The story behind The Story of Marie and Julien

Filmbrain recently watched Jacques Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien, his most recent feature (from 2003), and one which surprisingly never had a theatrical run in the states. (Fortunately, Koch has released a great looking DVD.) Though not his greatest film, it certainly is a return to form after the relatively light (but still positively wonderful) Va Savoir (2001). A far more somber affair, it's a love-cum-ghost story that broods along at a glacial pace, but is nothing short of breathtaking. An antique clock restorer (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), a mysterious woman from his past (Emmanuelle Béart), blackmail, murder, and suicide -- all wrapped up in a hypnotic meditation on fate, love, and loss. Yet the story behind the film - a tale spanning nearly thirty years -- is every bit as compelling, and even has parallels to the phantasmagorical nature of the film itself. (For an excellent review/analysis of the film, please see Michael J. Anderson's article in Senses of Cinema.) In the mid 1970s, inspired by Jean Markale's Women of the Celts and Claude Gaignebet's Le Carnaval, Rivette planned to direct a tetralogy of films rooted in Goddess legends, with all four films sharing a common theme of eternal return. Initially called Les Filles de feu (Girls of fire), the series came to be known as Scènes de la vie parallèle (Scenes from a parallel life). Two of the four proposed films were completed in 1976 - Duelle, a noir-ish fantasy story about a battle between the sun and moon Goddesses, both of whom are seeking a magic jewel, and Noroît, an all-female swashbuckling pirate adventure. (The fourth film, which never got beyond the planning stages, was meant to be a musical with Anna Karina and Jean Marias.) Rather than formal screenplays, Rivette worked solely from simple sketches and notes, often based on conversations with the actors. In 1975 he asked his then-assistant Claire Denis to create a continuité technique for what was initially meant to be the first film in the series, The Story of Marie and Julien. Rivette had created the characters specifically for Leslie Caron and Albert Finney, who were, according to him, "at the height of their splendor in their forties." Sadly though, after just three days of filming, Rivette suffered a major nervous breakdown, and the entire Marie and Julien project was scrapped. In a 1987 Cahiers du Cinéma interview (conducted by Wim Wenders), Rivette admitted that his greatest regret ("actually, a remorse") was that he never completed the film. The DVD includes a forty-minute interview with Rivette from 2003 that is worth the price of the disc alone. Shot in a café, Rivette looks more than slightly uncomfortable, and fidgets quite a bit as the unseen (and unnamed) female interviewer plies him with questions about the film and its history. She certainly knows her stuff, but continually hammers him over certain issues. (Such as the difference between a ghost and a phantom.) Rivette speaks of the film as ghost that haunted him for years, and its completion has obviously been an event of no minor significance for the seventy-five year-old director. It's a remarkably revealing interview that plays out (at times) like a therapy session, and is a must-see for Rivette fans. Much like his infamous Showgirls defense, Rivette champions a few other unlikely candidates during the course of the interview, including a film that very few people admire -- Peter Bogdonavich's tribute to the 30s musical, At Long Last Love. Rivette refers to it as "one of Bogdonavich's most beautiful but least known films." (Filmbrain has a real soft spot for the film as well.) He also liked The Sixth Sense, finding it to be "one of the rare logical and intelligent ones", though he denies it had anything to do with his film. One could say that The Story of Marie and Julien has a somewhat Shamalayan twist to it, but it plunges into depths of human emotion and understanding that M. Night couldn't dream of. The Story of Marie and Julien certainly won't be everybody's cup of tea, but if on a long winter's night you crave something of substance, something that asks more questions than it answers, that lingers for days on end --- Rivette will certainly satisfy.

Comments

[phyrephox]

I saw this back at either a Film Comments Selects or Rendezvous with French Cinema series. I was a bit baffled, but then again this was my first Rivette. This year I saw "Celine and Julie Go Boating" and suddenly a lot of what I did not like or was mystified by this film clicked into place. I strongly want to see it again, because even though I only moderately liked it, I feel a return trip will be very rewarding. I wish someone would mount a Rivette retrospective; I would much rather watch those 3+ hour films in a theatre than on a TV.

[Flickhead]

Excellent review, FB.

[artflickchick]

Claire Denis? Is there anything that woman can't do? She is my beacon of light for inspiration. Thank you for sharing that story.

[Aaron Hillis]

I can't believe Flickhead didn't mention this, since he just linked to it: 1974 interview with Rivette, co-authored by Jonathan Rosenbaum (.PDF)