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Gropius wrote:On the other hand, the New Yorker disc would probably be better value for the American customer, assuming they use a similar transfer.

Because so few online retailers distribute New Yorker titles they usually end up costing close to as much as importing a non-R1 DVD of the same title. I think I paid around £13 for my BFI Celine and Julie Go Boating DVD (cheap at twice the price) and when I buy New Yorkers DVDs (more often over the last year or two) they usually set me back around $25.

Is the BFI edition out of print? It is not in stock on Amazon.uk...

Dr. Snaut wrote:Is the BFI edition out of print? It is not in stock on Amazon.uk...

Try Play.Com where it is in stock priced at £6.99

Stephen wrote:

Dr. Snaut wrote:Is the BFI edition out of print? It is not in stock on Amazon.uk...

Try Play.Com where it is in stock priced at £6.99

Do they deliver to the USA? I placed an order but it doesn't seem clear if they'll ship it...

I believe that Play.com does not deliver to the US, which sucks because 7 royal pounds for this DVD is a steel.

Dr. Snaut wrote:Is the BFI edition out of print? It is not in stock on Amazon.uk...

A month late but if your still interested it is up on amazon.uk for 8.08.

Edit:Now it's 7.98

A few months back (and one page back) the aspect ratio of Paris Nous Appartient was raised; that the BFI disc is presented open-matte. Does someone have a good source for which is Rivette's preferred AR?

Aren't Rivette's films until very recently academy or 1.66 at the extreme? Especially given what was being released in French cinema at the time, a black and white non-Scope picture would most likely be academy with the option for European matting, no?

domino harvey wrote:Aren't Rivette's films until very recently academy or 1.66 at the extreme? Especially given what was being released in French cinema at the time, a black and white non-Scope picture would most likely be academy with the option for European matting, no?

I believe Duelle and Noroit are both wide. I think this is also true for Gang of Four & Love on the Ground, but I don't know what the intention of Rivette was. Everything after Joan of Arc is also at least wide, but then I think that's what you mean by "recently."

You're right, I had misremembered Secret Defense as 1.66 for some reason and completely forgot about his 80s films. Ah well, still stands true for the second part

I'm 98% sure that Paris Nous Appartient was Academy when I saw it projected at Alliance Francaise. Duelle at Anthology Film Archives was shown in ... hmmm ... not Academy, I'm pretty sure, but I can't remember whether it was 1.66 or 1.85.

Duelle played here in Brisbane at the Gallery of Modern Art last weekend as part of a 70s Europe series; it seemed to be projected in 1.66 (I can't find the printed program), and the compositions seemed fine.

They're playing this for a few more days at Film Forum - really nice looking print, it was my first time seeing it and the second Rivette film I've seen. (The first was L'amour fou.) Absolutely wonderful film, every David Lynch fan should see this, you can trace so much of his later work back to this one movie, the most obvious being Mulholland Drive.

Perhaps more entertaining and accessible than L'amour fou (which also dealt with similar themes of performance vs. real life), it does get a bit too indulgent at times. When you feel like you're along for the ride (which is most of the time), the fun is definitely infectious, but there are moments where I felt a little bored watching the actors enjoy themselves in a way that doesn't draw you in -

Spoiler

mostly the drunk sequence. (They're much better when they're intoxicated on role-playing or the same liberation you might feel when you realize you're in a dream and hence able to break all the "rules" of reality.)

Agree entirely about the Lynch connection, though I'm not sure it's an actual influence. I believe I once heard him say somewhere that he's never seen the film. Which is somehow even better. With his interest in spinning narratives out of parallel mutually interpenetrating worlds, Rivette was way ahead of even the best avant garde filmmakers working today.

They're showing this again at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, as part of a GREAT series called The Cinema and its Doubles. It's a "new 35mm print," perhaps the same one that screened at Film Forum.

What are the chances of a BD of "Celine and Julie" from the BFI? I read there was one planned for the US in 2012, but has yet to surface.

Seeing New Yorker's blu-ray release of My Dog Tulip that never materialized, I doubt we will see it in BD in region 1. Maybe DVD...

Are there any blu-rays of Rivette's work anywhere? He seems like one of those directors the that hordes of people clamor for (Dumont being another) and yet no one has delivered a single blu-ray these past several years.
I wasn't holding my breath for a New Yorker blu-ray anyway. I watched one of their DVDs released less than six months ago and the picture quality sucked big time, so I've mostly written them off as hopeless by now (granted with blu-ray they wouldn't have all the PAL-NTSC conversion issues that have plagued their releases so far).

Gregory wrote:Are there any blu-rays of Rivette's work anywhere? He seems like one of those directors the that hordes of people clamor for (Dumont being another) and yet no one has delivered a single blu-ray these past several years.

Alas, I fear that there actually only a tiny market for Rivette releases (said sadly, as I love his films).

There is a Blu-Ray release of La belle noiseuse out in Japan.

Michael Kerpan wrote:

Gregory wrote:Are there any blu-rays of Rivette's work anywhere? He seems like one of those directors the that hordes of people clamor for (Dumont being another) and yet no one has delivered a single blu-ray these past several years.

Alas, I fear that there actually only a tiny market for Rivette releases (said sadly, as I love his films).

With so much of his filmography released on many DVD editions, it's hard to see a miniscule market as the reason why none of his films have yet appeared on blu in North America or Europe. Rather it seems to be for reasons such as Artificial Eye mostly playing it safe when it comes to upgrading their back catalog, Criterion never having been very interested in Rivette apparently, New Yorker being hopeless as I opined before, etc.

I must say, I've long been skeptical of the "Rivette = Box Office Poison" claims. His work is hardly obscure and inaccessible, he obviously does well enough in the UK that fourteen of his features have been released on DVD there. Something like Celine at Julie is just about as much fun as you can have with a film, and the Criterion audience should lap these films up. It's a case of finding somebody to champion them and work at presenting them to a North American audience in a vaguely strategic manner.

Rivette (like Naruse) certainly has US champions -- and an adequate supply of people who will check out his films in festival/retrospective screenings -- but I think Criterion senses there is just not much of an audience who would buy the films of DVD/Blu-Ray here. I wish there was, but I suspect that there isn't.

You know, Ray Carney once wrote a glowing capsule for Celine and Julie.

I remember before Criterion had released any Mizoguchi on DVD, Becker was quoted as saying there was a fear that there'd be too little demand for Mizo, even for Sansho or Ugetsu, but then they released one, then the other, and have continued. There's already demand for Rivette, and Criterion could further develop that. They've done so with many less-known filmmakers. I find it amazing they haven't gotten around to any Rivette. I think it's become a running gag at places like this because it's such a glaring omission and a hobby horse of those who have been waiting for Criterion to fill in some Rivette gaps for so many years. Surely there is pretty small demand for some of Rivette's lesser-known work (which is probably on a par with Naruse in North America in this way), but the idea that Criterion would let something on the level of Céline and Julie go to New Yorker, a company that doesn't even seem that interested in releasing and selling discs, is just strange to me.