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Voted one of the best films of the Nineties in our decade-end poll of film curators, LA BELLE NOISEUSE is, like Erice's DREAM OF LIGHT, a magnum opus about an artist and a painting that takes a very long time to complete. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, NOISEUSE manages to transfix even the most impatient for its entire four hours. (There is a five minute intermission.) Cynical wags have argued that this is because the “beautiful troublemaker” of the title is nude throughout much of the film, but that in itself could not arrest an audience for the four hours Rivette uses to tell his mesmerizing story of sexual betrayal, artistic paralysis, and creative process. Michel Piccoli plays Frenhofer, a famous but long inactive artist who has sequestered himself in his chateau near Montpellier with his wife (Jane Birkin), a taxidermist nursing her own secret hurt. (Though inspired by a Balzac novella, the narrative has marked affinities with Henry James.) When an acolyte of the painter arrives at the château with his sullen girlfriend (Emmanuelle Béart) in tow, Frenhofer finds his creative impulse suddenly renewed. He isolates himself in his studio with the young woman, using her in increasingly cruel ways as the model for his unfinished masterwork, “La Belle Noiseuse,” which began as a portrait of his wife. As the wife monitors his artistic renewal with escalating unease and jealousy, the painting becomes the centre of a vortex of conflicting wills. One of Rivette's most purely enjoyable, finely achieved works. “ Rivette's greatest film since 1976” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader ). “The best film in the entire career of Jacques Rivette” (Luc Perreault).
Special ticket prices apply.
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