Jacques Rivette - 10 best films - Cahiers 1954-1966

(N.B., Selections in color are coded to notes at the end of the lists)
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1954
1.......Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks)
2.......El (Luis Bunuel)
3.......We, the Women (Roberto Rosselini sketch)
4.......It Should Happen to You (George Cukor)
5.......Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel)
6.......The Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang)
7.......River of No Return (Otto Preminger)
8.......Touchez Pas Ma Grisbi (Jacques Becker)
9.......I Love Melvin (Don Weis)
10.....Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (Robert D Webb)
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1955
1........Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rosselini)
2........Ordet (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
3........To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock)
4........Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
5........Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
6........Les Mauvaises Rencontres (Alexander Astruc)
7........Apache (Robert Aldrich)
........Lola Montes (Max Ophuls)
9........Human Desire (Fritz Lang)
10......Land of the Pharaohs (Howard Hawks)
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1956
1........Night and Fog (Alain Resnais)
2........L’ Amore (Roberto Rosselini)
3........Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles)
..........Elena and her Men (Jean Renoir)
5........Fear (Roberto Rosselini)
6........While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang)
..........Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
8........The Last Frontier (Anthony Mann)
9........Picnic (Joshua Logan)
10......The Saga of Anatahan (Joseph von Sternberg)
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1957
1........A King in New York (Charles Chaplin)
2........Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang)
3........Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
4........Saint Joan (Otto Preminger)
5........The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Luis Bunuel
6........The True Story of Jesse James (Nicholas Ray)
7........Sunset of a Clown (Ingmar Bergman)
8........The Crucified Lovers (Kenji Mizoguchi)
9........An Affair to Remember (Leo McCarey)
10......Fear Strikes Out (Robert Mulligan)
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1958
1........Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
..........White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
..........Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
4........Something of Value (Richard Brooks)
..........Man of the West (Anthony Mann)
6........The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
..........The Quiet American (Joseph L. Mankewiecz)
8........The Goddess (John Cromwell)
9........Une Vie (Alexander Astruc)
..........Montparnasse 19 (Jacques Becker)
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1959
1........Empress Yank Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2........Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
..........Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
..........Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
5........Dejeuner sur la Herbe (Jean Renoir)
6........The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
..........Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Alain Resnais)
..........Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger)
9........Head Against the Wall (Georges Franju)
10......The Tiger of Eschnapur (Fritz Lang)
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1960
1..........Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2..........L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
............Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
4..........Poem of the Sea (Aleksandr Dovzhenko/Yuliya Solntseva)
5..........The Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau)
............Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju)
7..........Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
............Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)
............Verboten! (Samuel Fuller)
10........Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
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1961
1..........Taira Clan Saga (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2..........A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
3..........Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks)
............Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
5..........The Young One (Luis Bunuel)
............The Testament of Dr. Cordelier (Jean Renoir)
7..........La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni)
8..........Lola (Jacques Demy)
............The Human Pyramid (Jean Rouch)
10........Judgement at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer)
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1962
(alphabetical in French)
Chronicle of Flaming Years (Yuliya Solntseva)
Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman)
L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Jules and Jim (François Truffaut)
The Miracle Worker (Arthur Penn)
Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan)
Too Late Blues (John Cassavetes)
Vanina Vanini (Roberto Rosselini)
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel)
Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
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1963
(alphabetical in French)
Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
Bandits of Orgosolo (Vittorio De Seta)
Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Chapman Report (George Cukor)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
Muriel (Alain Resnais)
Nine Days in One Year (Mikhail Romm)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
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1964
(alphabetical in French)
Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Cool World (Shirley Clarke)
The Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni)
I Fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi)
Gertrude (Carl Dreyer)
Journal of a Chambermaid (Luis Bunuel)
Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock)
Passenger (Andrjez Munk)
The Terrorist (Gianfranco De Bosio)
The Silence (Ingmar Bergman)
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1965
1..........Pierrot le Fou ( Jean-Luc Godard)
2..........L'Amour a la Chaine (Claude de Givray)
............Black Peter (Milos Forman)
............Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini)
............Journal of a Femme in Blanc (Claude Autant-Lara)
............Lilith (Robert Rossen)
............Paris vu par… (Jean Rouch sketch)
............The Gospel according to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
............La Vieille Dame Indigne (Rene Allio)
............Young Cassidy (John Ford- Jack Cardiff)
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1966
1..........Walkover(Jerzy Skolimowski)
2..........Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman)
............Le Chat dans Le Sac (Gilles Groulx)
............Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut)
............The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (Andre Delvaux)
............Masculin/Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard)
............Nothing but a Man (Michael Roemer)
............Not Reconciled (Jean-Marie Straub)
............Fist in His Pocket (Mario Bellocchio)
............Something Different (Vera Chytilova)
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1967
1..........Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
2..........Belle du Jour (Luis Bunuel)
............La Chasse Au Lion a L’Arc (Jean Rouch)
............La Chinoise/ Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard)
............La Collectioneuse (Eric Rohmer)
............Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha)
............Mediteraneée (Jean-Daniel Pollet/Volker Schlondorff)/Bezhin Meadow (Sergei Eisenstein)
............Daisies (Vera Chytilova)
............Playtime (Jacques Tati)
............Shakespeare Wallah (James Ivory)
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1968
1...........The Edge (Robert Kramer)
2..........Anemone (Philippe Garrel)
............Charlie Bubbles (Albert Finney)
............Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (D Huillet/J-M Straub)
............Les Contrabandiers (Luc Moullet)
............2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick
............The Times That Are (Pierre Perrault)
............La Route Parallele (Ferdinand Khittl)
............The Shooting (Monte Hellman)
............Terre em Transe (Glauber Rocha)
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American films sound era --- (Dec63/Jan64)
(chronological)Scarface (Howard Hawks)
You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray)
On the Town (Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly)
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan)
The Cool World (Shirley Clarke)
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French films since the liberation (Jan 65 issue)
(alphabetical by director)
Les Mauvaises Rencontres (Alexander Astruc)
Rendez-vous de Juillet (Jacques Becker)
Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (Robert Bresson)
Les Enfants Terribles (Cocteau-Melville)
Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard)
Les Dernières Vacances (Roger Leenhardt)
Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls)
Eléna et les Hommes (Jean Renoir)
Muriel (Alain Resnais)
Les Rendez-vous du Diable (Haroun Tazieff)
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In the February 1958 issue of Cahiers du Cinema only two of the ten critics in that month’s “conseil des dix” bothered to rate the film Fear Strikes Out. Jacques Rivette and Claude de Givray both gave the film three stars. A note under the “conseil des dix” tableau read:
“Know that Fear Strikes Out which was brought to our attention by Robert Aldrich and which was shown for just one week “en exclusivité”, thus explaining the abstention of the majority of our “conseillers”, is similarly strongly recommended by Jean Domarchi, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Roger Tailleur and François Truffaut”
About six years later in Cahiers special American Film issue, Jacques Rivette wrote the thumbnail for director Robert Mulligan. He begins thusly;
"The least we can say is that he really took us in. Who was the auteur of Fear Strikes Out? The producer? The screenwriter? The director of photography? But certainly not this awkward director.”
That is interesting to me because within five years the producing end of the Pakula/Mulligan partnership Alan J. Pakula -Fear Strikes Out was their first film together- would become a director himself. And Alan J. Pakula would have seemed to have eclipsed Robert Mulligan as a director. ( Klute, All the President‘s Men, Sophie‘s Choice, among others.
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Before Robert Benton and David Newman sold the script for Bonnie and Clyde to Warner Brothers and Warren Beatty they shop their script for it to François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard both of whom they had ahd in mind as potential directors when they were writing it and here, Rivette includes on this list two films that are based on the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
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This film which was shown in Cannes in 1964 is so obscure that the IMDb does not even list it in Ferdinand Khittl’s filmography.
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http://www.festival-cannes.fr/films/fiche_film.phplangue=6002&id_film=3076