For my very first day in Cannes and very first screening, I watched Jacques Rivette’s L’Amour Fou (1969), recently restored since the 35 mm print was burned in a laboratory fire. In addition to directing, Rivette was a critic as well. He was hired by the influential critic Andre Bazin, who founded the distinguished French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema. A film school reject, as a young man he met and befriended other future French New Wave giants at film screenings, getting to know François Truffaut (The 400 Blows), Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Masculin Féminin), Eric Rohmer (My Night at Maud’s), Claude Chabrol (La Ceremonie) and others, an epic squad of critic director hyphenates of the movement.
The free spirited, intellectual, innovative, and aesthetic hallmarks of the French New Wave are certainly present in L’Amour Fou. Less famous than his other works, such as Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), L’Amour Fou (translates to “crazy love”) was Rivette’s third feature. It was extremely influential for his opus, the twelve hour long Out 1 (1971) that came out just two years later, a collection of 90 minute arcs inspired by Balzac, ranked 169 on the BFI’s sight and sound list of best films of all time. (Celine and Julie Go Boating is the only other Rivette movie on the list, clocking in at 78.)
Over the course of L’Amour Fou’s four hour run time, it follows Sebastien (Jean-Pierre Kalfon), a director of a play (Racine’s version of Andromaque) where the rehearsals are being filmed by a crew. Simultaneously, his relationship devolves with his wife, Claire (Bulle Ogier), an actress whom he fires from the play at the beginning of the film, establishing his character as someone with vision but lacks empathy and compassion, willing to put his pursuit of art above his relationships. L’Amour Fou is innovative not just in its bloated runtime, but also in the cinematic technique Rivette chose to employ. The shots “filmed” by the crew were shot handheld 16mm, while other footage is 35mm. The footage is bewitching, it feels alive and dynamic due to the grain and texture, mesmerizing to get lost in, the restoration making it super crisp and beautiful.
The film is very meta, positing philosophical questions such as how much you change the essence of a performance just by pointing the camera at it, exploring the relationship between theater, the more traditional art form, and cinema, the more modern one. It also brings upon the question of whether auteurism and the pursuit of genius in art are really worthwhile if it destroys your relationships and your personality, turning you into a callous, tedious, asinine jerk with no regards for others.
Unfortunately, while I was watching this film I was so jetlagged and exhausted that I snoozed through the vast majority of the film – luckily, I think this actually worked in my favor, as the repetitive structure and four hour runtime is certainly not for the weak of heart or those who need the constant overstimulation we’ve grown used to from modern day blockbusters and Tiktok. So if you want to put something on the TV before bed that’s visually stunning but has the potential to put you right to sleep, if you’re able to find it online at home, feel free to try out L’Amour Fou. Just maybe try out the 2 hour cut instead of the full version.
[…] after sitting through a four hour movie (L’Amour Fou) for my first film at Cannes, I chose yet another four hour movie to see for my second film at 10 AM on my second day at the […]