109 - Paris Belongs to Us, 1961, France. Dir. Jacques Rivette.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

109 - Paris Belongs to Us, 1961, France. Dir. Jacques Rivette.

Anne and Gerard sit on the bridge.  The Pont des Arts.  The Art Bridge.

The famous pedestrian bridge that crosses the river Seine.

In a Paris that is magically empty.

Gerard is directing a Shakespeare play.  Pericles.

He has cast Anne in a role.

Anne is not an actress.  She is a literature student.  She has an exam coming up.

But she showed up to rehearsal with her friend Jean-Marc when he went to quit the play.

She asked if she could stay and watch.  Gerard said yes.

Then a woman quit the play, so Gerard asked if she could read with the others.

Then he asked her to play the part.

Now they are sitting on the bridge.

Gerard asks Anne what she thinks of Pericles.

She says it is disjointed.  Uneven.  Put together in bits and pieces.

Yet that is OK.  Shakespeare had great insights.  Great moments.  And if the audience is patient, then they will appreciate what he is giving them.

Jacques Rivette, the writer-director of our film, is talking about himself.  He is talking about the film we are watching.  Paris Belongs to Us.

It is disjointed.  Uneven.  Put together in bits and pieces.

And he hopes we will be patient with him the way we might be patient with Shakespeare.

Instead of jumping off the Pont des Arts, which some might want to do when watching this film.

Paris Belongs to Us is the first film in the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague).

Well, at least it was supposed to be.

It was the first feature film begun by one of the members of the Cahiers du Cinema writing team.

It just was not the first feature film finished.

It took four long years to make.

And by the time Jacques Rivette finished it, his colleagues had all come out with their films.  And some of them had become stars.  And some of them were making good money.

And the style of their films had by now defined what the French New Wave would be.  Making this film already feel somewhat outdated.

It is actually kind of us to say this film is disjointed.  Uneven.  Put together in bits and pieces.

The truth is it is an amateur film.

Made by a beginner.  By someone with no training.  And little experience beyond a few short films.  And with little money.

Rivette did not have a script but rather a breakdown of scenes.  He had no storyboards.  He shot silently (MOS) and added voices and sound later.  He borrowed a camera.

He used his friends as actors.  They improvised.  The Script Girl wrote down their lines as they spoke them and then they went back and rewrote the dialogue.  When they overdubbed the voices later, the new lines did not always match the lips.

The camerawork is casual.  Rivette seems to have placed the camera just wherever he felt like it in the moment rather than with a precise purpose.

The lighting is harsh.  He had few if any film lights.  He used natural lighting and practical lighting.  People walk in and out of the light and shadows at random.  A character may be in the sunlight and then step into the shadow of the trees and go into silhouette for no reason .

The camera is sometimes overexposed and sometimes underexposed.

The sound effects added later sound artificial.  They may be indoors rehearsing and you hear thunder but it does not sound as though it is really happening outside.  It sounds more like a Mystic Moods record.

The acting is theatrical and stagey.  Some characters are stiff.  Others are emoting.  At times you feel you are watching a high school play.

And if we have not discouraged you yet, let us add this bit and piece:

The story feels as though it were written by an undergrad newly enamored with existentialism.

We go to a party.  People are sitting around.  No one seems to be having a great time.  But that is OK.  That is not the goal of this crowd.  They are more interested in being.

One of their members has died.  Juan.  The composer.  The one who wrote the music for our staging of the play Pericles.

He may have committed suicide.  Or he may have been eliminated by a secret conspiracy.

Really.

Because we lounge-abouts are nihilists.  Anarchists.  Political revolutionaries.  And someone somewhere somehow might be threatened by our subversive activities.

Maybe.

Do they grieve the death of their compatriot?  No.  They philosophize.  They take drags.  They attempt to affect the profound.

Anne walks through the room.  She is new.  She stumbled upon this scene through the instigating of her brother Pierre.

She meets a man named Philip Kaufman.  Whose name has nothing to do with our American director.  Maybe more like Philip Yordan.  The character Kaufman is an American journalist banished to France by the black list.

And a woman named Terry.  Whose last name is Yordan.  Who is mysterious.  And whom Kaufman accuses of being responsible for Juan's death, at least morally

Anne will go on a quest.

A quest to find out how Juan died.  Did he commit suicide or was he killed?

And a quest to find out if Gerard is going to commit suicide or be killed.

Because she keeps receiving these notes from Gerard.  Suggesting that he might be next.  If he actually wrote them.

There are moments when Gerard and Anne start hitting it off.  Maybe they will like each other.  Maybe some chemistry will develop.

But that would be asking too much of this film.

What we get instead is this great line:

"Well, good luck.  Work hard and marry a notary."

Gerard say it to Anne as they depart.

But she comes back to him with another note.  He is standing on the curb with another woman.  Also with no chemistry.

He rips up the note and throws the bits and pieces onto the sidewalk.  Claiming he did not write it.

Then she finds out that he does die.

Really.

He committed suicide.  Unless Terry killed him.

We have time for one more stagey conversation between the two women.  With the magazine Cahiers du Cinema prominently displayed on a rack above their heads.  Do you get it?  Do you get it?  Jacques Rivette wants you to get it.

Anne asks what is going on.

Terry asserts the conspiracy.

"It affects him, Juan, you, all of us."

She stands dramatically and turns slowly.  She looks out and delivers her lines for the parents of this high school play we are watching.

"Those who don't give in are broken.  Either we huddle together like flotsam, or swallow something like this.  Total oblivion in 10 minutes.  / We're imbeciles.  /  It's all your fault.  You sought the sublime."

Really?

Really.

Then we go out to the countryside and Anne has a premonition that Terry killed Gerard.  When the real Terry appears Anne confronts her.

This is the kind of film people watch because of its place in history and not for its ability to stand on its own two feet.

It is not unlike so many student films being made today or independent films submitted to festivals.

If it were to come out today it would be laughable.  Or at least it would be a serviceable first step in the beginning of the career of a burgeoning director.

However, the Criterion disc includes an introduction by University of Georgia professor Richard Neupert which is so compelling it makes you want to give the film another try.

And to be patient with Rivette the way you would be with Shakespeare.

And try to put together the bits and pieces.

Rather than jumping off the bridge.  The Art Bridge.  The Pont des Artes.

Maybe some companies should hire Dr. Neupert to sell their widgets.