Jacques Rivette

Having heard the news that Rivette passed away, I felt the best way would be to write a comment in The Guardian which I've copied here. Rivette's films meant the world to me. They still do. I don't care if nobody else in the entire world cared for his films but to me, they were the bible. I've wanted to, and still want, to get lost in the worlds that he created. I feel they've helped build me as a person and for that I cannot thank him for that.

 

I first got into Rivette through La Belle Noiseuse because at that time I just wanted to see Emmanuelle Béart. But I was really impressed with the way it was directed, the style. At the time I thought it was one of the most natural films I've seen. I know now that all films are built upon an artifice of sorts, but I felt that there was something there that approached the way of film-making differently, and like Alice, I fell down the rabbit hole into his own little world. The pinnacle of these films, Noroit, will forever be, to my mind, one of his greatest films, and perhaps one of his most baffling. I've never been able to describe what it is about his films that attract me so much. They have a certain mystique and allure. They draw you in and.....well I suppose in Celine and Julie...it's the same experience. You always feel slightly disorientated by it all. But, I felt, always in a good way.

I always felt slightly disturbed by his last film. It must be 5 years since I watched it at the IFI. There was something about the abrupt editing that unnerved me. Of course, reading about him being diagnosed with Alzheimers, it sort of made sense but it also made me feel that we, as humans, never really take the time to reflect on our feelings. We just, publically at least, go on as if nothing ever happened.

I guess I'm rambling on, but I will say that watching Rivette's films is like being sucked up into a universe and it's as thrilling and baffling as anything else .

R.I.P Jacques