La Belle Noiseuse [DVD] [1991]

Excellent edition, good value DVD - the film is well over 3 hours, divided into 2 parts on 2 discs plus extras (interviews etc). Shame they couldn't add the apparently radically different shorter version of the film to the package though.

I saw La Belle Noiseuse at cinema when it came out & thought it a very clichéd view of artist and muse, the whole thing almost a parody of French art house movies. But watching the DVD has changed my opinion.

Having seen a few Rivette's recently I now understand how he sets up a deliberately theatrical situation, a conceit, out of which improvisation evolves. This film is actually about time, ageing, death - themes manifested in the pace of the film, which is slow but shifting & always intriguing. The artist & muse angle is really about how we secretly see our lives as obsessive "projects" working towards something mysterious (involving love). The central relationship is not genius artist & beautiful muse but ageing husband & wife - Jane Birkin steals the film with an incredible performance & Piccoli's performance is more complex/sympathetic that it might initially seem. With all due respect to the bravery of Beart's performance I still think her character (& boyfriend) superficial.

Basically, if you are allergic to long slow French movies avoid this, but if are an old school French film fan then this is a latter-day classic & well worth getting on DVD.

La Belle Noiseuse is a film about the possibilities as well as the ruthlessness of art. The ageing painter Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) has been living a more or less inactive life for a long time, not because his talent has actually become stale but because of a lack of courage to achieve his potential. Ten years ago he was about to do so; using his wife Liz (Jane Birkin) as his model he began working on a portrait which he soon abandoned because of an instinctive sense of the dangers involved. The thing is that a painting, if it really is an ultimately true work of art, also presents the true character of what it depicts, and such a revelation is not for everyone to bear. I think someone once said that if we knew the true nature of our own selves we should be terrified, and that's also the claim of this film.

Now Frenhofer decides to try again with a new model, Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), the girlfriend of a young painter, Nicolas (David Bursztein), who has come to visit the old master. Marianne is nagged by a sense of dependence on Nicolas and by a half-conscious urge to break free from the feeling of leading a shadow existence. Posing for Frenhofer seems to offer some kind of opportunity, although her irritation is increased by the fact that Nicolas has taken it upon himself to arrange this with Frenhofer without asking her. However, after a somewhat tense beginning she becomes more and more engaged in the project, especially when she realizes that Frenhofer is little more master of the situation than she herself is, and that the success of their collaboration depends on her as well as on him. Liz, on the other hand, although at first she looks favourably on this opportunity for her husband to regain his creative powers, soon begins to have misgivings about his willingness to protect his young model.

The acting is high class all way through with Michel Piccoli conveying an impression of slowly awakening artistic skills, and Emmanuelle Béart embodying the young woman who harbours great frustration without having anyone against whom she can legitimately direct it and therefore all the more haunted by it. The interplay between these to characters is very captivating, with Marianne gradually loosening up, getting involved and being quite unaware of the edge she is moving towards, and Frenhofer only dimly aware of it. Visually this film is also a gem; the summer atmosphere of Provence, the castle-like building where the Frenhofers reside, the soft, subdued light of Frenhofer's studio and the beautiful naked Marianne posing there. It's one of the best films I've seen; it fully deserves the prizes it has received.

"La Belle Noiseuse", directed by Jacques Rivette, is a splendid albeit admittedly extremely long film that manages to make the spectator understand the possibilities and dangers that are distinctive of art. An extremely good painter can bare the soul of his subject, but that is not always a good thing, specially if the artist's ruthless eye concentrates on the worse moral traits of his model. When is it time to stop? And can a real artist betray himself and his art and not paint what he is seeing?

That is the problem Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) faced, when he had to choose between his art and his wife. Frenhofer, an extremely famous artist, decided to stop painting a portrait called "La Belle Noiseuse", because he knew that his model, his wife Liz (Jane Birkin), would hate the results. According to Liz, "He wanted to paint me because he loved me. He stopped painting me because he loved me".

Many years later, Frenhofer gets another chance to finish his painting, thanks to the visit of an admirer, a young painter named Nicolas (David Bursztein). Nicolas suggests that his beautiful girlfriend, Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), could be the new nude model for "La Belle Noiseuse". Frenhofer loves the idea, as does Liz. Even Marianne, mad at first at Nicolas for his suggestion, ends up embracing the challenge. However, as days go by and Frenhofer and Marianne become immersed in a world of their own, Nicolas and Liz start to feel restless, abandoned. They know that the new painting will make a difference, and that things will never be the same between them and their loved ones. But can they do something? And will it be enough?

Of course, the answers to those questions don't really matter, and you will discover them soon enough if you watch this film. What is important, then? In my opinion, the director wants to show us the process of creation through the eyes of an artist and his model, and the hard choices that sometimes must sometimes be made in order to create a real work of art. Is it worth it? And how much of himself and others should the artist be willing to risk? Those are, from my point of view, the real questions that "La Belle Noiseuse" makes you ask yourself.

On the whole, I can say that I really liked this film, but that I don't recommend it for everybody. If you are just looking for an engaging movie that will entertaing you and make you laugh, "La Belle Noiseuse" is not for you. On the other hand, if you are in the mood for a relatively little known jewel that will amaze and disturb you, making you think, watch this dvd.

Belen Alcat