71 Facts About Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette made twenty-nine films, including L'Amour fou, Out 1, Celine and Julie Go Boating, and La Belle Noiseuse.

Jacques Rivette's work is noted for its improvisation, loose narratives, and lengthy running times.

Jacques Rivette moved to Paris to pursue his career, frequenting Henri Langlois' Cinematheque Francaise and other cine-clubs; there, he met Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and other future members of the New Wave.

Jacques Rivette began writing film criticism, and was hired by Andre Bazin for Cahiers du Cinema in 1953.

Jacques Rivette's articles, admired by his peers, were considered the magazine's best and most aggressive writings, particularly his 1961 article "On Abjection" and his influential series of interviews with film directors co-written with Truffaut.

Jacques Rivette continued making short films, including Le Coup de Berger, which is often cited as the first New Wave film.

Jacques Rivette became editor of Cahiers du Cinema during the early 1960s and publicly fought French censorship of his second feature film, The Nun.

Jacques Rivette then re-evaluated his career, developing a unique cinematic style with L'amour fou.

Jacques Rivette's output increased from then on, and his film La Belle Noiseuse received international praise.

Jacques Rivette retired after completing Around a Small Mountain, and it was revealed three years later that he had Alzheimer's disease.

Jacques Pierre Louis Rivette was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France, to Andre Rivette and Andree Amiard, into a family "where everyone is a pharmacist".

Jacques Rivette, educated at the Lycee Pierre-Corneille, said that he briefly studied literature at the university "just to keep myself occupied".

Eric Rohmer, whose film criticism Jacques Rivette admired, gave a talk at the screening.

Jacques Rivette took courses at the Sorbonne, but began frequenting screenings at Henri Langlois's Cinematheque Francaise with Bouchet instead of attending classes.

Jacques Rivette was active in post-screening debates, and Rohmer said that, in film-quiz competitions at the Studio Parnasse he was "unbeatable".

Jacques Rivette credited Langlois's screenings and lectures for helping him persevere during his early impoverishment in Paris: "A word from you saved me and opened the doors of the temple".

Unlike his contemporaries, Jacques Rivette attended screenings at the Cinematheque well into the 1970s.

Jacques Rivette championed Hollywood directors such as Howard Hawks and Fritz Lang and international directors such as Roberto Rossellini and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Jacques Rivette was eager to make a film with Rossellini's help and met him along with co-writer Gruault to discuss the Cite Universitaire as a "melting pot of cultures and ideas" in Paris.

Jacques Rivette struggled to finish the film and find distributors.

Jacques Rivette helped Rivette premiere it at the Studio des Ursulines on 16 December 1961, followed by a run at the Agriculteurs cinema in Paris.

Jacques Rivette later compared the New Wave to impressionist painting; the availability of paint in tubes, which allowed artists to paint outdoors, was similar to technological advancements enabling filmmakers to shoot in the streets.

In 1962, Jacques Rivette suggested that Godard's wife, Anna Karina, would be perfect in the lead role.

Jacques Rivette directed and Godard produced the three-hour play, which opened at the Studio des Champs-Elysees on 6 February 1963 and closed on 5 March.

Jacques Rivette's staging, in the classical style of Marivaux, was intentionally simple.

Rohmer profiled New Wave filmmakers in the December 1962 issue before his June 1963 resignation, when Jacques Rivette became his successor.

Unlike Rohmer, Jacques Rivette allowed writers such as Michel Delahaye and Jean-Louis Comolli to publish articles gravitating towards politics and philosophy and not necessarily related to film.

Jacques Rivette was an ambitious and financially irresponsible editor; shortly after an expensive, 250-page double issue on American films, Cahiers needed financial help.

Jacques Rivette remained editor until April 1965, and was replaced by Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni.

Immediately after Jacques Rivette left Cahiers, Beauregard was ready to make The Nun and Jacques Rivette and Gruault again revised their script.

Jacques Rivette called the script a record of the stage play, with a "highly written texture".

Jacques Rivette told Le Figaro Magazine, "It was as though they had guillotined us", and in Rouen his father Andre vehemently defended the film against the city's efforts to ban it.

The Nun was finally released on 26 July 1967, with the publicity helping make it Jacques Rivette's only hit film to that point.

Jacques Rivette spoke at a press conference and led a charge past one of the police barricades, briefly entering the Cinematheque with Anne Wiazemsky.

In March 1968, Jacques Rivette was appointed to an advisory committee, and the following month Langlois was reinstated in the Cinematheque.

Jacques Rivette called Truffaut at Cannes with the news, and Truffaut, Godard and other directors stopped the festival.

Jacques Rivette dispensed with a script, shot list and specific direction, experimenting with scenarios and groups of actors.

Jacques Rivette then developed the basic structure for what would become Out 1.

From April to June 1970, Jacques Rivette shot over 30 hours of 16mm footage as his cast improvised a story involving conspiracy theories and theatrical rehearsals.

Jacques Rivette is led to a boutique and meets Frederique, a young thief.

Jacques Rivette then made his most critically acclaimed film, Celine and Julie Go Boating.

Jacques Rivette met with friends, actresses Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier, to develop two characters and created a plot and script with collaborator Eduardo de Gregorio.

Unlike his previous two films, Jacques Rivette did not use improvisation during the filming and said that the plot was carefully constructed in advance.

Jacques Rivette then conceived and obtained funding for a series of four films, Scenes de la vie parallele.

Jacques Rivette collaborated on the scenarios with de Gregorio and Parolini.

The director said that Susan Sontag enjoyed Noroit, and Jean Rouch recognised ancient African myths in its plot, where Jacques Rivette had included Celtic myths.

Jacques Rivette decided that he wanted to film both or neither and made an unrelated film, Merry-Go-Round.

Jacques Rivette relied on improvisation during its production, which he described after a few days as "going very badly".

Jacques Rivette said, "There were two people in poor health during filming, and there wasn't any money at all".

Jacques Rivette had difficulty finding financing, with the Centre national de la cinematographie refusing three times to fund the film.

Jacques Rivette was the chief distributor and financier for all his subsequent films.

Jacques Rivette received critical acclaim for his 1988 film La Bande des quatre, about four drama students whose lives playfully alternate from theatre to real life and make-believe.

Jacques Rivette enjoyed working with the four young actresses in La Bande des quatre so much, that Rivette returned to the theatre.

Jacques Rivette then made a two-part film about the life of Joan of Arc entitled Joan the Maiden: Joan the Maiden, Part 1: The Battles and Joan the Maiden, Part 2: The Prisons.

Jacques Rivette's film differed from well-known interpretations of Joan by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson, focusing on her popularity in France rather than her suffering and martyrdom.

Jacques Rivette contacted Nathalie Richard, Marianne Denicourt and Laurence Cote, who gave him an idea for a film about 1920s New York City taxi dance halls; this led to Up, Down, Fragile.

Jacques Rivette said that the film, loosely based on the Electra myth, was influenced more by Jean Giraudoux's lesser-known play than on the classical versions by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

Jacques Rivette pays tribute to Howard Hawks' screwball comedies, and includes a reference to It Happened One Night.

In 2002, Jacques Rivette published a book of scripts from three of his unmade films, including Marie et Julien.

The script for Marie et Julien had never been completed, and the footage from the three days of shooting was lost; Jacques Rivette worked from "cryptic notes" taken by his assistant, Claire Denis, which cinematographer William Lubtchansky had kept for decades.

Jacques Rivette cast Beart and Radziwilowicz in the lead roles, saying that it was "more interesting and more exciting" to work with actors with whom he had previously worked, and some dialogue in the original notes was unchanged.

In 2007, Jacques Rivette made The Duchess of Langeais, a faithful adaptation of Balzac's novel, and the second of Balzac's trilogy Histoire des treize, the introduction to which inspired Out 1.

In 2009, Jacques Rivette made 36 vues du pic Saint-Loup; Jane Birkin starred as a woman who returns to her childhood circus troupe after her father dies, and begins a romance with a wealthy Italian drifter.

Jacques Rivette was the group's secret soul, the occult thinker, a bit of a censor.

Truffaut said that in the 1950s, Jacques Rivette was the only member of the group already capable of directing a feature film.

Jacques Rivette determined what was moral and right, like a hall monitor.

On 20 April 2012, film critic David Ehrenstein posted online that Jacques Rivette had Alzheimer's disease.

Jacques Rivette died on 29 January 2016 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 87, in his home in Paris.

Jacques Rivette was memorialised by President Francois Hollande as "one of the greatest filmmakers" and praised by Minister of Culture Fleur Pellerin.

Jacques Rivette was buried on 5 February 2016 in the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris, not far from Francois Truffaut's grave.

Veronique Manniez-Jacques Rivette told the funeral goers that just as angels are said to sing during moments of silence at twenty minutes past the hour, Jacques Rivette had died at 12:20pm.