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Jacques Rivette
Director / Screenwriter
1928 - 
Born March 1, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Key Production Country: France 
Key Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Avant-garde/Experimental
Key Collaborators: Nicole Lubtchansky (Editor), Martine Marignac (Producer), William Lubtchansky (Cinematographer), Juliet Berto (Leading Player/Screenwriter), Pascal Bonitzer (Screenwriter), Bulle Ogier (Leading Character Player/Screenwriter), Christine Laurent (Screenwriter), Pierre Baillot (Leading Character Player), Marcel Bozonnet (Leading Character Player), Emmanuel de Chauvigny (Production Designer)

Recommended: L'Amour fou (1968)*, Out 1: noli me tangere (1971)*, Out 1: Spectre (1972)*, Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)*, La Belle noiseuse (1991)*, Haut bas fragile (1995), Va savoir (2001)
Worth a Look: Paris Belongs to Us (1960), La Religieuse (1966), Duelle (1976), Noroit (1976), Le Pont du Nord (1981), Gang of Four (1988), Jeanne la Pucelle I (1994), Jeanne la Pucelle II (1994), The Duchess of Langeais (2007)
Approach with Caution: Wuthering Heights (1985), Histoire de Marie et Julien (2003)
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section.

Links: [ Amazon ] [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Jacques Rivette Resources ] [ Senses of Cinema Interview ] [ A Jacques Rivette Filmography ] [ Rouge Article ] [ Ginette Vincendeau Profile ] [ Guardian Article (2006) ] [ JacquesRivette.com ] [ Slant Magazine Article (2006) ] [ Senses of Cinema (1950 article by Rivette) ]
Books: [ Rivette: Texts and Interviews ]
 
L'Amour Fou (1968)Out 1: Spectre (1972)La Belle Noiseuse (1991)Va savoir (2001)
 
     
  "He is hardly the most prolific director and the length of his films has often counted against him. Nonetheless, his clinical, self-reflexive essays in film form, the sophisticated games he continues to play within the "house of fiction," reveal him as a cinematic purist whose commitment to the celluloid muse has hardly diminished since the heady days of the 1950s." - G.C. Macnab (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)  
     
  "The informed filmgoer might not leap to support the contention that Rivette is the most important filmmaker of the last thirty-five years. After all, Rivette has made films blatantly outside the conventional scheme... A time will come when proper retrospective will prove his greatness, but at the cost of so many younger and flashier reputations. No one has done more to experiment with narrative and duration than Rivette." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)  
     
  "French film-maker whose movies are almost all unorthodox, beautiful to watch, long, and alternately rewarding or infuriating. Some film enthusiasts of my acquaintance would not go near a Rivette film. Others regard him as the greatest of living film-makers. Such polarization must at least denote a director of some stature... The lesson is clear: take a thinking cap and a pack of sandwiches - and be prepared for a stimulating evening or a battle against sleep, according to your disposition." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999)  
     
  "When you see the films of certain young directors, you get the impression that film history begins for them around 1980." - Jacques Rivette  
     
 
Please note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we haven't seen include Le Coup du berger (1956), Love on the Ground (1984), Secret Defense (1997) and Around a Small Mountain (2009).
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"Jacques Rivette is one of the most highly regarded directors of the French New Wave. Throughout his career, he has offered a variety of complex experiences, from the epic Out 1 (1971) to the delicate La belle noiseuse (1991). Admittedly, such movies require a degree of intellectual commitment from spectators that is at odds with conventional viewing habits. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, the difficult nature of Rivette's work, the rewards are often all the greater... Rivette remains a key figure of the French New Wave, and the creator of some of cinema's most challenging films." - Guy Crucianelli, 501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

 
 
Top 250 Directors
Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Chantal Akerman
Robert Bresson
Luis Buñuel
Carl Dreyer
Abbas Kiarostami
Jean-Luc Godard
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Louis Malle
Maurice Pialat
Eric Rohmer
Roberto Rossellini
Agnès Varda
 
Jacques Rivette's Favourites
L'Atalante (1934) Jean Vigo, Day of Wrath (1943) Carl Dreyer, Ganga (1959) Rajen Tarafder, Germany, Year Zero (1947) Roberto Rossellini, Ivan the Terrible, Parts 1 and 2 (1944/46) Sergei Eisenstein, The Life of Oharu (1952) Kenji Mizoguchi, Monsieur Verdoux (1947) Charles Chaplin, Mr. Arkadin (1955) Orson Welles, Sunrise (1927) F.W. Murnau, True Heart Susie (1919) D.W. Griffith. Source: Sight & Sound (1962)
 
 
 
         
         

 

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