Nor’west
(Noroît)
Screening on Film
Directed by Jacques Rivette.
With Bernadette Lafont, Geraldine Chaplin, Kika Markham.
France, 1976, 35mm, color, 145 min.
English and French with English subtitles.
With Bernadette Lafont, Geraldine Chaplin, Kika Markham.
France, 1976, 35mm, color, 145 min.
English and French with English subtitles.
Originally envisioned as the third part of a tetralogy of films exploring women and mythology, Nor’west employs an unlikely genre, the pirate film, to consider these themes. Geraldine Chaplin stars as a woman intent on avenging the death of her brother at the hands of a band of female swashbucklers led by veteran New Wave actress Bernadette Lafont. Based on Cyril Tourneur’s play The Revenger’s Tragedy, Nor’west further explores the boundaries of reflexivity in the film’s stunning climactic sequence. Production of the film proved so exhausting that Rivette shelved the project for over twenty years.
