Jacques Rivette

Being a European filmmaker means never having to worry you're too old to direct. Manoel De Oliveira is still active at 101, Alain Resnais just had "Wild Grass" released at 88, so why shouldn't Jacques Rivette, only 82 and like Resnais a French New Wave stalwart, have a new film as well? One thing increased age has meant for Rivette is that his films are getting shorter. Instead of clocking in at the three, four and even four-plus hours that used to be the norm, "Around a Small Mountain" lasts a mere 84 minutes, practically a hiccup in the director's world.

Among the founding fathers of the French New Wave, Jacques Rivette, who turned 83 this month, has remained a relatively forgotten figure. His films were less fashionable and often more perplexing than those of his peers Jean Luc-Godard, Éric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol. Not insignificantly, they were also a good deal longer. Rivette's movies typically run three or four hours ? the rarely screened "Out 1," from 1971, is 121/2 hours long ? and their marathon running times are intimately tied to his sense of narrative as a game, a force with a life of its own, a spell capable of overcoming actors and viewers alike.

FRENCH director Jacques Rivette, whom the UCLA Film & Television Archive is feting with a retrospective beginning Saturday, was once asked why his features were so long. "He said something interesting in 'Jacques Rivette, the Night Watchman,' the documentary we are showing," says programmer David Pendleton. "He feels that time no longer has the same density that it did in the days of the classic cinema.

Gillo Pontecorvo's "Kapò," a concentration-camp drama from 1959, is neither a great nor a terrible movie, but it has a special place in the history of Holocaust films (and of film criticism). It is a flash point in a long-running debate -- one that surrounds films as different as "Schindler's List" and "Inglourious Basterds" -- about the responsibilities and the limitations of cinema when it comes to depicting a historical atrocity. "Kapò" is being released this week on DVD through Criterion's Essential Art House line, which offers no-frills editions of titles from the company's back catalog at a reduced price ($19.

With "The Duchess of Langeais," French New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette has brought the Balzac short story to screen as a superb chamber drama. His is a graceful work of austerity and formality that perfectly captures the chaos of repressed emotions that see beneath the rigid conventions of aristocratic society.

"Up/Down/Fragile," which launches a series of French films at the Grande 4-Plex, is not like any musical you have ever seen, but then its director, New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette, is not like other filmmakers, either. To begin with, more often than not, Rivette favors long films. When was the last time you saw a musical that clocked in at 2 hours and 44 minutes, had no singing and dancing numbers in its first hour and not much plot until yet another hour?

Gillo Pontecorvo's "Kapò," a concentration-camp drama from 1959, is neither a great nor a terrible movie, but it has a special place in the history of Holocaust films (and of film criticism). It is a flash point in a long-running debate -- one that surrounds films as different as "Schindler's List" and "Inglourious Basterds" -- about the responsibilities and the limitations of cinema when it comes to depicting a historical atrocity. "Kapò" is being released this week on DVD through Criterion's Essential Art House line, which offers no-frills editions of titles from the company's back catalog at a reduced price ($19.

"Five 'Lost' French Films" series has begun at the Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica with a once-banned Jacques Rivette masterpiece, "The Nun" ("La Religeuse"), which last had a Los Angeles run in 1972. It is so harrowing, so overwhelming, that it leaves an indelible impression. The intensity of its spirituality ranks it alongside the finest achievements of Robert Bresson and Carl Dreyer.

"Va Savoir" offers many pleasures, but none so rare or satisfying as the chance to watch a film find itself. For this masterful celebration starts off slowly, even uncertainly, giving no hint of the rich and elegant exploration of love, jealousy and animal attraction it will in all good time become. If that final phrase sounds a bit Shakespearean, it should.

For more than 35 years, Michel Piccoli has been one of France's finest, most versatile actors in television and the theater, and has worked in film for virtually every major French director. Sixty-five-year-old Piccoli, who started going bald at an early age, has changed very little over the decades and continues to play romantic leads without straining.

With "The Duchess of Langeais," French New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette has brought the Balzac short story to screen as a superb chamber drama. His is a graceful work of austerity and formality that perfectly captures the chaos of repressed emotions that see beneath the rigid conventions of aristocratic society.

FRENCH director Jacques Rivette, whom the UCLA Film & Television Archive is feting with a retrospective beginning Saturday, was once asked why his features were so long. "He said something interesting in 'Jacques Rivette, the Night Watchman,' the documentary we are showing," says programmer David Pendleton. "He feels that time no longer has the same density that it did in the days of the classic cinema.

"Va Savoir" offers many pleasures, but none so rare or satisfying as the chance to watch a film find itself. For this masterful celebration starts off slowly, even uncertainly, giving no hint of the rich and elegant exploration of love, jealousy and animal attraction it will in all good time become. If that final phrase sounds a bit Shakespearean, it should.

"Up/Down/Fragile," which launches a series of French films at the Grande 4-Plex, is not like any musical you have ever seen, but then its director, New Wave pioneer Jacques Rivette, is not like other filmmakers, either. To begin with, more often than not, Rivette favors long films. When was the last time you saw a musical that clocked in at 2 hours and 44 minutes, had no singing and dancing numbers in its first hour and not much plot until yet another hour?

For more than 35 years, Michel Piccoli has been one of France's finest, most versatile actors in television and the theater, and has worked in film for virtually every major French director. Sixty-five-year-old Piccoli, who started going bald at an early age, has changed very little over the decades and continues to play romantic leads without straining.

"Five 'Lost' French Films" series has begun at the Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica with a once-banned Jacques Rivette masterpiece, "The Nun" ("La Religeuse"), which last had a Los Angeles run in 1972. It is so harrowing, so overwhelming, that it leaves an indelible impression. The intensity of its spirituality ranks it alongside the finest achievements of Robert Bresson and Carl Dreyer.

"Joan of Arc in History and Film," a conference sponsored by the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Florence Gould Foundation of New York, will be held through Saturday at UCLA's Melnitz Theater and its faculty center. The event will include Jacques Rivette's "Joan the Maid: The Battles" (1994) which screens today at 7 p.m., and its second part, "Joan the Maid: The Prisons," screens Saturday at 2 p.m., followed by a panel discussion at 5 p.m. Today two sessions at 9:30 a.m.