Céline and Julie Go Boating, Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit, is an exhilarating examination of the themes of theatricality, paranoia and la vie Parisienne, all wrapped up in an extended and entrancing exploration of the nature of filmmaking (and film-watching). Previously released by the BFI on DVD, it now comes to Blu-ray, in a new restoration, on 20 November 2017. Special features include a new feature-length commentary by Adrian Martin.
Céline (Juliet Berto), a magician, and Julie (Dominique Labourier), a librarian, meet in Montmartre and wind up sharing the same flat, bed, fiancé, clothes, identity and imagination. Soon, thanks to a magic sweet, they find themselves, spectators, then participants, in a Henry James-inspired ‘film-within-the-film’ – a melodrama unfolding in a mysterious suburban house with the ‘Phantom Ladies Over Paris’ (Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier), a sinister man (Barbet Schroeder) and his child.
Presented in High Definition
A newly commissioned feature length commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin (2017)
Jonathan Romney on Rivette and Céline and Julie Go Boating (2006, 19 mins)
Toute la mémoire du monde (Alain Resnais, 1956, 22 mins)
The Haunted Curiosity Shop (WR Booth, 1901, 2 mins)
Fully illustrated booklet with an essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum; a review by Tom Milne; interviews with Dominique Labourier, Juliet Berto and Jacques Rivette; Susan Seidelman’s reflections on her Rivette-inspired Desperately Seeking Susan; and full film credits
The Blu-ray release of new restoration of Céline and Julie Go Boating will be out on 20 November 2017.
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