The Story of Marie and Julien
Encyclopedia
The Story of Marie and Julien is a 2003 French drama film
directed by Nouvelle Vague
film maker Jacques Rivette
. The film slowly develops from a drama about blackmail
into a dark, yet tender, supernatural
love story
between Marie and Julien, played by Emmanuelle Béart
and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz
. Anne Brochet
plays the blackmailed Madame X. Béart had previously worked with Rivette in La Belle Noiseuse
, as had Radziwiłowicz in Secret défense. The cinematographer was William Lubtchansky
.
The film was originally going to be made in 1975 as part of a series of four films, but shooting was abandoned after two days, only to be revisited by Rivette 27 years later. It premièred at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2003 and had a cinema release in France, Belgium and the UK. It was shown in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was nominated for the Prix Louis-Delluc. Some critics found the film over long, slow, and pretentious, while others said it was moving, intelligent, and among Rivette's best work. The film's subject led to comparisons to Vertigo, The Sixth Sense, and The Others.
who lives alone with his cat in a large house in the Paris
suburbs. Julien is blackmailing 'Madame X' (Brochet) who is importing fake antique Chinese silks, and may have murdered her sister. By chance, he meets Marie (Béart), a beautiful young woman he last saw a year ago, and they begin a passionate relationship. Though elusive, Marie agrees to move in with him; she acts strangely at times and appears absent. A mystery connects Marie to Madame X's dead sister and in uncovering Marie's secret Julien risks losing her. The film is separated into four parts, named to reflect the narrative perspective.
Julien: Julien dreams of Marie, whom he met just over a year before at a party, and with whom he would have begun a relationship but for them both having partners. He immediately runs into her on the street as she is running for her bus and he is off to meet Madame X. They agree to meet again, but Marie fails to appear and he returns home to find Madame X waiting for him against their agreement, so he raises his price tenfold. Madame X returns the next day to try to bargain, and asks for a letter back that he does not have. Marie invites him to her place for dinner, where Julien tells her his girlfriend ran away with another man and Marie says her boyfriend Simon died six months ago. They have sex, but in the morning Marie has checked out of her apartment. Julien returns home to find that his house has been ransacked. He tries to find her by ringing her old boss, then tracks her down when an unknown woman calls to tell him the hotel Marie is staying at. Julien visits her there, and Marie agrees to move in with him.
Julien et Marie: Marie makes herself at home, trying on the clothes of Julien's old girlfriend, exploring the house, and watching him at work. Their lovemaking is passionate, but Marie's behaviour is unusual. She is sometimes cold or trance
-like, at one point reciting words in an unidentified language, and she is physically detached and unaware of the time — Julien corrects her "bonjour" to "bonsoir". She is jealous of his ex, compulsively decorates and rearranges a room in his attic, feels compelled to act out her dreams, and does not bleed when scratched — something she keeps from Julien. She sees a girl in her dreams who shows her a "forbidden sign" with her hands. Marie helps Julien in his blackmailing, and after meeting Madame X, who only knows of Marie as "l'autre personne", Marie is handed a letter by someone who says she is Madame X's sister (Bettina Kee); she is the girl Marie dreamed of before.
Marie et Julien: The letter is from Madame X's sister Adrienne to Madame X. Julien meets Madame X again, and she tells him her sister killed herself by drowning six months before. He cannot understand who gave Marie the letter, but she insists that her sister left the letter to frame her and although dead she is "reliving" (a revenant) — and Marie is also. Adrienne —who though dead still appears and speaks to her— has told Madame X that Marie is "like me". He thinks she is mad. Julien becomes frustrated at Marie spending so much time alone in the attic. When she finally shows him the room, she says she does not know what it is for. She leaves before Julien wakes and checks into another hotel. He rings Marie's old boss who suggests talking to Marie's friend Delphine; Delphine says that Marie's relationship with Simon drove Marie mad and ended their friendship.
Marie: Julien visits Marie and Simon's old apartment, where the letting agent shows him a room that Julien chillingly recognises — it is identical to the room Marie has prepared. This is where Marie hanged herself, trying to frame Simon in revenge after a terrible row. Julien returns home and Marie silently leads him to the attic where she has prepared a noose, feeling she has to hang herself again. Julien carries her downstairs, and they make love again. She leaves to meet Adrienne, who says that she knows that Marie no longer wants to die. They agree they do not know the rules of their situation. Returning, Marie interrupts Julien about to hang himself in a desperate attempt to join her. He runs to the kitchen and tries to slit his wrist; Marie stops him and her wrist and his palm are cut. Marie warns him that he will lose all memory of her, but he says that all he wants is for her to be there. Marie slowly covers her face with her hands —"the forbidden sign"— and Julien becomes oblivious to her and unaware of why he is bleeding. Madame X arrives for her letter and he hands it over, confused by her enquiries about "l'autre personne". Madame X burns the letter, freeing Adrienne. Marie cries while watching Julien sleep, and as her tears land on her wrist her cut bleeds. Julien wakes and asks who she is; she replies that she is "the one he loved". He doubts it as she's "not his type", but she says with a smile to give her a little time.
. The name of Julien's cat, Nevermore, evokes Poe's The Raven
and its similar themes of death and longing. Julien's work as a clockmaker, literally trying to repair time, is an obvious metaphor, and the film is also timeless, giving no indication of when it is set. The blackmail sub-plot is a device to help tell the central love story between Marie and Julien and to explain Marie's situation; Julien is an unlikely blackmailer and Madame X's benevolence towards him is surprising. The plot features dream logic impinging on reality: Senses of Cinema
highlighted the role of "outlandish chance" and Film Comment
noted the feeling that the characters are inventing or re-enacting the narrative. Marie may be aware that she is part of a narrative, but she still lacks control over her fate. Michael Atkinson
believed that Rivette was working in the "border world between narrative meaning and cinematic artifice".
The emotional distance of the characters and the intellectual and artificial-seeming, quasi-theatrical dialogue is deliberate, depicting their simultaneous connection and isolation. The chasm between Marie and Julien, due to his corporeality and her ghostly nature, is emphasised in the contrast between his physical activity and her status as an onlooker. Rivette says he wanted the lovers to appear ill-suited and for the viewer to question the relationship; they love each other passionately yet they are essentially strangers. Béart believes that Marie was more alive than Julien, and that he literally wakes up to her existence only at the very end of the film.
Finally revealed to be a ghost story
inspired by nineteenth-century French fantasy literature, the film uses the conventions of the genre —that people who die in emotional distress or with an unfinished task may become ghosts— and openly details these conventions. Marie and Adrienne's 'lives' as revenants are reduced to a single purpose, each with only the memory of her suicide and her last emotions remaining. Julien, like the audience, is eventually confronted with Marie's nightmare of repetition. Elements of the horror genre are used, not to scare but to explore memory and loss. To stay with Marie, Julien first has to forget about her, and at the end they have the promise of a new beginning. Marie becomes a living person again rather than an object of fantasy. Marie's tears and blood are a miracle overcoming her death, and may reflect a fantasy of turning back the menopause
. The credits are accompanied by an upbeat jazz song performed by Blossom Dearie
, Our Day Will Come
, that represents love as a pledge, the only music used in the film.
There is an aesthetic focus on Béart's body, Julien telling Marie that "I love your neck, your arms, your shoulders, your mouth, your stomach, your eyes -- I love everything." The focus is more than erotic as it symbolises Marie's fight for corporeality. The film includes Rivette's first ever sex scenes, one of them arranged by Béart. The five candid and emotionally-charged sex scenes focus on their upper bodies and faces, and on their erotic monologues that employ elements of fairy tale
, horror, and sadomasochism.
Béart is given an ethereal quality by Lubtchansky's cinematography and lighting, and she subtly portrays Marie's detachment and vulnerability. In the latter part of the film Béart is dressed in grey and looks tired and wan, showing Marie's ageing and angst. Béart says she made deliberate use of silence in playing the part. Radziwiłowicz's performance allows the viewer to sympathise with Julien despite the character's initial dislikeable nature. Brochet as Madame X has a cool ease and grace.
(:fr:Duelle) in March–April and Noroît
(:fr:Noroît) in May, although the latter was not released, and the fourth film, a musical comedy meant to star Anna Karina
and Jean Marais
, was never shot. Filming began on Marie et Julien that August, with Albert Finney
and Leslie Caron
in the lead roles and Brigitte Rouan
as Madame X, but after two days Rivette gave up filming due to nervous exhaustion. He later used the names of the lovers, Marie and Julien, in his 1981 film Le Pont du Nord
.
and Va Savoir
in the 1990s, he revisited his older unproduced screenplays. With Hélène Frappat, he published in book form three of his "phantom films" including Marie et Julien in 2002. He decided to film Marie et Julien; a script had never been written and the footage had been lost, but cryptic notes by his assistant Claire Denis that had been kept by Lubtchansky (who had also been cinematographer in 1975) were enough to work from. The original screenplay included a speaking "polyglot
cat", characters whose names change, a "suicide room" similar to The Seventh Victim
, "Madame X", and an unknown "forbidden gesture" that the notes stated: "Do not forget".
approach that involved writing the script day by day; the actors and film-makers did not know the direction of the story in advance of each day's filming. Eurimages
provided €
420,000 of funding in July 2002, and the film was shot that autumn and winter. Rivette immediately thought of Béart, who starred in La Belle Noiseuse, to play the carnal Marie. Béart has said that "Of all the films I've made, this was the one which most disturbed people very close to me. They said: 'It's almost as though the Emmanuelle we know was up there on the screen.'." Béart's image in the media at the time was characterised by the near hysteria seen when she appeared naked on the cover of Elle
in May 2003 after filming ended.
—no music, shock sound effects, special effects, or gore— evoking feelings and scenes verbally rather than showing them, but he does employ Hitchcockian "MacGuffin
s" such as chance encounters, "clues," and the blackmail plot-line. The use of dream-like sequences at the start and end of the film was influenced by Rivette's 1985 film Hurlevent, an adaptation of Wuthering Heights
. Some of the dialogue that was in the original notes was read as though quoting.
Glenn Kenny
notes that the "calm precision" of the mise en scène
in the opening dream sequence
"put [him] under such a powerful spell" that it lasted the whole film. Throughout the film, everyday sounds are amplified by a lack of music, and the film uses sweeping long shots, and several incidental scenes of Julien working, talking with his cat, and of the characters sleeping. Slant Magazine
commented that the cat is the film's most interesting character, and Philippa Hawker of The Age
notes that "this has one of the best sequences involving a cat on film." The camera follows the cat and films it looking directly at the camera, giving a sense of artistic freedom and spontaneity.
The cinematography shows Rivette's interest in visual texture. The colours are natural, except in certain scenes like the initial dream sequence that are filmed in vivid colours. The lighting when Marie is arranging the attic room changes from shadow to warm light when she places an oil lamp on a stool to indicate that she has placed it correctly, introducing a supernatural element that contrasts with the realism of the rest of the film.
It was nominated for the 2003 Prix Louis-Delluc. Senses of Cinema suggested that it is Rivette's most important work since his 1974 film Celine and Julie Go Boating
and saw it as "a film about filmmaking", including it in their favourite films of 2004. DVD Verdict
concluded that "it is not only intelligent, but willing to assume the same of its audience". Glenn Kenny
rated it as his favourite film of the decade, and film curator Miriam Bale writing in Slant Magazine
included it in her ten most enduring films of the decade. Film Comment was equally taken with the film, stating that "what's most remarkable about the film is how moving it is finally, how much is at stake after all--nothing Rivette has done before prepares you for the emotional undertow that exerts itself in The Story of Marie and Juliens final scenes." LA Weekly
described the film as "elegant and unsettling"; The Age
called it "quietly mysterious and haunting" and "heartrending".
Peter Bradshaw
was disappointed, arguing that "All the story's power is allowed to leak away by the deliberative heaviness with which Rivette pads through his 150-minute narrative, with its exasperating lack of dramatic emphasis." Philip French
noted similarities to Hitchcock's Vertigo
and Jean Cocteau's Orphée
, but called it "surprisingly flat and unmagical". The New York Times also found it "dry and overdetermined," and Time Out complained that it "never supplies the frissons expected of a ghost story or the emotional draw of a good love story." Film 4 compared it to The Sixth Sense
and The Others
, but said that "its glacially slow pace will frustrate all but the most patient". (Rivette said when promoting the film that "I like The Sixth Sense because the final twist doesn't challenge everything that went before it. You can see it again, which I did, and it's a second film that's just as logical as the first one. But the end of The Others made the rest of it meaningless.") "An intellectual exercise in metaphysical romance - Ghost
for art-house audiences" was Empire
s wry take. The Digital Fix argued that Rivette's direction resulted in a product that "if never exactly dull and certainly the work of a master, is ultimately an empty film that has nothing to offer but its own cleverness". Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine found it was "a lesser Rivette offering — a watchable, ultimately unfulfilling ghost story".
and Venice
, then première
d at the Toronto International Film Festival
on 10 September 2003. It was shown in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival
later that month, as well as at the 2004 Melbourne International Film Festival
and the 2004 International Film Festival Rotterdam
, among others. The film opened in France and Belgium on 12 November 2003; that night 239 people watched the film in Paris. The cinema release was on 26 August 2004 in Germany, and on 8 October 2004 in the UK, but there was no US cinema release.
The DVD was released on a two-disc set by Arte Video in France on 18 May 2004, and features the theatrical trailer, actor filmographies, a 40-minute interview with Rivette, covering the film's origin, mythology, narrative viewpoints and relations to his other films, and a 15-minute interview with Béart, covering working under Rivette's direction and how the experience of acting in the film compared to her earlier role in La Belle Noiseuse. The US and UK distributions, respectively released on 12 July 2005 by Koch Lorber Films and 28 February 2005 by Artificial Eye, come with optional English subtitles and the special features on a single disc. The Arte Video release additionally features commentary by Lubtchansky over a cut-down (41:45 minute) version of the film, and an analysis of the film by Hélène Frappat (21:28 minutes). The film was also released with Un Coeur en Hiver and Nathalie...
in "The Emmanuel Beart Collection" by Koch Lorber in 2007.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Nouvelle Vague
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
film maker Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
. The film slowly develops from a drama about blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
into a dark, yet tender, supernatural
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
love story
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
between Marie and Julien, played by Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart
Emmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz
Jerzy Radziwiłowicz
Jerzy Radziwiłowicz is a Polish film actor. He has appeared in 37 films since 1974.-Selected filmography:* Man of Marble * Man of Iron * Le Grand Paysage d'Alexis Droeven * Passion * Dies rigorose Leben...
. Anne Brochet
Anne Brochet
Anne Brochet is a French comedienne and actress. She has appeared in such films as Cyrano de Bergerac, Le temps des porte-plumes, 30 ans, Une journée de merde! and Tous les matins du monde. She has also appeared in several episodes the television show Voici venir l'orage......
plays the blackmailed Madame X. Béart had previously worked with Rivette in La Belle Noiseuse
La Belle Noiseuse
La Belle Noiseuse is a 1991 film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Béart. Its title means "The Beautiful Troublemaker"...
, as had Radziwiłowicz in Secret défense. The cinematographer was William Lubtchansky
William Lubtchansky
William Lubtchansky born in Paris, France, was an acclaimed French cinematographer. His first film was Agnes Varda's 1965 short, Elsa la Rose. Lubtchansky has shot over 100 films, including several for Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Jean Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet and Nadine Trintignant...
.
The film was originally going to be made in 1975 as part of a series of four films, but shooting was abandoned after two days, only to be revisited by Rivette 27 years later. It premièred at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2003 and had a cinema release in France, Belgium and the UK. It was shown in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was nominated for the Prix Louis-Delluc. Some critics found the film over long, slow, and pretentious, while others said it was moving, intelligent, and among Rivette's best work. The film's subject led to comparisons to Vertigo, The Sixth Sense, and The Others.
Plot
Julien (Radziwilowicz) is a middle-aged clockmakerClockmaker
A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...
who lives alone with his cat in a large house in the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
suburbs. Julien is blackmailing 'Madame X' (Brochet) who is importing fake antique Chinese silks, and may have murdered her sister. By chance, he meets Marie (Béart), a beautiful young woman he last saw a year ago, and they begin a passionate relationship. Though elusive, Marie agrees to move in with him; she acts strangely at times and appears absent. A mystery connects Marie to Madame X's dead sister and in uncovering Marie's secret Julien risks losing her. The film is separated into four parts, named to reflect the narrative perspective.
Julien: Julien dreams of Marie, whom he met just over a year before at a party, and with whom he would have begun a relationship but for them both having partners. He immediately runs into her on the street as she is running for her bus and he is off to meet Madame X. They agree to meet again, but Marie fails to appear and he returns home to find Madame X waiting for him against their agreement, so he raises his price tenfold. Madame X returns the next day to try to bargain, and asks for a letter back that he does not have. Marie invites him to her place for dinner, where Julien tells her his girlfriend ran away with another man and Marie says her boyfriend Simon died six months ago. They have sex, but in the morning Marie has checked out of her apartment. Julien returns home to find that his house has been ransacked. He tries to find her by ringing her old boss, then tracks her down when an unknown woman calls to tell him the hotel Marie is staying at. Julien visits her there, and Marie agrees to move in with him.
Julien et Marie: Marie makes herself at home, trying on the clothes of Julien's old girlfriend, exploring the house, and watching him at work. Their lovemaking is passionate, but Marie's behaviour is unusual. She is sometimes cold or trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
-like, at one point reciting words in an unidentified language, and she is physically detached and unaware of the time — Julien corrects her "bonjour" to "bonsoir". She is jealous of his ex, compulsively decorates and rearranges a room in his attic, feels compelled to act out her dreams, and does not bleed when scratched — something she keeps from Julien. She sees a girl in her dreams who shows her a "forbidden sign" with her hands. Marie helps Julien in his blackmailing, and after meeting Madame X, who only knows of Marie as "l'autre personne", Marie is handed a letter by someone who says she is Madame X's sister (Bettina Kee); she is the girl Marie dreamed of before.
Marie et Julien: The letter is from Madame X's sister Adrienne to Madame X. Julien meets Madame X again, and she tells him her sister killed herself by drowning six months before. He cannot understand who gave Marie the letter, but she insists that her sister left the letter to frame her and although dead she is "reliving" (a revenant) — and Marie is also. Adrienne —who though dead still appears and speaks to her— has told Madame X that Marie is "like me". He thinks she is mad. Julien becomes frustrated at Marie spending so much time alone in the attic. When she finally shows him the room, she says she does not know what it is for. She leaves before Julien wakes and checks into another hotel. He rings Marie's old boss who suggests talking to Marie's friend Delphine; Delphine says that Marie's relationship with Simon drove Marie mad and ended their friendship.
Marie: Julien visits Marie and Simon's old apartment, where the letting agent shows him a room that Julien chillingly recognises — it is identical to the room Marie has prepared. This is where Marie hanged herself, trying to frame Simon in revenge after a terrible row. Julien returns home and Marie silently leads him to the attic where she has prepared a noose, feeling she has to hang herself again. Julien carries her downstairs, and they make love again. She leaves to meet Adrienne, who says that she knows that Marie no longer wants to die. They agree they do not know the rules of their situation. Returning, Marie interrupts Julien about to hang himself in a desperate attempt to join her. He runs to the kitchen and tries to slit his wrist; Marie stops him and her wrist and his palm are cut. Marie warns him that he will lose all memory of her, but he says that all he wants is for her to be there. Marie slowly covers her face with her hands —"the forbidden sign"— and Julien becomes oblivious to her and unaware of why he is bleeding. Madame X arrives for her letter and he hands it over, confused by her enquiries about "l'autre personne". Madame X burns the letter, freeing Adrienne. Marie cries while watching Julien sleep, and as her tears land on her wrist her cut bleeds. Julien wakes and asks who she is; she replies that she is "the one he loved". He doubts it as she's "not his type", but she says with a smile to give her a little time.
Themes and analysis
Like Rivette's earlier film La Belle Noiseuse, the main themes are romantic longing, impermanence, and identity, but this film adds the themes of mortality, chance, and destiny, and motifs are repeated from Rivette's Celine and Julie Go BoatingCeline and Julie Go Boating
Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette.Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie --sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic...
. The name of Julien's cat, Nevermore, evokes Poe's The Raven
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness...
and its similar themes of death and longing. Julien's work as a clockmaker, literally trying to repair time, is an obvious metaphor, and the film is also timeless, giving no indication of when it is set. The blackmail sub-plot is a device to help tell the central love story between Marie and Julien and to explain Marie's situation; Julien is an unlikely blackmailer and Madame X's benevolence towards him is surprising. The plot features dream logic impinging on reality: Senses of Cinema
Senses of Cinema
Senses of Cinema is a quarterly online film magazine founded in 1999 by filmmaker Bill Mousoulis. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Senses of Cinema publishes work by film critics from all over the world, including critical essays, career overviews of the works of key directors, and coverage of many...
highlighted the role of "outlandish chance" and Film Comment
Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
noted the feeling that the characters are inventing or re-enacting the narrative. Marie may be aware that she is part of a narrative, but she still lacks control over her fate. Michael Atkinson
Michael Atkinson (writer)
Michael Atkinson is an American writer, poet and film critic. His debut novel is Hemingway Deadlights , and he has written film and culture critiques for The Believer, Sight & Sound, The Guardian, Film Comment, The Village Voice, In These Times, True/Slant, SPiN, Maxim, The Boston Phoenix,...
believed that Rivette was working in the "border world between narrative meaning and cinematic artifice".
The emotional distance of the characters and the intellectual and artificial-seeming, quasi-theatrical dialogue is deliberate, depicting their simultaneous connection and isolation. The chasm between Marie and Julien, due to his corporeality and her ghostly nature, is emphasised in the contrast between his physical activity and her status as an onlooker. Rivette says he wanted the lovers to appear ill-suited and for the viewer to question the relationship; they love each other passionately yet they are essentially strangers. Béart believes that Marie was more alive than Julien, and that he literally wakes up to her existence only at the very end of the film.
Finally revealed to be a ghost story
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
inspired by nineteenth-century French fantasy literature, the film uses the conventions of the genre —that people who die in emotional distress or with an unfinished task may become ghosts— and openly details these conventions. Marie and Adrienne's 'lives' as revenants are reduced to a single purpose, each with only the memory of her suicide and her last emotions remaining. Julien, like the audience, is eventually confronted with Marie's nightmare of repetition. Elements of the horror genre are used, not to scare but to explore memory and loss. To stay with Marie, Julien first has to forget about her, and at the end they have the promise of a new beginning. Marie becomes a living person again rather than an object of fantasy. Marie's tears and blood are a miracle overcoming her death, and may reflect a fantasy of turning back the menopause
Menopause
Menopause is a term used to describe the permanent cessation of the primary functions of the human ovaries: the ripening and release of ova and the release of hormones that cause both the creation of the uterine lining and the subsequent shedding of the uterine lining...
. The credits are accompanied by an upbeat jazz song performed by Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist, often performing in the bebop genre and remembered for her girlish voice.-Early career:...
, Our Day Will Come
Our Day Will Come
"Our Day Will Come" is a popular song composed by Bob Hilliard and Mort Garson which was a #1 hit in 1963 for Ruby & The Romantics.-Ruby & the Romantics:...
, that represents love as a pledge, the only music used in the film.
There is an aesthetic focus on Béart's body, Julien telling Marie that "I love your neck, your arms, your shoulders, your mouth, your stomach, your eyes -- I love everything." The focus is more than erotic as it symbolises Marie's fight for corporeality. The film includes Rivette's first ever sex scenes, one of them arranged by Béart. The five candid and emotionally-charged sex scenes focus on their upper bodies and faces, and on their erotic monologues that employ elements of fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
, horror, and sadomasochism.
Béart is given an ethereal quality by Lubtchansky's cinematography and lighting, and she subtly portrays Marie's detachment and vulnerability. In the latter part of the film Béart is dressed in grey and looks tired and wan, showing Marie's ageing and angst. Béart says she made deliberate use of silence in playing the part. Radziwiłowicz's performance allows the viewer to sympathise with Julien despite the character's initial dislikeable nature. Brochet as Madame X has a cool ease and grace.
Production
Original shoot
Rivette originally began to make Marie et Julien, as it was then titled, in 1975 with producer Stéphane Tchalgadjieff as part of a series of four films called Les filles du feu, and later Scènes de la Vie Parallele. Rivette said in 2003 that the film was based on the true story of a woman who committed suicide. He first shot DuelleDuelle
Duelle is a 1976 experimental fantasy drama directed by Jacques Rivette. The title is a play on words roughly translated as Twhylight. The film stars Juliet Berto as the Queen of the Night who battles the Queen of the Sun over a magical diamond that will allow the winner to remain on earth,...
(:fr:Duelle) in March–April and Noroît
Noroît
Noroît is a 1976 experimental adventure fantasy drama directed by Jacques Rivette. It is loosely based on Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy. The film stars Geraldine Chaplin and Bernadette Lafont as pirates...
(:fr:Noroît) in May, although the latter was not released, and the fourth film, a musical comedy meant to star Anna Karina
Anna Karina
Anna Karina is a Danish film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. Karina is known as a muse of the director, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave...
and Jean Marais
Jean Marais
-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....
, was never shot. Filming began on Marie et Julien that August, with Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
and Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
in the lead roles and Brigitte Rouan
Brigitte Roüan
Brigitte Roüan is a French film director and actress.-Early life and career:Rouan was born into a French naval family in Toulon in 1946. She was orphaned at age six and spent her childhood in Algeria and Senegal. At age 12, she left for convent school in Paris.Her acting career began at age 21, on...
as Madame X, but after two days Rivette gave up filming due to nervous exhaustion. He later used the names of the lovers, Marie and Julien, in his 1981 film Le Pont du Nord
Le Pont du Nord
Le Pont du Nord is a 1981 French film directed by Jacques Rivette. The film stars Bulle Ogier and her daughter Pascale Ogier. It was released in France on 24 March 1982...
.
Revisiting the screenplay
After Rivette had later success with La Belle NoiseuseLa Belle Noiseuse
La Belle Noiseuse is a 1991 film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Béart. Its title means "The Beautiful Troublemaker"...
and Va Savoir
Va savoir
Va savoir is a 2001 French romantic comedy-drama film directed by Jacques Rivette. It stars Jeanne Balibar, Marianne Basler, Hélène de Fougerolles, and Catherine Rouvel. In the normal version, Va Savoir is 154 minutes...
in the 1990s, he revisited his older unproduced screenplays. With Hélène Frappat, he published in book form three of his "phantom films" including Marie et Julien in 2002. He decided to film Marie et Julien; a script had never been written and the footage had been lost, but cryptic notes by his assistant Claire Denis that had been kept by Lubtchansky (who had also been cinematographer in 1975) were enough to work from. The original screenplay included a speaking "polyglot
Polyglot (person)
A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, whereas a trilingual three; above that the term multilingual may be used.-Hyperpolyglot:...
cat", characters whose names change, a "suicide room" similar to The Seventh Victim
The Seventh Victim
The Seventh Victim is a 1943 horror and film noir starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter , and Hugh Beaumont, directed by Mark Robson, and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures...
, "Madame X", and an unknown "forbidden gesture" that the notes stated: "Do not forget".
Filming
Rivette worked with scriptwriters Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent using an automatic writingAutomatic writing
Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:...
approach that involved writing the script day by day; the actors and film-makers did not know the direction of the story in advance of each day's filming. Eurimages
Eurimages
Eurimages is the Council of Europe fund for the co-production, distribution, exhibition and digitisation of European cinematographic works. It aims to promote the European film industry by encouraging the production and distribution of films and fostering co-operation between professionals....
provided €
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
420,000 of funding in July 2002, and the film was shot that autumn and winter. Rivette immediately thought of Béart, who starred in La Belle Noiseuse, to play the carnal Marie. Béart has said that "Of all the films I've made, this was the one which most disturbed people very close to me. They said: 'It's almost as though the Emmanuelle we know was up there on the screen.'." Béart's image in the media at the time was characterised by the near hysteria seen when she appeared naked on the cover of Elle
Elle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
in May 2003 after filming ended.
Direction
The film illustrates Rivette's view that films involve game-playing, day-dreaming and paranoid fantasy. He leaves aside the usual devices of the horror genreHorror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
—no music, shock sound effects, special effects, or gore— evoking feelings and scenes verbally rather than showing them, but he does employ Hitchcockian "MacGuffin
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
s" such as chance encounters, "clues," and the blackmail plot-line. The use of dream-like sequences at the start and end of the film was influenced by Rivette's 1985 film Hurlevent, an adaptation of Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
. Some of the dialogue that was in the original notes was read as though quoting.
Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny is an American film critic. Kenny served as a critic and editor at the film magazine Premiere from 1996 until it ceased publication in 2007...
notes that the "calm precision" of the mise en scène
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
in the opening dream sequence
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
"put [him] under such a powerful spell" that it lasted the whole film. Throughout the film, everyday sounds are amplified by a lack of music, and the film uses sweeping long shots, and several incidental scenes of Julien working, talking with his cat, and of the characters sleeping. Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
commented that the cat is the film's most interesting character, and Philippa Hawker of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
notes that "this has one of the best sequences involving a cat on film." The camera follows the cat and films it looking directly at the camera, giving a sense of artistic freedom and spontaneity.
The cinematography shows Rivette's interest in visual texture. The colours are natural, except in certain scenes like the initial dream sequence that are filmed in vivid colours. The lighting when Marie is arranging the attic room changes from shadow to warm light when she places an oil lamp on a stool to indicate that she has placed it correctly, introducing a supernatural element that contrasts with the realism of the rest of the film.
Reception
Critics' responses were mixed: some found the film evocative and powerful, whereas others saw it as slow and frustrating. Guy Austin writing in Scope noted that "bodily reactions are not part of critical reactions to [the film]. In both press and online, the head governs the body in reactions to Rivette." Rivette had said before the release that "This I know in advance – whether it is good or not, some people will love it and others will hate it."It was nominated for the 2003 Prix Louis-Delluc. Senses of Cinema suggested that it is Rivette's most important work since his 1974 film Celine and Julie Go Boating
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette.Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie --sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic...
and saw it as "a film about filmmaking", including it in their favourite films of 2004. DVD Verdict
DVD Verdict
DVD Verdict is a judicial themed website for DVD reviews. The site was founded in 1999. Current editor in chief is Michael Stailey, who also reviews for Rotten Tomatoes...
concluded that "it is not only intelligent, but willing to assume the same of its audience". Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny is an American film critic. Kenny served as a critic and editor at the film magazine Premiere from 1996 until it ceased publication in 2007...
rated it as his favourite film of the decade, and film curator Miriam Bale writing in Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
included it in her ten most enduring films of the decade. Film Comment was equally taken with the film, stating that "what's most remarkable about the film is how moving it is finally, how much is at stake after all--nothing Rivette has done before prepares you for the emotional undertow that exerts itself in The Story of Marie and Juliens final scenes." LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
described the film as "elegant and unsettling"; The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
called it "quietly mysterious and haunting" and "heartrending".
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
was disappointed, arguing that "All the story's power is allowed to leak away by the deliberative heaviness with which Rivette pads through his 150-minute narrative, with its exasperating lack of dramatic emphasis." Philip French
Philip French
Philip French is a British film critic and former radio producer.French, the son of an insurance salesman, was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School, read Law at Oxford University. and post graduate study in Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington on a scholarship.He has been...
noted similarities to Hitchcock's Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
and Jean Cocteau's Orphée
Orphée
Orpheus is a 1950 French film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. This film is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet , Orpheus and Testament of Orpheus...
, but called it "surprisingly flat and unmagical". The New York Times also found it "dry and overdetermined," and Time Out complained that it "never supplies the frissons expected of a ghost story or the emotional draw of a good love story." Film 4 compared it to The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear , a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him...
and The Others
The Others (2001 film)
The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish-Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman. It is inspired partly by the novella The Turn of the Screw....
, but said that "its glacially slow pace will frustrate all but the most patient". (Rivette said when promoting the film that "I like The Sixth Sense because the final twist doesn't challenge everything that went before it. You can see it again, which I did, and it's a second film that's just as logical as the first one. But the end of The Others made the rest of it meaningless.") "An intellectual exercise in metaphysical romance - Ghost
Ghost (film)
Ghost is a 1990 romantic drama film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. It was written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Jerry Zucker.-Plot:...
for art-house audiences" was Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
s wry take. The Digital Fix argued that Rivette's direction resulted in a product that "if never exactly dull and certainly the work of a master, is ultimately an empty film that has nothing to offer but its own cleverness". Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine found it was "a lesser Rivette offering — a watchable, ultimately unfulfilling ghost story".
Distribution
The film was ignored by both CannesCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
and Venice
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, then première
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
d at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
on 10 September 2003. It was shown in competition at the San Sebastian International Film Festival
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953...
later that month, as well as at the 2004 Melbourne International Film Festival
Melbourne International Film Festival
The Melbourne International Film Festival is an acclaimed annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1951, making it one of the oldest in the World....
and the 2004 International Film Festival Rotterdam
International Film Festival Rotterdam
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is an annual film festival held in various cinemas in Rotterdam, Netherlands held at the end of January. It is approximately comparable in size to other major European festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno...
, among others. The film opened in France and Belgium on 12 November 2003; that night 239 people watched the film in Paris. The cinema release was on 26 August 2004 in Germany, and on 8 October 2004 in the UK, but there was no US cinema release.
The DVD was released on a two-disc set by Arte Video in France on 18 May 2004, and features the theatrical trailer, actor filmographies, a 40-minute interview with Rivette, covering the film's origin, mythology, narrative viewpoints and relations to his other films, and a 15-minute interview with Béart, covering working under Rivette's direction and how the experience of acting in the film compared to her earlier role in La Belle Noiseuse. The US and UK distributions, respectively released on 12 July 2005 by Koch Lorber Films and 28 February 2005 by Artificial Eye, come with optional English subtitles and the special features on a single disc. The Arte Video release additionally features commentary by Lubtchansky over a cut-down (41:45 minute) version of the film, and an analysis of the film by Hélène Frappat (21:28 minutes). The film was also released with Un Coeur en Hiver and Nathalie...
Nathalie...
Nathalie... is a 2004 French film directed by Anne Fontaine, and starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu. It is distributed by Koch-Lorber Films.-Plot:...
in "The Emmanuel Beart Collection" by Koch Lorber in 2007.
Cast
- Emmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle BéartEmmanuelle Béart is a French film actress, who has appeared in over 50 film and television productions since 1972. Béart won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources . She has been nominated a further seven times for Most Promising Actress and Best Actress.- Early...
— Marie Delambre. - Jerzy RadziwiłowiczJerzy RadziwiłowiczJerzy Radziwiłowicz is a Polish film actor. He has appeared in 37 films since 1974.-Selected filmography:* Man of Marble * Man of Iron * Le Grand Paysage d'Alexis Droeven * Passion * Dies rigorose Leben...
— Julien Müller. - Anne BrochetAnne BrochetAnne Brochet is a French comedienne and actress. She has appeared in such films as Cyrano de Bergerac, Le temps des porte-plumes, 30 ans, Une journée de merde! and Tous les matins du monde. She has also appeared in several episodes the television show Voici venir l'orage......
— Madame X. - Bettina Kee — Adrienne, the sister of Madame X.
- Olivier Cruveiller — Vincent Lehmann, L'éditeur, Marie's old boss.
- Mathias Jung — Le concierge, the desk clerk at Marie's apartment.
- Nicole GarciaNicole GarciaNicole Garcia is a French actress, film director and writer. Her film Selon Charlie was entered into the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.-Actress:*1968: Des garçons et des filles directed by Étienne Périer...
— L'amie, Marie's friend.
External links
- The Story of Marie and Julien at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
- Trailer for Histoire de Marie et Julien on Cinemovies (in French, Flash video)