Jacques Rivette

[nolanoe]

Divertimento was just a "short version", no?

No. It was sourced from the same shoot, but often uses different takes and offers a substantially different perspective on the material.

Ah, very interesting. Would you say it's worth the time, or is it merely "an alternative" to the long cut?

[MichaelB]

Yes, absolutely - it's designed to be a companion-piece, and its major point of interest is that it's depicted much more from the perspective of the artist's wife (Jane Birkin) and model (Emmanuelle Béart), whereas La Belle Noiseuse itself focused far more on his viewpoint (unsurprisingly, given the core subject).

[dda1996a]

Any info on the release of the recently found Rivette shorts?
And where can one see Divertimento?

[Michael Kerpan]

There was an Asian DVD release (with subs) of Divertimento long long ago, not sure if this is still in print. I found Divertimento interesting -- but thought Belle noiseuse actually FELT shorter.

[domino harvey]

It was on the third disc of the (OOP) Artificial Eye DVD release

[antnield]

Also on Artificial Eye's Emmanuelle Béart DVD set - which may be OOP too.

[dda1996a]

Any info on the release of the recently found Rivette shorts?
And where can one see Divertimento?

Any new info regarding the shorts?

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Not that I know of, but the restoration of Le Religieuse will premier at Cannes next month. So there is that bit of good news!

[dda1996a]

It will be really good news when the shorts and Le Religieuse are all released on blu-ray

[nick]

Details for the Cohen La Belle Noiseuse bluray

Special Features and Technical Specs:
-BRAND NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
-Two-disc Blu-ray set featuring the complete original four-hour version of La Belle Noiseuse
-Video interview with director Jacques Rivette
-Video interview with co-writers Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent
-Audio commentary track by film historian Richard Suchenski
-4K Restoration 2017 theatrical re-release original trailer
-Optional English subtitles for the main feature

So it doesn't look like they will be including 'Divertimento' on this release.

[spectre]

I missed the Artificial Eye 3-disc set when it was still generally available and not priced through the roof, and tried to purchase the Béart box set a while back, but my order ended up being cancelled after months of waiting. I’d thought it might be getting a re-release soon, so, now this is apparently not the case, I’ve just given up and bought a videotape of Divertimento on Ebay for 20 bucks – better than nothing, hey?

[bearcuborg]

I missed the Artificial Eye 3-disc set when it was still generally available and not priced through the roof, and tried to purchase the Béart box set a while back, but my order ended up being cancelled after months of waiting. I’d thought it might be getting a re-release soon, so, now this is apparently not the case, I’ve just given up and bought a videotape of Divertimento on Ebay for 20 bucks – better than nothing, hey?

Rivette, and Von Stroheim are the main reason I haven’t completely ditched my VHS machine. That, and a ton of MTV from the 90s tapes.

[JSC]

La Religieuse coming to blu-ray in September courtesy of Studio Canal.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/La-Religi ... ay/206579/

[spectre]

Can’t wait! Astounding to think it’s taken this long to get an English-friendly release in any form.

[soundchaser]

Ahead of StudioCanal's release of The Nun, I just wanted to ask if anyone's heard anything about the Cohen or L'amour fou restoration timelines. I'm slowly working my way through Rivette's oeuvre, and I'd rather see things nicely cleaned-up if possible. (I watched Va Savoir in a non-anamorphic stream from Amazon last night and thought the generally murky picture hindered any enjoyment I could have gotten out of the film, which I found unusually drab for Rivette.)

[Michael Kerpan]

Va savoir -- when screened (or otherwise looks good) is a lot of fun. Too bad the Amazon stream is cruddy....

[soundchaser]

Va savoir -- when screened (or otherwise looks good) is a lot of fun. Too bad the Amazon stream is cruddy....

I was doubly disappointed because I picked the stream with the knowledge that the DVD was non-anamorphic. It could very well have been a straight rip of that disc. The film didn't do a lot for me, I hate to say, although I enjoyed it more than Merry Go-Round. It felt very...weightless? And Balibar's performance did nothing for me - she seemed totally disconnected from the material. I should mention that I'd just come off of Haut, Bas, Fragile, which quickly catapulted itself to my list of all-time greats. I'm sure that didn't help.

[Gregory]

The R1 Sony DVD is anamorphic.

[soundchaser]

Well, egg on my face, then. I must have been conflating it with the Image DVDs.

[Michael Kerpan]

I liked the whole main ensemble and their interactions with each other -- and loved the high wire climax.

It may have taken a little while initially to tune into Balibar's "grumpiness" (or whatever one might want to call it). Luckily, our initial exposure was to screening during its short theatrical run....

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

I need to rewatch my Sony DVD of Va Savoir. It's been about 3 years since my initial viewing and I was hoping for Va Savoir+ to appear, but it doesn't look likely.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Ahead of StudioCanal's release of The Nun, I just wanted to ask if anyone's heard anything about the Cohen or L'amour fou restoration timelines.

I would like to hear some info as well. I'm patiently awaiting DVD Beaver to get a copy of Canal's new release. It will be interesting to see if the colors are correct in comparison to the teal disaster that was the trailer.

[dda1996a]

What truly interests me is what's the plan with the newfound shorts

[domino harvey]

Watched La Religieuse and while I'm not familiar with the source text, I was disappointed that it manages to shoehorn in both of the most tired ways to depict a nunnery in fiction: either as an oppressive hellhole, or a den of lascivious lesbianism. I was also dismayed at how amateurishly choppy and poorly matched the editing was, made all the more glaring since, in contrast to most of Rivette's other work, this is fairly straight forward narrative filmmaking. The movie does show that the leftist critics were right to back Rivette over his other cronies, as I can't imagine a film like this coming from anyone else at Cahiers. I haven't read the Cahiers defenses, but I can't even imagine the hoops one would have to jump through to pretend this isn't the anti-clerical film to end all anti-clerical films!

Since La Religieuse is about to be available to a wider audience due to Studio Canal's English-friendly UK Blu-ray, allow me to advocate for a superior (by every metric) French film that was released just six years prior to Rivette's, one exploring novel notions of what it might mean to be a nun and one still languishing in obscurity, even though it arguably has superior star power in Jeanne Moreau and Alida Valli: Raymond Léopold Bruckberger's Le dialogue des Carmélites. Bruckberger's depiction of the turmoil of a cloister of nuns in the midst of the French Revolution gives us actual moral dilemmas that aren't completely knowable going in, and the film ends with one of the most successfully relayed ironies ever put to film. It puts a familiar and safe (!) movie like Rivette's to shame

EDIT: And Rivette bulleted it in the Conseil! Of course he did

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Was it the new Studio Canal edition that you watched?

Since La Religiuse is Rivette's most straight forward film, I wonder what his thoughts were in retrospect. Did he consider it a misstep or a success?