La Belle Noiseuse

1991
7.5| 3h58m| en
Details

The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.

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Reviews

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!
Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
HANS I claim that some films need to be watched while slowly getting drunk - like Jarmusch's Dead Man, or Rivette's 4 hour version of La Belle Noiseuse.This film is not afraid of art, which makes it stand out over most other films that have a similar subject. The filmmaker immerses himself into the process much like Frenhofer does. He is not scared to show the actual creating of a sketch, or the finding of a pose for the model.Rivette also captures the very particular lifestyle of Southern France, something that I feel is a bit endangered in today's economy dominated European Union.
ruthierocks In his four hour drama La Belle Noiseuse, French filmmaker Jacques Rivette has painted a haunting portrayal of an artist, a model, and the effects that a work can have on those involved. It is a brave piece of film-making, featuring physical and emotional openness. The film moves very slowly, but is very much worth watching. La Belle Noiseuse allows us to watch the creation of a piece of art and how it can change a person. This is a true accomplishment. The actors are all very much on key and, with no real script, provide real and believable dialogue. Rivette paints these characters in a very human way: it's easy to imagine these people existing. There are no movie tricks. It's a truly naked film in that it offers such an intimate look into the hearts of the main characters. Anytime a film can do this, you know it's something special.La Belle Noiseuse revolves around two couples. Marianne and Nicolas are a young couple. Nicolas is an artist and has been invited to take a look at the studio of Frenhofer, a once revered and respected painter who has given up his art. While discussing a painting that Frenhofer never finished – the "La Belle Noiseuse" – Nicolas suggests that Frenhofer use Marianne as his model. Frenhofer agrees. However, Marianne is not very happy about this. She arrives at the studio very disheartened. As Frenhofer draws and paints her, the two of them get to know each other. Marianne's resentment falls away and she becomes more open with Frenhofer, doing as he says, asking him questions, posing how he'd like. Frenhofer wants to dig deeper. As a painter, he feels the need to really capture the essence of his model. His wife, Liz, was his last model. As a result of this need to dig deeper, he was forced to either give up painting or give up his wife. The film spends much of its four hour running time in the studio with Marianne and Frenhofer. Otherwise, there are scenes with Frenhofer and Liz, as well as with Liz and Nicolas, and Marianne and Nicolas, who are growing apart by the day.For those who can endure the extreme running time, La Belle Noiseuse is a fascinating film to watch. The characters, as I said before, are very real. Much of the film features Marianne (played by the lovely Emmanuelle Beart) posing nude. It's a bold performance for the actress, who must bear her soul as well as her body in order for the performance to be effective. She is absolutely wonderful, as is Michel Piccoli as the bitter painter. The only problem I have with the film is not that it's so long, but that much of it focuses on the drawing. There are five and ten minute scenes where the audience watches Frenhofer sketch and paint. It's fascinating at first, but eventually becomes a bit tedious. This should not steer anyone away, though. Anyone who can appreciate slow moving character studies should be fine.To sum up, I would recommend La Belle Noiseuse. However, a person should probably know what they are getting into prior to watching. The film is not for everyone. It takes patience to enjoy, but for those who can, it is very rewarding. Jacques Rivette is a truly revolutionary director. The other film I've seen from him, Celine and Julie Go Boating, is just as wonderful as La Belle Noiseuse, but is in a completely different universe. He is a very versatile, unique, and underrated director. La Belle Noiseuse shows this. It's a beautiful film.9/10
fedor8 Summary of a 4-hour movie: a sex-starved old bald artist gets to watch a beautiful naked woman for hours every day.If you want to see the height of French (or European) cinematic pretentiousness, go ahead and watch this dull piece of celluloid nonsense. However, if you want REAL entertainment, no need to watch a different movie: I suggest you take a peak at many of the favorable reviews of LBN. However, if you're a fan of drivel like this, you'll most likely enjoy them and mark this with a "NO" (and then phone up all your friends to mark it with more "NO"s). Just make sure you don't break your keyboard when you smash a "NO" vote...Piccoli plays an old artist, who has stopped painting/drawing i.e. scribbling crap-on-a-canvas, due to some tortured artist reasons. More likely, he stopped because he lives in the South of France and he'd rather just have fun in the sun and have sex a bit, occasionally wining and dining with friends. It's understandable. In the movie, however, the reason for this becomes apparent later: he tried painting his wife, and that pretty much ruined the fun in art forever for him. After all, would YOU want to spend hours and days painting your wife? Especially when she looks like Jane Birkin. No wonder Piccoli is tortured, suffering and all that: with a wife like Birkin it's a miracle he didn't end up killing himself like all those young tortured poets.But... Voila! Ms.Beart enters the picture, his life. She is young, has a pretty face, and likes to be naked in front of old men. What man, old or young, could resist that? Suddenly, and veeeeery mysteriously, Piccoli is interested in painting again! Of course, officially his reasons are artistic, not sexual. How dare I even suggest that an artist might think with his genitals first, and his divine artistic soul/mind second?? No, no, no: Piccoli is NOT sexually attracted to the beautiful Beart; he just wants to paint her because she has that certain... aaahh... je-ne-sais-quoi. What follows in this monstrously long movie are scenes of Beart undressing, dressing, posing, changing poses, getting bored, and Piccoli trying to calm himself down, i.e. Piccoli hiding his pitched tent while trying to focus on his "art". It is a pervert's dream. A movie the pervert doesn't have to hide from his visiting friends, but actually boast about. Two flies with one swat: watching breasts AND being able to pretend you're a clever art-movie lover. Or loveur.Occasionally, there is some rather dull dialog that serves more as relief for male viewers who are struggling with their sexual feelings towards the naked Beart.In the end, we get to see a large collection of drawings, all based on the body of one called Beart. Needless to say, the drawings are all horrible. All that effort, and for nothing! The reason they are so bad is two-fold: 1) nowadays bad art sells better, and 2) it is very difficult to concentrate on your artistic outpourings of inspiration when sexual feelings hang over you like an albatross. I understand Piccoli's character fully.Oh, and those breasts are fake. This is Beart in her post-silicon, pre-enlarged-lips-like-a-duck phase. I am not a fan of implants at all, but I guess art lovers will not be bothered by the only bit of fakeness in an otherwise impressive feast of utter genuineness. The movie stinks of authenticity. It reeks. I'm impressed.I wonder what the shooting of this movie was like? Did Piccoli have sex with Beart every morning, before the shooting commenced, so he can focus more easily on his lines? No, that can't be it. I just remembered: he barely has any lines. He just sits there and draws.I once watched a chimp with a brush, a canvas, and some paint. There's much more to be learned from that...
Mikelito Now how more obvious can it be? This movie … 236 minutes … is classic Emperor's new clothes material. (Classic,because there actually are no clothes…)I can't believe people are cowards when they are afraid they might be exposed as idiots when they don't understand something that is actually pretentious horse manure.This movie should have been called Captain Crayon and Lieutenant U-Whora. Just for the fun of it they should have changed roles and she starts drawing his ancient, decrepit body for 3 hours 45 minutes of the 4 hours. Or miss an arm. Or turning out to be a hermaphrodite 2 hours into the movie. Just to annoy the voyeurs. THEN I would believe the "Arts" argument.This is no better than "Showgirls" or that "Striptease". Just something for people too ashamed to buy porn.Let's summarize the plot of this - an annoying stuttering, mumbling painter (played by Michel Piccoli, who has seen better days in his acting career) discovers through the help of a young naked lady that he DOES want to draw naked women after being turned off having to use his (obviously jealous) wife for too long. Duh! No: Double-Duh! Bottom Line of this Movie: "Don't paint your wife" (Spoiler alert) – it took them 4 HOURS for that …? Eeuww…what a gross piece of self importance.So this is a movie about "the artistic process"? Gee-whizz that it should include a naked woman. Michel Piccoli - I find him quite nauseating lately - the way he mumbles incomprehensibly when he's stuttering around. What a typical pseudo-artistic french Nincompoopeur, I'm sorry Mitch! Mitch Piccoli – I bet there's a French version of Baywatch about to break on the T.V. scene with him and his grey chest hair wobbling up the French Riviera somewhere. "Protecting French sun-bathers from U.S. literature with paperback French existentialist essential reading. "As for Beart's new look – wasn't she even in some commercial? … just a minute … yes, it was an H&M advert where she runs around lingerie-clad in an apartment seducing an invisible stalker. Great message … On the often heard argument on sexiness: "why can't she dress and be sexy if she wants to?" Because you can't have everything. It just doesn't work: A small fraction of women come across sexy AND smart because backing up the "smart part" is oh so difficult. And "sexy" is associated with "slut" – that's how it is, and there is a reason for that. Once again: "denial". (#1 illness of today).In fact: A French woman with silicone implants – how decadent is that. Or did she only get her implants after she found a French translation for "Silicone Implants"? I'd bet my Bentley, Ocean Dreamhouse and Silicone Shaped Dream-Wife on that fact.Now if the French women also start shaving their armpits (which Americans will never believe) we might be getting somewhere. (Eternal Damnation and such)Once again: I'm speechless about the chuzpe/irony of a French actress being shallow like a Hollywood bimbo by inflating her body parts and STILL expecting to have some artistic French quality about her… Unfortunately it takes some actresses DECADES to bed enough important people to get any decent roles and then they need surgery. Life is so unfair, you know.This movie is a good example for the French's predilection for pouting Lolitas. Pervs…One reviewer here professed that he fell asleep. Another said her body wasn't perfect – maybe she read it and got her appointment at the surgeon immediately. Someone said the movie is a "foot-wiggler" – right, either because of boredom or the suppressed sexual thoughts when seeing a woman wriggle around naked – which is absolutely cool & probably the only true quality of this sorry effort.