The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 30, 2017

Note: The scores above are averages for the three films in the set. Please see the reviews linked below for scores on the individual releases.

According to several sources Cahiers du cinéma is the oldest publication devoted to film still being published. This venerable journalistic institution was founded in the early fifties by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca and soon employed a coterie of intellectuals who would ultimately go on to redefine first French film and finally world cinema itself. Among the now legendary names associated with Cahiers du cinéma are Éric Rohmer (the magazine’s first editor), Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. A 1954 article by Truffaut is often credited with opening the analytical floodgates for what later became known as “auteur theory”, and as should already be evident given the names listed above, several of the writers employed by Cahiers du cinéma went on to become foundational figures in the movement known as Nouvelle vague, the French New Wave. It’s perhaps a little strange, then, that the name of Jacques Rivette hasn’t quite penetrated the typical American filmgoer consciousness in the same way that (especially) Godard and Truffaut have, since Rivette began writing for the magazine as early as 1953 and in fact became its editor around a decade later. Rivette was also reportedly the first writer for the magazine later associated with the French New Wave to actually matriculate into feature film making, with his Paris Belongs to Us. That film reportedly began production in 1958, well before François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows came out in 1959 and/or Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless appeared in 1960, though it wasn’t finished and screened until 1961, perhaps robbing Rivette of some bragging rights which would have otherwise been his.

Like some of his (future) New Wave counterparts, Rivette wasn’t especially pleased with the mainstream French film industry of the 1950s and also like some of his cohorts he tended to lionize larger than life Hollywood directors like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. As structurally innovative as Godard has been, it’s arguable that in some ways Rivette was even more anarchic in his approach toward “traditional” filmmaking, introducing some almost gargantuan running times while also letting his casts (which were often almost absurdly large) to improvise their way through whole sequences. If Godard’s approach toward deconstruction might be thought of as often a post-production technique, Rivette attacked some of the presumptions of less ambitious filmmakers from a more foundational perspective, questioning the actual production process itself. This new collection from Arrow gathers together three interesting efforts from Rivette spanning the years from 1976 to 1983. The first two films in this set, Duelle and Noroît, were initially meant to be part of a four part series wherein Rivette sought to once again reinvent film “grammar”, though the series met an unexpected ending when Rivette suffered a debilitating breakdown on the set of the proposed third film (which somewhat confusingly was initially supposed to be the first to be released and which rather enticingly would have starred Albert Finney and Leslie Caron). Rivette’s psychological turmoil made the ultimate follow up production of Merry-Go-Round extremely troubled, as evidenced by the fact that filming began in 1978 but wasn’t completed until 1981 (with the film not getting an official theatrical release until a couple of years after completion).

For reviews of the three films in this set, please click on the following links:

Duelle Blu-ray review

Noroît Blu-ray review

Merry-Go-Round Blu-ray review

The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Two (Duelle and Merry Go Round) of the three discs in this set have supplementary material, which is detailed in those reviews. That said, not all of the supplementary material is necessarily focused solely on the film featured on that particular disc. Additionally, Arrow has done their typically nice job of packaging, offering each of the three films in its own keepcase with rather appealing cover art, a sturdy slipbox, and their traditionally well done booklet, which contains essays and production photos.

The Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While this is yet another fantastically commendable release from Arrow Academy, it lacks Out 1 which was included on Arrow's British release, which may disappoint some stateside Rivette fans. That said, this is probably a release more for current devotees of the director than for newcomers. For those unacquainted with Rivette, probably one of the better and more easily accessible places to start would be Celine And Julie Go Boating, which unfortunately hasn't been released on Blu-ray as of the writing of this review. Technical merits are generally strong and as usual Arrow has provided some very appealing supplements. Recommended.