La Belle Noiseuse **** (1991, Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart) – Classic Movie Review 7632

Director Jacques Rivette’s 1991 French masterwork La Belle Noiseuse stars Michel Piccoli as Edouard Frenhofer, an ageing artist who is fascinated by a lovely young model called Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), the girlfriend of the young artist Nicolas (David Bursztein) who visits him. Frenhofer is inspired to start working again on his abandoned painting La Belle Noiseuse, along with Marianne as his model.

Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse is an absorbing, massively long film about the nature of figurative painting, genius and inspiration, with a touch of the love tangles with the painter’s wife, Liz (Jane Birkin).

Scrupulously made, immaculately acted and ravishingly beautiful, La Belle Noiseuse grips for its whole four hours.

The winner of the Grand Prix (the Grand Prize of the Jury) and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury – Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991, it is loosely based on Honoré de Balzac’s novella Le Chef d’Oeuvre Inconnu.

Also in the cast are Marianne Denicourt, Gilles Arbona, Marie Belluc, Marie-Claude Roger, Leïla Remili and Bernard Dufour.

La Belle Noiseuse is directed by Jacques Rivette, runs 240 minutes, is made by Pierre Grise Productions, FR 3 Films Production, George Reinhart Productions, Canal Plus and Sofica, is written by Jacques Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent, is shot in Eastmancolor by William Lubtchansky, and is produced by Martine Marignac, with music by Igor Stravinsky.

It was shot at Assas, Hérault, France.

There is another version of the film – La Belle Noiseuse – Divertimento, running half the length at 126 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7632

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