One of the Greatest Films Ever Made
Jacques Rivette, a filmmaker whose time has come, made movies that exist in their own genre. Watching a Rivette film, always a singular experience, brings me close to a display of original genius unconnected to others' work. Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish director of unique masterpieces like La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc and Day of Wrath, said in an interview that he rarely went to see movies because he didn't want to be influenced by other directors, so that his own work would stand out. Rivette, in contrast, liked to watch a great variety of films. He said also that artists are imitators; one emulates what another has done, but creates the same kind of thing differently.
If Out 1, from 1971, has a precedent in cinema I don't know what that is. Rivette's nearly thirteen hour long film resonates as a monumental work on the art of acting, as a meditation on theatricality, and as a game played by its characters and director, a film artist completely and refreshingly detached from the practice of conventionality.
Shot in Paris and Normandy in April and May 1970, the film highlights two theater groups, both exploring plays by the fifth century B.C. playwright Aeschylus. Their improvisational acting exercises always use avant-garde and edgy methods, redolent of a period just coming off of the turbulent 1960s. The film, divided into eight episodes, comes back to these two groups numerous times, with additional scenes following individuals from the groups about in their off times. Thomas (Michael Lonsdale) leads one group, while Lili (Michèle Moretti) leads the other. The two of them know many of the same people not connected to the theater groups.
At opposition to these two groups are two strange individuals whose paths cross just once in the film's middle, so that the movie forms an X. These two, Colin (Jean-Pierre Léaud), and the con artist Frédérique (Juliet Berto), both operate in a kind of ongoing magical moment, with Colin latching readily onto the possibility of a mysterious conspiracy involving "the Thirteen," as in Balzac's novel, History of the Thirteen, which deals vaguely with a cabal of behind-the-scenes gentlemen manipulating events. Thomas, Lili, and several others in their circle really are part of some past group of "Thirteen," the true nature of which never comes to the foreground.
Rivette himself said in an interview that the "Thirteen" in his film are a group of upper class people who played with the idea of belonging to a behind-the-scenes strings-pulling conspiracy, but they always regarded it with a sense of humor. Colin and Frédérique, however, get caught up in believing in the conspiracy's reality. Their actions influence members of the Thirteen to speculate about two offscreen characters, key members of the Thirteen, Igor and Pierre. These men, referred to so often that they're virtual presences in the film, reveal themselves through what is said about them. Pierre, evidently, has used Colin, a young man who, in his mad conspiratorial researches, can stimulate interest again in the scattered Thirteen, making them want to get their thing, whatever it was, going again.
That such a bizarre plot stretches out to thirteen hours might make someone unfamiliar with the film wonder how it could possibly fulfill itself as a coherent or interesting artwork. I don't propose that Out 1 is an easy film to digest. I've now seen it twice. At an advantage, I've also seen several other Rivette films; I know his style, his pacing, his peculiarities. I also know that watching this epic in eight episodes, eight bites of compelling and unique cinema in roughly 100 minute long segments, a few longer, one or two shorter, makes the digestion of it quite doable. The great challenge, I think, is letting Rivette do it his way. Even after two viewings there are many elements in this film I don't understand, but my second viewing showed me things I didn't notice the first time. For one thing, sequences (such as some of the long rehearsals of the theater groups) that seemed endless in my first viewing didn't seem so the second time.
Coming to the film's end a second time, as with my first viewing two years ago, I felt awe. It is a film totally wrapped inside the NOW of April and May 1971, Paris and the Normandy coast. The characters dress according to the period, colorfully and with flair. The cars and backgrounds, the noises are all authentic real street noise without doctoring by Hollywood sound design. It's an alive movie of the Present, even while it's history. My only advice to anyone wanting to watch Out 1 is, Stay with it, the rewards will astound you.
Vic Neptune
Jacques Rivette, a filmmaker whose time has come, made movies that exist in their own genre. Watching a Rivette film, always a singular experience, brings me close to a display of original genius unconnected to others' work. Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish director of unique masterpieces like La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc and Day of Wrath, said in an interview that he rarely went to see movies because he didn't want to be influenced by other directors, so that his own work would stand out. Rivette, in contrast, liked to watch a great variety of films. He said also that artists are imitators; one emulates what another has done, but creates the same kind of thing differently.
If Out 1, from 1971, has a precedent in cinema I don't know what that is. Rivette's nearly thirteen hour long film resonates as a monumental work on the art of acting, as a meditation on theatricality, and as a game played by its characters and director, a film artist completely and refreshingly detached from the practice of conventionality.
Shot in Paris and Normandy in April and May 1970, the film highlights two theater groups, both exploring plays by the fifth century B.C. playwright Aeschylus. Their improvisational acting exercises always use avant-garde and edgy methods, redolent of a period just coming off of the turbulent 1960s. The film, divided into eight episodes, comes back to these two groups numerous times, with additional scenes following individuals from the groups about in their off times. Thomas (Michael Lonsdale) leads one group, while Lili (Michèle Moretti) leads the other. The two of them know many of the same people not connected to the theater groups.
At opposition to these two groups are two strange individuals whose paths cross just once in the film's middle, so that the movie forms an X. These two, Colin (Jean-Pierre Léaud), and the con artist Frédérique (Juliet Berto), both operate in a kind of ongoing magical moment, with Colin latching readily onto the possibility of a mysterious conspiracy involving "the Thirteen," as in Balzac's novel, History of the Thirteen, which deals vaguely with a cabal of behind-the-scenes gentlemen manipulating events. Thomas, Lili, and several others in their circle really are part of some past group of "Thirteen," the true nature of which never comes to the foreground.
Rivette himself said in an interview that the "Thirteen" in his film are a group of upper class people who played with the idea of belonging to a behind-the-scenes strings-pulling conspiracy, but they always regarded it with a sense of humor. Colin and Frédérique, however, get caught up in believing in the conspiracy's reality. Their actions influence members of the Thirteen to speculate about two offscreen characters, key members of the Thirteen, Igor and Pierre. These men, referred to so often that they're virtual presences in the film, reveal themselves through what is said about them. Pierre, evidently, has used Colin, a young man who, in his mad conspiratorial researches, can stimulate interest again in the scattered Thirteen, making them want to get their thing, whatever it was, going again.
That such a bizarre plot stretches out to thirteen hours might make someone unfamiliar with the film wonder how it could possibly fulfill itself as a coherent or interesting artwork. I don't propose that Out 1 is an easy film to digest. I've now seen it twice. At an advantage, I've also seen several other Rivette films; I know his style, his pacing, his peculiarities. I also know that watching this epic in eight episodes, eight bites of compelling and unique cinema in roughly 100 minute long segments, a few longer, one or two shorter, makes the digestion of it quite doable. The great challenge, I think, is letting Rivette do it his way. Even after two viewings there are many elements in this film I don't understand, but my second viewing showed me things I didn't notice the first time. For one thing, sequences (such as some of the long rehearsals of the theater groups) that seemed endless in my first viewing didn't seem so the second time.
Coming to the film's end a second time, as with my first viewing two years ago, I felt awe. It is a film totally wrapped inside the NOW of April and May 1971, Paris and the Normandy coast. The characters dress according to the period, colorfully and with flair. The cars and backgrounds, the noises are all authentic real street noise without doctoring by Hollywood sound design. It's an alive movie of the Present, even while it's history. My only advice to anyone wanting to watch Out 1 is, Stay with it, the rewards will astound you.
Vic Neptune
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