"Girls," circa 1974

Just kidding. But then again, mark my words: when the new 35mm print of Jacques Rivette's 1974 Celine and Julie Go Boating hits Film Forum beginning May 4, some "relevance" trolling dipstick who actually believes that the cultural vegetable is an actual category will make the comparison in absolute earnest, and whichever dolt decides to do so, he or she won't, in fact, be bereft of supporting evidence. Because the relationship between the two title characters, who were not just portrayed but in fact conceived and written by Juliet Berto  and Dominique Labourier (Celine and Julie respectively, and pictured thus from left to right, above) is a pretty bold if not quite unprecedented-in-cinema (or maybe it was, I'm hust not in a position to assert it as such) portrayal of feminist-and-counterculture-inflected female friendship. The meeting cute between the two characters, the erotic charge between them that never actually culminates in sexual exchange, the immediate frankness of their dialogue, the ease with which they swap roles the better to help each other, their easy cattiness; all these are aspects of a certain manifestation of Girl Power that's since been depicted/celebrated in all manner of cultural product. Susan Seidelman has cited this film as an influence on her own Desperately Seeking Susan, so it's not as if the connection is necessarily obscure.

Granted, it's not a connection that I find particularly interesting, and while I'm all for any kind of hype that will attract more viewers to this long and very unusual film, I also reserve the right to think of anyone who makes it in a particular kind of earnest as a particularly dull opportunist. The personal dynamic between Celine and Julie, which is extrapolated from both the actual friendship of Berto and Labourier and the imaginative discipline they applied to it, is demonstrably a by-product of the generous approach Rivette applied to the film's creation. This approach was an invention of necessity, in a sense; Berto and Rivette had been attached to a project for which financing wasn't happening, so this was conceived as a cheap, near-on-the-fly alternative. Narrative elements were grafted in, as it were; co-scenarist Eduardo de Gregorio tapped Henry James' novel The Other House, which he only knew from a stage adaptation, for the "haunted" house narrative, and of course Lewis Carroll was an inspiration...

The miracle of the film is that all of its disparate elements are mixed into the final cut that the film achieves that rarest of qualities: it creates a world of its own, a world in which everything on screen represents an opening for the viewer. The black ruffled shirt that Barbet Schroeder's Olivier wears throughout is not just ridiculous on the face of it, but is arguably "wrong" for the period in which the "other house" action is repeated, day after day (until Celine and Julie magically intervene for the film's delightful climax). And yet it is not wrong at all under the particular circumstance the film conjures. 

Similarly, in a late reiteration of Bulle Ogier's Camille injuring her hand on a broken champagne flute and being attended to by the nursemaid (who, depending on who's having the vision, is a version of either Celine of Julie), the shots of her "bleeding" hand very clearly reveal the tube around her forearm from which the fake-blood feed gushes. 

In any other film this would be a "gaffe." Here, I aver, it absolutely is not. Rather, it constitutes another layer of the onion of this movie's reality and inspection of reality/"reality." There is similar devilment at work in portions of Rivette's epic Out: One, but Celine and Julie represents a thoroughly concentrated/distilled declaration of aesthetic principle, a principle as playful as it is profound. 

But back to Girls: here's my pitch. Celine and Julie In Brooklyn, starring Ry Russo-Young as Celine and Dunham as Julie. They write their own parts but John Ashbery constructs the "plot," using the Wikipedia entry for James' The Sacred Fount as a crib for the haunted-house story. Alex Karpovsky can play Ford Obert. We shoot in the Heights—I know a guy with a brownstone—and Williamsburg, and Brooklyn Bridge Park for the "meet cute" scene. I think I can lease a RED camera relatively cheap if I play my cards right. LET'S DO THIS PEOPLE. 

Comments

[lazarus]

1. Next month in Paris the Cinematheque is hosting a Bulle Ogier retrospective, which includes all her collaborations with Rivette. Yes, even Out 1: Spectre, which I thought I may never see. I'm in Europe 'til June and flying out of Paris, so hoping to catch Duelle (my favorite Rivette visuals-wise), and Spectre, which screens days before I leave. I can deal with no English subtitles even though my French is basic. Having seen the longer version of Out 1 already will help.

2. I'm currently working on my own Céline and Julie homage in Los Angeles with a RED camera, ironically. I'll see you at Sundance, pal. May the best Metteur en Scene win.

[kdringg]

Set up this film on Kickstarter and I am in for $25 - all I want is a Some Came Running tote bag.

[other mike]

people getting angry at the never ending Girls conversation is silly to me since its going to be on TV on Sunday again. This thing is just getting started. like i am sick of the 2pac hologram talk, so if anyone brings it up again i groan, but if there was a 10 week span of 2pac hologram events, i would kinda have to take it as par for the course. people gonna over talk stuff to death.

[warren oates]

CELINE AND JULIE IN LOS ANGELES... But wait, they already made that one and it's called MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Good luck anyway, lazarus.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

Well, if we're talking about a great "portrayal of feminist and counterculture influenced friendship," can we get a little love for Agnes Varda's ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN'T? One could call it interesting rather than successful (I thought the elliptical editing and grungy musical numbers redeemed any didactic tendencies, yet the Fuzzwife found it just plain boring), but it very much fits that heading. And it's much more aggressive than GIRLS, or Rivette, in being specific in how the friendship depicted was only possible under certain historic conditions. But of course, because it's Agnes Varda, it's even more neglected stateside than the other French New Wavers. Le sigh.

[lazarus]

Oates: definitely a lot of similarities there; funny thing is that Lynch claims to have never seen (maybe never even heard of) the Rivette. Which is a little sad, either way. Especially as Rivette has praised Lynch's work before.

[Glenn Kenny]

Good call, TFB. Some enterprising programmer should revive the Varda while the zeitgeist iron is hot.

[warren oates]

Forget about THE MATRIX or even WORLD ON A WIRE. The aspect of C&J that's always interested me the most is the sheer brilliant simplicity of its storytelling invention. The creation of immersive alternate/parallel/interpenetrating worlds with the most basic cross-cutting. The fact that it's taken Lynch so long to catch up with it, whether he's ever seen the film or not, is a testament to how far ahead of his time Rivette was. If guys like lazarus are only now making Amer-Indie riffs on C&J then I predict the film will continue to age well and probably exert an even more profound influence on filmmakers in the years to come as the rest of us grow into a world Rivette has been living in all along.

[lazarus]

Well-said. If only Criterion would pull their heads out of their asses and help give the film (and Rivette in general) some attention state-side.

I've been doing my damnedest in Los Angeles to spread the word. I've screened my C&JGB import DVD for various friends about four times over the last four years, as well as Duelle a couple times, and Le Pont du Nord.

[David Ehrenstein]

Hey it's right here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skoHVXrWyc8

"Celine et Julie vont en bateau / Phantom Ladies Over Paris" was put together rather quickly in the wake of long-gestating project called "Phenix" that didn't pan out. That was to have been an "All About Eve" variation starring Jeanne Moreau and Juliet Berto. Rivette and his cast came up with "Celine et Julie" as a replacement. It's one of the most wondrous pieces of cinema ever created.

And now for some overwhelmingly sad news. Jacques Rivette has Alzheimer's disease.

As I trust everyone knows his last film "36 vues de Pic Saint-Loup" was a mere 80 minutes long. That's because Rivette had to cut the shooting short as he was having serious difficulty. His condition has since deegerated to the point that according to filmmaker Benoit Jacquot (who I interviewed two days ago) Rivette can no longer go to the movies as he finds it impossible to retain even so much as a few minutes of audio-visual information and therefore can no longer "follow" films at all.

It's a Death Before Death.

[David Ehrenstein]

Alas that link no longer works. They've taken "Celine et Julie" down from You Tube.

You can still find a few scenes from it there, however.

[david hare]

Jesus David you're not always the bearer of such shitty news...

[Oliver_C]

Stuart Galbraith wrote that Toshiro Mifune started showing early signs of Alzheimer's 10 years before his passing.

How many years ago did Rivette start championing 'Showgirls'? Just sayin'.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

"Well-said. If only Criterion would pull their heads out of their asses and help give the film (and Rivette in general) some attention state-side."

There's lots of Rivette Criterion probably could and should release -- they've supposedly had Paris nous appartient in the pipeline for a long while -- but Celine and Julie is still with New Yorker and they've never licensed anything to Criterion. New Yorker have said they'll be doing a Blu-ray themselves sometime after the theatrical reissue.

[David Ehrenstein]

Over and above that what we all really need is Out 1.

Yes it's shitty news, but that's the way things are, alas.

[Glenn Kenny]

Or "helas," as the case may be.

As much as I agree with Lazarus' sentiment that we need more Rivette up in this domestic DVD situation, the idea that Criterion has its head up its ass because it hasn't snapped its corporate fingers and made it so is, as the concern trolls like to say, unconstructive. And yeah, the soon-to-materialize new print of "Celine and Julie" is a New Yorker Films jam, and given the excellent product the newly relaunched company made of Straub/Huillet's "Moses und Aaron" I'd reckon that a New Yorker Films Blu-ray of "Celine and Julie" would be nothing to sneeze at.

[Darren Arnold]

David, thank you for posting this news, as unwelcome as it may be. I'd heard Rivette was in poor health but this obviously gives a bit more detail regarding what's going on. One of my other favourite filmmakers -- Claude Jutra -- also fell victim to this disease (albeit at a much younger age).

Anyone who understands French and is interested in the "Phénix" project that David refers to would do well to pick up the Cahiers book "Trois films fantômes de Jacques Rivette".

[David Ehrenstein]

But Jutra died of AIDS. Not the same thing though the manifestations may in some cases be similar.

Serge daney died of AIDS but he never develop Alzheimer's.

[Hauser Tann]

Nope, you're mistaken. Jutra died in a motorcycle accident—a suicide. He had Alzheimer's, as Darren said.

[Chris L.]

There was some chatter here recently about a possible Criterion edition of Bresson's L'ARGENT, which would make my cinematic year. Is New Yorker putting brakes on that as well?

My sympathies also to the great M. Rivette and his loved ones.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

New Yorker no longer has any claim to L'Argent. Their rights expired and were picked up by Janus, Criterion's parent company. Janus also got Le procès de Jeanne d’Arc and A Man Escaped.

[Darren Arnold]

Re: Claude Jutra. As Hauser said, he was involved in a life-threatening motorcycle accident, although his actual suicide -- following him being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's -- was by drowning himself in the St. Lawrence river. It took several months and a full Canadian winter for his body -- his pocked contained a note reading 'I am Claude Jutra' -- to be found. So while he didn't hang around for Alzheimer's to kill him, it nonetheless seemed to be a major (if not the sole) reason to end his life. Another very sad story.

[lazarus]

Sorry about my strong words for Criterion; I was under the impression that New Yorker Films was defunct and that the rights were up for grabs.

Having said that, are there any rights at all stateside for Duelle, Noroît, Le Pont du Nord, or Merry Go Round? Did any of that even make it to VHS here? These films don't even have UK releases.

It seems like if Criterion WANTED to put out any Rivette, there would be something available for them to acquire.

Also, regarding Out 1, there is still a listing on Amazon's German site for a 5-disc set containing both cuts to come out this coming November. This would likely not have English subtitles, but if the film was put into any releasable shape then a UK or US version wouldn't be too difficult.

[Tom Russell]

What I heard re: the rights to New Yorker films when it went out of business was that there was an auction with the entire library in one go, without anyone being told what exactly was in the library-- apparently a lot of New Yorker acquisitions were handshake deals-- and then Technicolor itself (the parent company which was responsible for New Yorker's demise in the first place) outbid everyone, retaining the rights.

New Yorker was re-formed a year or two ago (I think-- that is, I know they were re-formed, but I'm hazy on the timeline).

[warren oates]

Lazarus, Out 1 is supposed to be coming from Criterion sometime. Hopefully when that international version you saw hits the rest of the world this fall. Criterion also has the rights to Paris Belongs To Us. And Duelle, Noroît, Le Pont du Nord and Merry Go Round would certainly at the very least make an awesome Eclipse set, but who knows if they have any plans or rights for those.

[The Siren]

God knows I worship Criterion but I'm never comfortable with having them be the court of last resort for All Great Movies Missing on DVD. They've got a bottom line like anyone else, and fundamentally they're the good guys and not the problem.

I know from off-the-record conversations about rights tangles (not, I should emphasize, with anyone at Criterion), and also from my interview with Lee Tsiantis of the Time-Warner legal department, that there's often behind-the-scenes stuff going on with trying to get rights for certain movies. Sometimes you think nobody cares about a film you yearn for, and then you find out that somebody has, in fact, been working his ass off to get that very film out of whatever limbo it's stuck in. I'm not Pollyanna but I have to remind myself of this every time I whine, and I whine a lot.

[lazarus]

Warren: Let's hope that Rivette doesn't get relegated to Eclipse (as much as I adore that sub-label), but that's exactly what they did with Daisies without even having the decency to give Chytilova her own set like Shepitko or Ackerman. And Daisies is easily deserving of top-tier treatment, a landmark title as important as anything from even the French New Wave. At least the region 2 release from Second Run gave us a charming video interview with the director.

[BobSolo]

While DAISIES did deserve a more prominent treatment (ditto the upcoming PUTNEY SWOPE Eclipse), that Czech New Wave box is too awesome to speak ill of.

There have long been rumors of a Criterion OUT 1 release. But I'll take it on any label that wants to treat it with some TLC.

[Partisan]

Does anyone know who has the rights to THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS, where the New Yorker version never made it DVD? Is anybody going to say something nice about Criterion now that THE ORGANIZER is on DVD? (Aside from Dave Kehr's good review yesterday?]