a quality transfer on DVD of this film. I just hope to see it on DVD sometime in the next ten years! Maybe we could get Mr. Ehrenstein to lobby for the film (and Mother and the Whore) at Criterion?

[justeleblanc]

I'd hope that Criterion would like Rivette. They like Godard and Rohmer so I don't see why not Rivette. In any case I'd happily pay $80 for a quality transfer on DVD of this film. I just hope to see it on DVD sometime in the next ten years! Maybe we could get Mr. Ehrenstein to lobby for the film (and Mother and the Whore) at Criterion?

I don't think a lobby to get them to release PARIS BELONGS TO US, which is already a Janus title, would be too hard to do. Though MOTHER AND THE WHORE is New Yorker.

My guess is if we started sending emails to Criterion, asking them to add PARIS to their release schedule, they may consider it. Again, it's already a Janus title.

[David Ehrenstein]

I was with Criterion at the very beginning -- when it was a laserdisc company with two titles -- King Kong and Citizen Kane.

Since then I've done line notes for their edition of Barbet Schroeder's Idi Amin Dada and most recently Lindsay Anderson's If...

I have no pull with the management. If I did I'd urge them to put out Out One.

[ptmd]

With regards to the audio at this weekend's show, what I heard was a low pulsing "whooshing" sound every second or so, for long portions of the film. I wouldn't describe it as a popping sound. Don't know if that's what the NY viewers were experiencing. It sounded like it was on the print itself and not a projection problem.

Yes, that's what I was referring to. I didn't find it as distracting as some people on here but it was certainly noticeable. If I remember correctly, it would often last for 6 to 7 minutes and then, usually, drop off when there was a reel change. It was particularly evident during the middle episodes. At the intermission, I spoke with the projectionist and he confirmed that there was mild warping and damage on the print and that it had nothing to do with their sound or projection system. This was at the second screening in Queens, and he said that the sound issues were much worse than they were the first time, suggesting that the print was damaged a bit in transit or at one of the other screenings.

[joka]

I understand that if a print is stored upright rather than being laid flat, then warping can occur. This is maybe counter-intuitive, as one would think that laying it flat would be more likely to cause a warp. Yet if one visits film vaults, flat is the way things are stored.

Perhaps OUT 1's 16 16mm reels (two per episode) were left standing upright at some point in the many years between showings.

[David Ehrenstein]

Companies like Warner Bros. have had great success with box set items devoted to classic film stars. Berlin Alexanderplatz has been just restored and a box set is coming. Concievably a box set of Out One could be made too -- provide the company in charge spend a few godddam pennies on promoting it.

Instead we see companies like Image (which distributes several Rivette titles, though if I didn't tell you just now about them you'd never know) spending their last dime on dreck like Caligula.

[Tommaso]

Review by Stan of the French discs of "Noroit/Duelle" at the Beaver.

Oh man, especially "Noroit" looks so much better than the faded and unsharp print I've seen on TV.... If that damn set only had subs. If something deserves a CC release, it must be these films...

[Michael Kerpan]

The gutsiest (but potentially most lucrative) move Criterion could make as to Rivette would be to release "Pont du Nord". this was never distributed in the US, it is absolutely gorgeous (portraying all sorts of unknown and now "lost" bits of Paris), and it has stupendous performances by the mother-daughter pair of Bulle and Pascale Ogier.

I suspect Bulle Ogier would be happy to provide some sort of suppporting -- as this must be a film that is very important to her. And Criterion would really hit a home run if they could include the little seen companion piece "Paris s'en va"

[David Ehrenstein]

Gutsier still would be for Criterion to release Out 1.

Great screen grabs for Noroit and Duelle. Next to Out 1, Duelle is my favorite Rivette. A perfect blend of Kiss Me Deadly and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne with the most unique musical score in the history of the cinema.

[Tommaso]

Well, any Rivette would deserve the CC treatment in my view. Though they have a lot of 'nouvelle vague' and French films in general in the collection, not a single Rivette among them, which really surprises me. The gutsiest release, next to "Out1" would be the full version of "Jeanne la Pucelle" though. But I'd still be happy if they Eclipsed "Duelle/Noroit" together with "Merry-Go-Round" and "Pont du Nord" for a beginning, should they fear that Rivette would be hard to sell in the US.

[Awesome Welles]

Gutsier still would be for Criterion to release Out 1.

I wish they had such guts. Though at this stage I'll take whatever I can get!

[justeleblanc]

Nah, Criterion doesn't have guts. They tend to release the popular/famous art-house films of directors/movements. It's not a complaint, certainly Criterion's Godard output makes me smile, but they leave other companies left with the task of releasing the not so popular titles, such as Lionsgate taking the 80s/90s films, and Koch Lorber taking La Chinoise and Le Gai Savoir, NYFA taking A Married Woman etc. Even their Berlin Alexanderplatz release wasn't terribly gutsy. It's a mythical film that even made it into references in THE CRITIC a few times. It's a business model that works, they aren't taking risks.

As for Rivette, I would love an Eclipse set called "The Secrets of Jacques Rivette" featuring Duelle, Noirot, Merry Go Round, Le Pont du Nord, and Love on the Ground. But they wont because they don't have the balls. Are these films that expensive to license? Surely, if Kino/Kimstim is willing to release a 5-film Chabrol boxset, featuring some of Chabrol's less popular works, then Criterion can at least grow a pair and release a Rivette set.

[domino harvey]

Surely, if Kino/Kimstim is willing to release a 5-film Chabrol boxset, featuring some of Chabrol's less popular works, then Criterion can at least grow a pair and release a Rivette set.

I know what you're saying, but Chabrol's films almost always receive wider distribution and critical attention than Rivette's, both here and abroad. I agree that I'd LOVE to see all these Rivettes that are available without subs finally be made available to English-speaking viewers, but the very real truth is that excepting Moullet, he's the least-"popular" New Wave filmmaker.

[MichaelB]

I know what you're saying, but Chabrol's films almost always receive wider distribution and critical attention than Rivette's, both here and abroad. I agree that I'd LOVE to see all these Rivettes that are available without subs finally be made available to English-speaking viewers, but the very real truth is that excepting Moullet, he's the least-"popular" New Wave filmmaker.

I used to run a Francophile repertory cinema that showed far more Chabrol than Rivette, but there was an almost idiotically simple reason for this (availability of bookable 35mm prints aside) - which is that Chabrol typically makes much shorter films, allowing more screenings per day, potentially increasing the box office take.

Which sounds horribly crass, but we had no income other than paying customers, so such calculations were an essential part of staying in business. And we did show some Rivette, though usually with the marketing hook that it was a rare screening! (And it was usually Celine and Julie or one of the La Belle Noiseuse cuts, as that was all that was available in Britain in decent English-subtitled prints fifteen years ago).

[chaddoli]

Didn't someone imply in a post once that the folks at Criterion aren't Rivette fans? I seem to remember someone posting on this board that no one at the company made the trek out to Queens for Out 1.

[domino harvey]

Didn't someone imply in a post once that the folks at Criterion aren't Rivette fans? I seem to remember someone posting on this board that no one at the company made the trek out to Queens for Out 1.

Almost positive that was our resident Rivette-head justeleblanc

[MichaelB]

There was a Warner Bros representative in the audience for the first and only London screening of the unexpurgated version of Ken Russell's The Devils.

And it's over three years later, and there's still no sign of it on DVD...

(He can't have been put off by the audience reaction, which was little short of rapturous!)

[justeleblanc]

Didn't someone imply in a post once that the folks at Criterion aren't Rivette fans? I seem to remember someone posting on this board that no one at the company made the trek out to Queens for Out 1.

Almost positive that was our resident Rivette-head justeleblanc

Indeed that was me. More Evidence here.
The friends I have on the rim of Criterion have told me that Rivette is low priority. Given their relationship with Barbet, who owns much of Rivette's work, one hopes this changes.

[cinemartin]

How much work does Schroeder actually own? I know he was a producer on Celine and Julie and Pont du Nord, but other than that I'm not sure about what else he's done with Rivette.

[Tommaso]

The friends I have on the rim of Criterion have told me that Rivette is low priority.

From the Criterion Mission Statement:

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world [...] All of the films published under the Criterion banner represent cinema at its finest.

And then they tell you Rivette is LOW PRIORITY??!! There has been nothing finer in cinema for at least 25 years now (well...apart from Tarkovsky and late Kurosawa perhaps...). And these people call themselves cinephiles...

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

It's too bad that many are brave enough to take on the difficulties of Godard just because he's got name value rather than do themselves a favor and try some Rivette as an extra treat. I can wait for NYer to bring out Celine et Julie, but I'd love it if we could just petition Criterion for some Rivette. A forum-wide petition? Seeing Noroit and Duelle at Beaver really convinces me that this man needs his day. I mean, he's a New Waver! Why would someone not want to get a good taste for all of those films? No-one ever died from not understanding a French film. Criterion has certainly done Louis Malle fans a favor so why not Rivette fans? Oh wait - name value. Not to dump on Criterion, but come on.

[justeleblanc]

Schroeder also owns OUT 1 and PONT DU NORD.

And I agree about Criterion and Rivette. It blows.

[Michael Kerpan]

Schroeder also owns OUT 1 and PONT DU NORD..

Any idea how this came about?

[domino harvey]

I can't imagine it would cost a whole lot to license some of these French transfers and just dump them off on Eclipse even.

[justeleblanc]

I can't imagine it would cost a whole lot to license some of these French transfers and just dump them off on Eclipse even.

Didnt Criterion get Six Moral Tales from Schroeder by, in return, releasing Koko? I would be up for a release of THE VALLEY in exchange for OUT 1 -- and Bulle shows nipples in the former, too!