La Belle Noiseuse

Screening on Film

Directed by Jacques Rivette.
With Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart.
France, 1991, 35mm, color, 240 min.
French with English subtitles.

A once-great painter (Piccoli) lives a quiet life in Provence with his wife (Birkin), having never completed his would-be masterpiece, “La Belle Noiseuse,” an intensely personal work based on a Balzac heroine. When he is visited by a young artist and his girlfriend (Béart), he gradually accepts the young woman as his new muse and attempts to finish the long delayed project, disrupting the already tenuous relationships which exist between the artists and their respective lovers. Rivette continues his exploration of the creative process, focusing on painting rather than theater, in this improvisational work which received the Grand Prix at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.