L’Amour Fou (Jacques Rivette) 1968
Jacques Rivette’s L’Amour Fou is clearly one of
the more superficially challenging films that I’ve seen of late. It’s
foreign, four and a half hours long, filmed in black and white on two different
stocks (with two different aspect ratios), and has a relatively thin plot.
Still, it was one of the best viewing experiences that I’ve had in months.
There’s something about an exceptionally long, deliberately paced movie
that’s downright hypnotic when it’s viewed in a theater. I am able to lose
myself in this sort of epic far more easily than I can in something like Gladiator.
That this sort of film is becoming increasingly rare, and hard to come by in
theaters (or even on video… L’Amour Fou isn’t available for home
viewing, even in France) is disappointing.
The funny thing is that if you can disregard its stylistic,
narrative, and physical challenges, L’Amour Fou is eminently watchable
and approachable. As I mentioned, the plot is quite thin. It follows the
dissolution of a marriage between Claire, an actress (brilliantly played by
Bulle Ogier), and Sebastien, her director (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). This specificity
allows the characters to be developed to an extent that’s almost unparalleled
in cinema. Rivette uses the longer running time of the film to establish their
relationship’s end as the result of a recurring cycle of self-destructive
behavior, and not just the fallout from a nasty squabble. Neither in the duo is
any more to blame for the breakup than the other. She realizes he will only
respond to her when she acts needy and hurt. He stops responding to her because
she acts needy and hurt. Their circular routine of self-destruction is
unequivocally mutual. To ask who the instigator is would be as pointless as to
ask if the chicken or egg came first. Watching their breakdown is both harrowing
and fascinating. The only real question for the audience is how long the two of
them will both buy into the illusion that it’s going to work out.
This marital distress plays out over three weeks (shown to
us day by day) in which a troupe of actors is preparing a production of Jean
Racine’s version of the Greek tragedy Andromaque. Though the large passages of
the play that are quoted comment directly upon the real life events around them,
it’s not necessary to try to compare the overall framework of the play (in
which the widowed Andromaque marries King Pyrrhus to save her son from the
Greeks) to that of the film. The rehearsals seem to function more as a way for
Rivette to tie this film in with the rest of the French New Wave. Since the
auditions are being filmed, the commentary he offers about the function of the
director, film, and the audience feels relatively unobtrusive. The crew that is
filming the play’s preparations uses a hand-held 16mm camera, which by
providing close-ups of the action, seems to feel what Rivette’s more
formalistic 35mm compositions seem better at understanding.
What I mean by that statement is that Rivette seems to want
the audience to understand the process of these rehearsals, so that we can
better understand the function of the director. Sebastien, like the Cahiers
crew, is quite concerned with how the audience perceives his profession, and
it’s interesting that the documentarians in the film fail to show us as much
about the actual process of directing the actors (e.g. the blocking, the
realization of the material), since they seem more interested in the dishy such
as who’s sleeping with who and whether or not the production is going to be a
disaster. Rivette’s camera, which isn’t really “there” seems to have a
better understanding, though, so the audience leaves with a solid understanding
of this creative progression. The movie's biggest suggestion is that a director
really has to work hard to do what he does and his external life is a harmful
distraction to his process. This is admittedly somewhat self-serving (in the
same way all the New Wave's self awareness is since it’s always making more
acutely aware that film has a director), but remains compelling due to its
presentation. Overall, the package makes for one of the best French films that
I’ve seen. For those that can meet the challenges it poses, it’s highly
recommended.
**** Masterpiece
01-06-02
Jeremy Heilman