Over the years, I have read so many articles on Out 1, and have seen so many stills from it, that I felt as though I'd already seen the movie. Out 1 already existed for me in such a big way, that finally watching it could only lead to disappointment. Sadly, this was the case. As great as Out 1's legend is, for me it never comes together. It's all promise unfulfilled.There are Holy Grail movies: Films written and talked about in reverential tones, yet largely unavailable to the public. Until recently, "Out 1" was one of these, and having lived with its legend for many years, I was giddy the day it showed up on Netflix. An eight-part film totaling about 13 hours? I was binge-ready! Unfortunately, it took only about half way thru the first segment for my enthusiasm to wane.But oh is it ever ambitious, and almost every concept and character that we are introduced to is inherently interesting. One example is in how two different acting troupes work toward discovery in the play that each is planning to put on - It seems to be a great metaphor for this very film - but their rehearsal scenes go on (and on), and there are so many of them. 10, 20, even 30 minute (!!) scenes of actors writhing around on dirty theater floors? I love the slower pace of foreign films, but it was just too much.The acting? Jean-Pierre Leaud, who I usually find fascinating, here just annoys the crap out of me. The rest of a very large cast, many of whom were big in French cinema, may or may not be doing good work. With long, rambling scenes inside of the film's overall loose structure, I actually couldn't tell. Rivette usually has one camera going, and he just lets it roll. Even his veteran actors at times seem lost.If being loose and letting things "just play out" was what Rivette was going for, I think that he could have made his point in less than 13 hours. Considering how much love Out 1 continues to get, perhaps it's just me who is missing out. Yet I can't help think that he not only let his actors down, but that he let his viewers down, too.I'll leave it to other reviewers to get into The Thirteen, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, conspiracies, paranoia, etc. It IS all very fascinating to read about.Having read (and heard) so much over the years, about both the film and its legend, it felt as though I had already seen the movie. I could recall its characters, style, and elements with clarity. Unfortunately, having now seen it, that movie has been erased from my memory. I should have stuck with the legend. Sadly, the "Out 1" of my mind no longer exists.

Shooting in 16 mm in the late 60s-the norm in the TV industry-was an attempt to take film closer to the Real, which Rivette and Godard were doing. In L'amour fou(1969) Rivette 16 mm represents the footage shot by a TV crew documenting the rehearsal process where a group of actors rehearse Shakespeare's Pericles. In Out1 the 16 mm format was not a tool designed to document the work of the actors, but was dictated by the mode of production of the film, commissioned in serial form by French state TV, but when the executives saw the 8-episode, 743 minutes of the finished product, they rejected it. Rivette edited a 255 minute version of the film, Out 1 :Spectre, which had a modest commercial run. The original version, Out 1 : Noli me tang ere became almost invisible, apart from a screening in Le Havre in 1971. Rivette used theatre rehearsals as a structuring device, as in his breakthrough film Paris nous appartient ( 1961)-as much a paranoid portrait of Paris in its time as Out1 had been 10 years later.But he became embarrassed by conventional scripting and made the more free form,unscripted L'amour fou, this opened up his work to improvisation and greater length,with a bare bones scenario.Rivette shot Out 1 after the collapse of the social uprising of May 1968,when a series of strikes by Parisian student unions resulted in a full blown confrontation with the military. The radical hope to change a conservative society ended meekly with De Gaulle's party consolidating power. Out 1 taps into this post-'68 amalgam of malaise, disillusionment and distrust in grand social movements.Paris is turned into disconnected individual groups hermetically sealed off from each other. In Out 1 he wrote an outline blueprint to get funding, but allowed the actors their heads in having them improvise after having chosen their characters themselves.There are two theatre groups rehearsing two Greek plays, 7 Against Thebes and Prometheus Bound, which provide a backbone- a defiance against authority- around which the other diffracted narratives gravitate. One troupe headed by Thomas(Michael Lonsdale) who leads his group through a series of psychosomatic exercises(breathing, improvising,touching,exploring, free-associating about different versions of the text), the other headed by Lili( Michele Moretti) more interested in forms of choral practise and dance, both attempting to recreate the unselfconscious play of children. We later understand they formerly lived together but split up due to differences of method.Thomas appears in the course of the film as both mastermind and victim of his "alternate lifestyle", alternating between several women, dressing down in slacks, T-shirts and Afghan jackets as a bohemian,yet associating with friends from the upper crust( businessmen,lawyers etc.) with whom he may be involved in another game-the hidden plot inspired by Balzac's Histoire des Trieze in which 13 individuals form a secret society to achieve power. Yet he has a spectacular breakdown late in the film,when internal strife within the group forces him to give up the production of Prometheus,when he seeks shelter in a sea-side house owned by a group of friends. He lies in the sand crying and laughing, giving an uninhibited improvised performance. Something of "the Real" is captured in the most artificial sequences of all-rehearsals in enclosed space, where through improvisation the actors are asked to enact their fantasies. The rehearsal scenes are filmed in extremely long shots, capturing facial expressions,drops of sweat, body movements of the actors.For Rivette, narrative cinema is a documentary on the actors. These groups are bonded by ideals of communal togetherness. Intersecting with the lives of the theatre groups and their elusive "13 friends"( do they exist or not or are they vaguer groupings?) are two perfect outsiders existing in the margins, Colin( Jean-Pierre Leaud) and Frederique( Juliet Berto). Colin panhandles in cafés pretending to be a deaf mute, Frederique uses cons to obtain or steal money( or valuable letters) from men. If all the characters are lost these are adrift and loners. Colin is a detective of signs of the secret 13.This leads him to The Corner of Chance a boutique run by Pauline(Bulle Ogier) with whom he falls madly in love. But she has another life and maybe a member of the 13 with a different name, has children, lives in a big house with a nanny and a mysterious husband she never sees. There are class differences. There are moments of high comedy in the pranks and pratfalls of these grifters. Frederique bumps into Renaud, an outsider who stole a lottery win from Lili's group after pretending to be one of them,leading to its dissolution, and they get together briefly and tragically.The two outsiders attempts to get to know the nature of the conspiracy ultimately fail. The Balzacian plot was a MacGuffin, a child's fantasy, a game in which to get caught up. The conspiracy they're all involved in may be their own creation, their projection of an oppressive regime that's all powerful and all knowing, maybe it's all them, they're looking for something to battle against. This is a total immersion in an experience. What you'll certainly take away from this film is the idea of the long take lasting 13 minutes, amazing live street sequences, graffiti and posters, the bohemian modes of dress, a memoir of a time when politics was mainly about philosophy, the way myths are used to understand reality, and the Noli me tang ere theme, the elusiveness of the Real, you get so sucked into this Promethean vat of inspiration and all its characters that perfectly captures a time and place forever. Like Proust's A La Recherche we dip into the sensibility and hang the sense. Rivette lives .This led on to Celine and Julie go boating.

French screenwriter, film theorist and director Jacques Rivette's fourth feature film which he co-directed and wrote with French screenwriter and director Suzanne Schiffman (1929-2001), is an adaptation of a novel by French 20th century author Honoré de Balzac. It premiered in France, was shot on locations in France and is a French production which was produced by producer Stéphane Tchalgadjieff. It tells the story about a theatre director named Thomas whom is rehearsing with his theatre group, another stage director named Lili whom is doing the same, a multicolored and playful person named Frédérique who says she is searching for her brother, introduces herself to many people and who has an agenda, a law practitioner named Lucie, a mother and shop owner named Pauline whom is planning on publishing a newspaper with some friends, a writer named Sarah and a quiet though sometimes talkative person named Colin who lives in an apartment in France and is looking for someone referred to as the Thirteen.Distinctly and masterfully directed by French filmmaker Jacques Rivette, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an informative, mystifying and constantly changing portrayal of somewhat clandestine and collective human beings with a shared history who spends their time interpreting historic works of literature and their own psychological and emotional experiences of improvisation, a Frenchman motivated by a conspiracy theory and a pretender lost in deception. While notable for its versatile milieu depictions and distinct audiovisual innovation, this character- driven, narrative-driven and dialog-driven story about role playing, narrative fragmentation, the integral importance of interpreters of characters and how efficient and creative they are when treated with the dignity, humanity and professionalism which is characteristic for this creator and philosopher of cinema, the coexistence between fiction and reality within a cinematic context and the art of letting go and remembering with love, is an esoteric play with words where actress Juliet Berto performs magic in a scene with a man and a mirror and an unprecedented playact made the same year as the Manifesto of the 343 was published in the French magazine Le Monde, the year after the Roman Catholic Church named Italian 14th century Saint Catherine of Siena and Spanish 16th century Saint Teresa of Ávila as the first female Doctors of the Church, German citizens Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader created the Red Army Faction and after the French New Wave period, depicts multiple interrelated and mystic studies of character and contains a rare score by composer Jean-Pierre Drouet.This twelve hour and forty minutes voyage into the heart of cinema from the early 1970s which is set in Paris, France in 1970 and where the role of the director, the actors and the spectator is distinctly defined, is impelled and reinforced by its crucial narrative structure, subtle character development, measured continuity, confidence in actors, discussions about acting, black-and-white photographs, Thomas playing on a flute, Colin and his harmonica, masterful scene with Colin and Pauline at the L'Angle du Hasard, comment by an actress playing a journalist: "I should like to know … what political thinking underpinned your action?" and answer by an actress playing a goddess: "No politics." and the timeless and dearly appreciated acting performances by French actresses and actors Juliet Berto, Michèle Moretti, Hermine Karagheuz, Edwine Moatti, Christiane Corthay, Bernadette Onfroy, Bernadette Lafont, Bulle Ogier, François Fabian and Pierre Baillot, Michael Lonsdale and Jean-Pierre Léaud. A transcendently communicative and at times poignantly hilarious work of majestic diversity and unparalleled versatility.

This is the very La Nouvelle Vague.One of the best films of the New Wave and I dare say one of the first ten ever made! Why? The atmosphere, the story,the actors (actress) are all brilliant. This is the theater, a fairy tale, the life, the film.Paris. Thank you Mr.Rivette.