Céline and Julie Go Boating & Paris Nous Appartient
Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 10:01 pm
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Following its release on a new print by BFI Distribution in May 2006, during the major Jacques Rivette retrospective at the NFT, BFI Video releases his magical 70s favourite Cline and Julie Go Boating.
Rivette's rarely seen yet biggest commercial hit, is an exhilarating combination of the themes of theatricality, paranoia and la vie parisienne, all wrapped up in an extended and entrancing examination of the nature of filmmaking, and film-watching.
Celine (Juliet Berto), a magician, and Julie (Dominique Labourier), a librarian, meet in Montmartre and wind up sharing the same flat, bed, fiance, clothes, identity and imagination. Soon, thanks to a magic sweet, they find themselves spectators, then participants, in a Henry James-inspired 'film-within-the film' a melodrama unfolding in a mysterious suburban house with the 'Phantom Ladies Over Paris' (Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier), a sinister man (Barbet Shroeder) and his child. The atmosphere, however, is more Lewis Carroll, with Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier as twin Alices. The four main actresses improvised their own dialogue in collaboration with Rivette and scriptwriter Eduardo de Gregorio.
Acknowledged by director Susan Seidelman as a huge influence on her own hit film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Celine and Julie Go Boating was Rivette's greatest commercial and critical success - its freewheeling, playful spirit still capturing the imagination of new audiences today.
Extras:
- New filmed introduction by Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Cline and Julie Go Boating
- Toute la mémoire du monde (Alain Resnais, 1956, 20 mins, English subtitles)
- The Haunted Curiosity Shop (R W Paul, 1901, 2 mins, silent)
- Illustrated booklet including a review by Tom Milne; interviews with Dominique Labourier, Juliet Berto and Jacques Rivette; Susan Seidelman's reflections on her Rivette-inspired Desperately Seeking Susan; director biography
Paris Nous Appartient
Following its release on a new print by BFI Distribution in April 2006, during the NFT's major Jacques Rivette retrospective, the BFI releases Paris nous appartient, the remarkable first feature from the great cinematic visionary and probably least known of the major French New Wave directors.
Anne, a student in Paris, becomes involved with a group of her brother's arty friends and gets sucked into a mystery involving Philip, an expatriate American escaping McCarthyism; Terry, a self-destructive femme fatale; theatre director Gerard; and Juan, a Spanish activist who apparently committed suicide, but was he murdered? Philip warns Anne that the forces that killed Juan will soon do the same to Gerard, who is struggling to rehearse Shakespeare's Pericles. Anne takes a part in the play in an attempt to help him and also discover why Juan died.
Jacques Rivette started making his first feature in 1957 and completed it slowly over a period of two years, as money allowed. Finally released in 1961, Paris nous appartient brilliantly captured the mood of paranoia and uncertainty of that Cold War period. Rivette's rarely seen debut is one of the most important and far-reaching of the early New Wave films.
Rivette's disquieting film, suffused with sexual and political tension, is as much about its setting a long-vanished Paris full of fleabag hotels and corduroy-clad intellectuals as about its story. It features guest appearances from fellow New Waver directors Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy, a striking musique concrte score, and stunning cinematography in black and white, which manages to be luminous and ominous at the same time.
Extras:
- New filmed introduction by Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Paris nous appartient
- Le Coup du berger (Rivette, 1957, 27 mins, English subtitles)
- Illustrated booklet with a review by Tom Milne; feature by Louis Marcorelles, originally published in Sight & Sound; director biography
Following its release on a new print by BFI Distribution in May 2006, during the major Jacques Rivette retrospective at the NFT, BFI Video releases his magical 70s favourite Cline and Julie Go Boating.
Rivette's rarely seen yet biggest commercial hit, is an exhilarating combination of the themes of theatricality, paranoia and la vie parisienne, all wrapped up in an extended and entrancing examination of the nature of filmmaking, and film-watching.
Celine (Juliet Berto), a magician, and Julie (Dominique Labourier), a librarian, meet in Montmartre and wind up sharing the same flat, bed, fiance, clothes, identity and imagination. Soon, thanks to a magic sweet, they find themselves spectators, then participants, in a Henry James-inspired 'film-within-the film' a melodrama unfolding in a mysterious suburban house with the 'Phantom Ladies Over Paris' (Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier), a sinister man (Barbet Shroeder) and his child. The atmosphere, however, is more Lewis Carroll, with Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier as twin Alices. The four main actresses improvised their own dialogue in collaboration with Rivette and scriptwriter Eduardo de Gregorio.
Acknowledged by director Susan Seidelman as a huge influence on her own hit film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Celine and Julie Go Boating was Rivette's greatest commercial and critical success - its freewheeling, playful spirit still capturing the imagination of new audiences today.
Extras:
- New filmed introduction by Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Cline and Julie Go Boating
- Toute la mémoire du monde (Alain Resnais, 1956, 20 mins, English subtitles)
- The Haunted Curiosity Shop (R W Paul, 1901, 2 mins, silent)
- Illustrated booklet including a review by Tom Milne; interviews with Dominique Labourier, Juliet Berto and Jacques Rivette; Susan Seidelman's reflections on her Rivette-inspired Desperately Seeking Susan; director biography
Paris Nous Appartient
Following its release on a new print by BFI Distribution in April 2006, during the NFT's major Jacques Rivette retrospective, the BFI releases Paris nous appartient, the remarkable first feature from the great cinematic visionary and probably least known of the major French New Wave directors.
Anne, a student in Paris, becomes involved with a group of her brother's arty friends and gets sucked into a mystery involving Philip, an expatriate American escaping McCarthyism; Terry, a self-destructive femme fatale; theatre director Gerard; and Juan, a Spanish activist who apparently committed suicide, but was he murdered? Philip warns Anne that the forces that killed Juan will soon do the same to Gerard, who is struggling to rehearse Shakespeare's Pericles. Anne takes a part in the play in an attempt to help him and also discover why Juan died.
Jacques Rivette started making his first feature in 1957 and completed it slowly over a period of two years, as money allowed. Finally released in 1961, Paris nous appartient brilliantly captured the mood of paranoia and uncertainty of that Cold War period. Rivette's rarely seen debut is one of the most important and far-reaching of the early New Wave films.
Rivette's disquieting film, suffused with sexual and political tension, is as much about its setting a long-vanished Paris full of fleabag hotels and corduroy-clad intellectuals as about its story. It features guest appearances from fellow New Waver directors Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy, a striking musique concrte score, and stunning cinematography in black and white, which manages to be luminous and ominous at the same time.
Extras:
- New filmed introduction by Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Paris nous appartient
- Le Coup du berger (Rivette, 1957, 27 mins, English subtitles)
- Illustrated booklet with a review by Tom Milne; feature by Louis Marcorelles, originally published in Sight & Sound; director biography