DLaurent

Well-known member
The only other ARG I've seen is Trans Europe Express and I like that a bit. Not as much as Eden or Marienbad. Not seen that much from the left bank, only recently got into Agnes Varda but been a Chris Marker fan for some time. What are the best ARG?

I like later Godard too, his 80s stuff onwards, although Truffaut is my favourite of the French New Wave with the Antione Doinel films.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
ARG I like Gradiva (pervy dreams in Morocco), La Belle Captive (almost like a Lynch type thing), Successive Slidings of Pleasure (dummies and murders that may or may not have happened), Blue Villa (murder may or not have happened)... all really good I think.
New Wave... I guess Rivette counts, I've only seen three or four of his but I enjoyed them all.
 

woops

is not like other people
ARG - l'homme qui ment is good as well

Rivette - bit hard work but Celine & Julie Go Boating, Paris Belongs to Us

Chris Marker, there all good I think

if all you got from Life a User's Manual is descriptions of rooms give it another go, I just reread it in January and there's so much to it. All Perec's books are interesting with varying degrees of readability
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
Seen a few Rivette but must revisit them as wasn't blown away at the time. I'll have to add those ARG to the watchlist too. The last French film that blew me away was Serie Noire with Patrick Dewaere (a great comic actor in this film) and that's based on a Jim Thompson novel, now there's a writer I enjoy reading.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Celine and Julie is the one of course but I enjoyed this one


Duelle (Une quarantaine) is a 1976 experimental fantasy drama directed by Jacques Rivette. The main title is a neologistic feminine form for the noun "duel." The director-assigned[1] English title is Twhylight, a combination of "twilight" and "why". The film stars Juliet Berto as the Queen of the Night who battles the Queen of the Sun (Bulle Ogier) over a magical diamond that will allow the winner to remain on earth, specifically modern-day Paris.

Though, as always, don't remember much about it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
but Robbe-Grillet is more an important writer than an enjoyable one
I dunno... there is definitely something kinda hypnotic there with all the repetitions and stuff. And when he directs his own stuff you see the same ideas animating the film and the book in a way that is quite unusual.
 

jenks

thread death
This is how every chapter of Life a User Manual starts.

View attachment 6251
But that’s because of the fact that it’s a frozen moment in time - a very specific moment essential for the book. He wanted to imagine the front of a Paris apartment block with its facade removed and to then tour around it. I don’t know how much you have read about the constraints he used to create the novel but in essence he’s created a complex system involving literature, art, film, language to conjure up a teaming mass of humanity. I love Perec and I think this (and I Remember) are his and Oulipou’s masterpieces.
 

woops

is not like other people
Celine and Julie is the one of course but I enjoyed this one


Duelle (Une quarantaine) is a 1976 experimental fantasy drama directed by Jacques Rivette. The main title is a neologistic feminine form for the noun "duel." The director-assigned[1] English title is Twhylight, a combination of "twilight" and "why". The film stars Juliet Berto as the Queen of the Night who battles the Queen of the Sun (Bulle Ogier) over a magical diamond that will allow the winner to remain on earth, specifically modern-day Paris.

Though, as always, don't remember much about it.

I haven't seen or even heard of this one but it's perhaps also worth noting that duelle is also the feminine form of the word "dual" - perhaps mirroring the entwinement of the two main characters in Celine and Julie?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Couple of hundred pages into Anna Karenina which I'm assuming a lot of you read when you were like 12. It's so good.
I don't feel I have anything to say that's not been said a million times but his powers of observation re. people and their motivations are so astute.
 

borzoi

Well-known member
i'm reading pale fire. it's alright. i really liked lolita but this one feels too much like it's trying to impress me. it's like being forced to eat a whole birthday cake. before it i read the fifth head of cerberus which did the same unreliable narrator thing in a much less ostentatious way, despite being the one that involved clones and robots.

i'm going to read tolstoy or something next, just a good honest look into the human condition that isn't trying to throw up all sorts of bells and whistles and clever misdirections.
 
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