The Film-Play's the Thing: RIP Jacques Rivette 1928-2016

The best place to go today:  http://www.jacques-rivette.com 

"Every Rivette film has its Eisenstein/Lang/Hitchcock side—an impulse to design and plot, dominate and control—and its Renoir/Hawks/Rossellini side: an impulse to 'let things go', open one's self up to the play and power of other personalities, and watch what happens". [Jonathan Rosenbaum]

Film Studies For Free was very sad to hear of the death of Jacques Rivette at the age of 87. In warm memory of and tribute to his work, it has gathered together in one place (below) quite a few links to video- and written essays by others (and by him) on his films, mostly ones that it has shared before.

But as the remarkable (somewhat frozen in time) website Order of the Exile has been honouring and exploring his work since 2007, that is most definitely the best to go for remembrance and reflection. Then there is also the wonderful, customary tribute being maintained by David Hudson at Keyframe | Fandor.


Film about Rivette:

Excerpts from Claire Denis's 1988 film for television Jacques Rivette, Le veilleur/The Watchman in which of Serge Daney interviews Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer.

Video essays about Rivette's films:

An audiovisual essay by Joel Bocko and Covadonga G. Lahera. Part 5 (the latest) in an ongoing series (more are embedded below). Commissioned by Chris Luscri to mark the ongoing set of screenings, activities and new criticism centred around the new 2K restoration of Rivette's 1971 magnum opus OUT 1 - NOLI ME TANGERE.

Read the accompanying text at MUBI here: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/video-essay-the-language-of-birds-out-1-noli-me-tangere 

Paratheatre: Plays Without Stages by Cristina Alvarez López and Adrian Martin. See text at MUBI here

Jacques Rivette: Out 1 Solitaire by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee for MUBI here 

Also watch:

• Paratheatre: Plays Without Stages - From V to VIII Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin
• Out 1 Video Essay Project Notebook
• Out 1 - From Conspiracy to Conspiracy Chris Luscri

Other links:

• Jacques Rivette, 'On abjection', Order of the Exile/Jacques-Rivette.com, Originally appeared in Cahiers du cinema 120 (June 1961): p. 54-55. Translated by David Phelps with the assistance of Jeremy Szaniawski
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Rivette: Texts and Interviews (BFI, 1977)*

• Frédéric Bonnard, 'The Captive Lover – An Interview with Jacques Rivette', Senses of Cinema, 16, 2001*
• Laleene Jayamanne, 'Va Savoir! (Who Knows!, 2001, Jacques Rivette)', Senses of Cinema, 20, 2002
• Paul Grant, 'Jacques Rivette - Le veilleur', Senses of Cinema, No. 42, 2007*
• John Hughes/Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'John Hughes On (and With) Jacques Rivette', Rouge, 4, 2011*
• Travis Mackenzie Hoover, 'Rewriting Documentary: Claire Denis's Jacques Rivette, le veilleur', The House Next Door Online, April 3, 2007
• Douglas Morrey, 'To Describe a Labyrinth: Dialectics in Jacques Rivette’s Film Theory and Film Practice', Film-Philosophy, 16.1, 2012
• David Phelps, 'Think But This ... 36 vues du Pic St-Loup', Lola, 1, 2011
• Sam Rohdie, 'Jacques Rivette: Va savoir', Screening the Past, 2007
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Jacques Rivette: Babel and the Void', 2012
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Rivette, The Long and Short of It,' 2015
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Jacques Rivette [chapter from FILM: THE FRONT LINE 1983]', 1983
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Introduction to Rivette: Texts and Interviews (1977)' 1977
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Reflections on “Rivette in Context”', 2012
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'LES FILLES DU FEU: Rivette x 4 (with Gilbert Adair and Michael Graham), part one', 1977
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Noroît (1976/77 review), 1977'
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Rotterdam ’89: Magic from Rivette and Ivens', 1989
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jacques Rivette, le veilleur, 2002
• Mary Wiles, author of Jacques Rivette (University of Illinois Press, 2012), discusses Rivette's place in the New Wave, The Cine-Files, Issue 2, 2012

* Thanks to Girish Shambu for flagging up these essential links (added a few hours after the original post was published).

SCREENING THE PAST 37 and LA FURIA UMANA 17

Mirror Visions in MODESTY BLAISE (Joseph Losey, 1966) 

Companion video/trailer for the written essay by Catherine Grant, 'Notes on Mirror Visions in MODESTY BLAISE (Joseph Losey, 1966)', LA FURIA UMANA, 17, 2013 (online) and  LA FURIA UMANA, Paper #3, 2013/ (paper copy)

Film Studies For Free is under the cosh of a few deadlines right now (there are some great things to come at this here open access campaigning website in the next weeks!).

But it has temporarily cast off its work shackles to rush you tidings of two new ejournal issues: the latest Screening the Past, co-edited by Adrian Martin and Anna Dzenis, and replete with Part One of a brilliant dossier on Aesthetic Issues in World Cinema and a marvellous essay by Nicole Brenez, among other treasures (Hediger, Martin and Tofts, Phelps); and the very welcome return online of the multilingual La furia umana (whose website, and fabulous archive [soon to return fully], were devastated by a malware attack), edited by Toni D'Angela and replete with dossiers on Joseph Losey and Bertrand Bonello, and a marvelous essay by Nicole Brenez, among other treasures (Ramani, Calder Williams, Small, to cite just some anglophone ones)!

Scroll down for all the wonderful contents. FSFF will be back properly soon!


SCREENING THE PAST 37, 2013

Aesthetic Issues in World Cinema (Part 1)

• Political Cinema Today – The New Exigencies: For a Republic of Images  by Nicole Brenez
• Materialist Performance in the Digital Age  by Dirk de Bruyn
• Sublime Materiality: Un lac  by Sarinah Masukor
• Innocent When You Dream: Affect and Perception through Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence  by Julie Banks
• Foreign Bodies, Community and Trauma in the Films of Claire Denis: Beau Travail (1999), 35 Rhums (2008) and White Material (2009)  by Kath Dooley
• Enfolding Surfaces, Spaces and Materials: Claire Denis’ Neo-Baroque Textures of Sensation  by Saige Walton
• The Immobilised Body: Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange  by Anthony Macris
• Affectless Empathy, Embodied Imagination and The Killer Inside Me  by Jane Stadler
• The Bloody Innocence of a Dream: Borges, Cammell, Tourneur and the Western  by Adrian Martin and Darren Tofts
• What Do we Know When We Know Where Something Is? World Cinema and the Question of Spatial Ordering  by Vinzenz Hediger

First Release

• The Western Suburbs  by Niall Lucy
• Documenting The Dark Side: Torture and The “War On Terror” in Zero Dark Thirty, Taxi To The Dark Side, and Standard Operating Procedure  by Shohini Chaudhuri
• Interactive Cinema from Vending Machine to Database Narrative: The Case of Kinoautomat  by Marina Hassapopoulou
• A League of Their Own: The Impossibility of the Female Sports Hero by Katharina Bonzel
• ’Make Mine a Movie! In a Movie Theater!’ (Or on My Pay-TV Service): How America’s Theater Owners Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept Cable Television, 1969-1976  by Deron Overpeck

Reviews

• Ford at Fox 4  by Bill Routt
• Becoming Jack Nicholson: The Masculine Persona from Easy Rider to The Shining  by Adam Ochonicky
• Rosebud Sleds and Horses’ Heads: 50 of Film’s Most Evocative Objects  by Ben McCann
• Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation by Dion Kagan
• Alfred Hitchcock’s America  by Jonathan Kirshner
• The Film Experience: An Introduction (3rd ed.)  by Kathleen Loock
• Cinemas of the Other: A Personal Journey with Film-makers from Iran and Turkey (2nd ed.)  by Mike Walsh
• De-Westernizing Film Studies  by Rea Amit
• The Cinema of Béla Tarr: The Circle Closes  by Olivia Harsan
• Rabbit-Proof Fence (Australian Screen Classics Series)  by Lynn Smailes

 Classics and Re-runs

• The Aquarium Syndrome: On the Films of Michael Mann  by Jean-Baptiste Thoret
• Ben Hecht’s Funny Valentine  by Donald Phelps

LA FURIA UMANA 17, 2013

Editorial: T.D. / La critique comme concaténation

Confidential report
D'UNE CRITIQUE DE CINÉMA DIGNE DE SON NOM (EN FRANCE)
NICOLE BRENEZ / La Critique comme concept, exigence et praxis

JOSEPH LOSEY

• MICHEL MOURLET / Sur Joseph Losey
• LUÍS MENDONÇA / Losey e Losey: O Exílio Britânico e a Fractura Pinteriana
• TONI D'ANGELA / Lo spazio della massima pendenza del sogno americano nel primo Losey
• SUDARSHAN RAMANI/ Losey and Adolescence: The Big Night
• CATHERINE GRANT / Notes on Mirror Visions in Modesty Blaise
• EVAN CALDER WILLIAMS / Figures in A Threatscape
• CHRISTOPHER SMALL / The Postman

BERTRAND BONELLO

• CLEMENT RAUGER / Introduction au travail de Bertrand Bonello
• ALEJANDRO DÍAZ / Dos o tres cosas que (creo que sé) de Bertrand Bonello
• RICARDO ADALIA MARTIN / Ir de putas
• ÀNGEL QUINTANA / El burdel como convento o la profanación de lo mítico
• ELENA DUQUE / Manuales de autoayuda: buscándose a sí mismos. The Romantic Englishwoman de Losey y De la guerre de Bonello

Prima linea

• TONI D'ANGELA / Terrence Malick e la voce dell'essere: To the Wonder
• MICHAEL GUARNERI / Militant elegy. A conversation with Lav Diaz

Histoires du cinéma

• BEATRICE BALSAMO / I muti di Hitch. La vertigine onirica del desiderio. Il restauro dei film del periodo inglese presentati a Il Cinema Ritrovato 2013

L'occhio che uccide

• CARLOS LOSILLA / Intervenciones#7 A favor de este cine español
• PIETRO BIANCHI, TONI D'ANGELA / La percezione e lo spazio visivo. Dialogo su Merleau-Ponty, Lacan e il cinema

Flaming creatures

• ENRICO CAMPORESI / Quelques notes sur Teenage Dream Sequence: An Invocation of Jeanne d’Arc, de Katherine Bauer

The new world

• STEPHEN RAMSTEDT / Cinéma du Réel 2013: Documents, Layouts/Memories, Dreams/Reflections, Projections
• TONI D'ANGELA / Festa per gli occhi e discorsi di giustizia al Festival Internacional de Curtas de Belo Horizonte

Crossing the Wild River: R.I.P. Robin Wood (1931-2009)

Last updated on June 4, 2010

'If I were asked to choose a film that would justify the existence of Hollywood, I think it would be Rio Bravo.' Robin Wood

Film Studies For Free briefly emerges from an enforced absence due to illness (back properly soon, it hopes), to mark the sad passing, on December 18, of Robin Wood, one of the true giants of the difficult endeavour of film criticism and also of the discipline of film studies.

FSFF's own special-favourite Wood works are the talk on 'Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic', his books on Hitchcock (especially the Vertigo chapter), the book he co-authored with Michael Walker on Claude Chabrol's films, his incredibly enlightening study of Hawk's Rio Bravo and the other BFI book on The Wings of a Dove. Each of these was paradigm-shifting in their own ways, as was much of Wood's other writing on cinema.

As online tributes to this major film writer appear in the next days they will be added to the list of online and freely accessible works by or about Wood given below.

May this hugely prolific, influential, and talented writer, film-thinker, and teacher rest in peace.

Posthumous online tributes to Robin Wood:

• Mark Asch, 'Robin Wood, Film Critic, 1931-2009', The L Magazine, December 22, 2009 
• Charles Barr, 'Robin Wood Obituary', The Guardian, January 4, 2010
  
• David Bordwell, 'Robin Wood', Observations on Film Art, December 19, 2009
• New Gregory A. Burris, 'Farewell, Robin Wood (1931-2009): The Relevance of a Radical Film Critic', MRZine [Monthly Review online], June 2, 2010
• Robert Cashill, 'RIP Robin Wood',  Between Productions,December 18, 2009
• Matthew Cheney, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', The Mumpsimus, December 21, 2009
• Dennis Cozzalio, 'Robin Wood and Rio Bravo', Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, January 6, 2010
  
• Jim Emerson, 'Robin Wood: He was as good as they say', Scanners, January 7, 2010
  
• William Grimes, 'Robin Wood, Film Critic Who Wrote on Hitchcock, Dies at 78', New York Times, December 22, 2009 
• Liz Helfgott, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', Criterion.com, December 21, 2009
  
• David Hudson, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', The Auteurs Notebook, December 19, 2009 
• Dave Kehr, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', davekehr.com, December 19, 2009 (also see the comments strand at Kehr's blog here for many more brief tributes --scroll down -- on December 18, 2009)
  
• Glenn Kenny, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', Some Came Running, December 18, 2009
  
• C. Jerry Kutner, 'Robin Wood (1931-2009)', Bright Lights After Dark, December 19, 2009
• James MacDowell, 'Robin Wood: 1931-2009', The Lesser Feat, December 20, 2009
• Janine Marchessault, 'Robin Wood - In Memoriam',  Film Studies Association of Canada, December 2009
  
• Stuart Ross, 'Robin Wood — off to the Big Screen in the Sky', Bloggamooga, December 24, 2009
  
• Girish Shambu, 'Robin Wood, 1931-2009', girish, December 19, 2009
• Michael Tapper, 'In Memoriam: Robin Wood', Film International, December 2009
  
• Donato Totaro, 'Robin Wood: 23 February 1931 - 18 December 2009, December 20, 2009 to March 31, 2010', Offscreen Journal, December 2009
• Keith Uhlich, 'Robin Wood: February 23, 1931 - December 18, 2009', The House Next Door, December 19, 2009
  
• David Walsh, 'Film Critic Robin Wood Dies at 78', World Socialist Web Site, December 21, 2009
• James Zborowski, 'Robin Wood', Between Sympathy and Detachment, December 31, 2009

Online works by or about Robin Wood:

• Robin Wood A descriptive, illustrated bibliography of the work of the noted film critic, Compiled by D. K. Holm and Brad Steven, October 2005 
• Armen Svadjian, 'A Life in Film Criticism: Robin Wood at 75', YOURflesh Magazine, November 9, 2006 (via Jim Emerson) 
• CineAction's 'A tribute to Robin Wood', CineAction, Summer 2007 
•  Robin Wood, 'Only (Dis)Connect; and Never Relaxez-Vous; or, "I Can’t Sleep"', Film International, Issue 11
• Robin Wood, 'Revenge is Sweet: The Bitterness of "Audition"', Film International, Issue 7
• Robin Wood, 'A BETTER TOMORROW: Lee Isaac Chung’s astonishing debut, Munyurangabo, finds life after death in the killing fields of Rwanda', Film Comment, International, Volume 44, Issue No. 2, March/April 2008
• Robin Wood, 'Fresh Meat', Film Comment, Volume 44, Issue No. 1, January - February, 2008
• Robin Wood, 'What Lies Beneath?', Senses of Cinema, Issue 15, 2001
• Robin Wood, 'Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic',  Film Comment, Issue No. 1, January - February, 1978
• Robin Wood, 'Michael Haneke: beyond compromise', CineAction, Summer 2007
  
• Joe McElhaney, 'Review of Hitchcock's Films Revisited by Robin Wood, revised edition, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)', Senses of Cinema, Issue 24, January 2003
• Frances Pheasant-Kelly, 'Review of Hitchcock’s Films Revisited: Revised Edition by Robin Wood, New York: Columba University Press, 2002', Scope, Issue 1, February 2005 
• Arthur M. Eckstein, 'Review of Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond by Robin Wood', Film International, Issue 7  
• Bill Krohn, 'Friedkin Out', Rouge, 3, 2004
  
• Christiane Gerblinger, '"Fiery the Angels Fell": America, Regeneration, and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner', Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, July 2002

Reverse Shot Symposium on Claire Denis

Home recovering from the flu (yes, that flu), Film Studies For Free wanted to let its readers know of some great new essays published by Reverse Shot, the quarterly, independently published film journal, on the work of French director Claire Denis (a firm-favourite filmmaker of this blog and its author). Links to the written essays and interview are below. But there's also a beautifully put-together video essay on Denis's film L'Intrus (2004) by Kevin B. Lee that FSFF also highly recommends.

• Reverse Shot 25: Claire Denis—The Art of Seduction Introduction to the Symposium and to Denis's work by Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert

• Claire Denis's Early Career by Leo Goldsmith

• Chocolat by Elbert Ventura

• No Fear No Die by Nicolas Rapold

• I Can't Sleep by Michael Koresky

• U.S. Go Home by Ryland Walker Knight

• Nénette et Boni by Matt Connolly

• Beau travail: Take One by Andrew Chan

• Beau travail: Take Two by Jeff Reichert

• Trouble Every Day by Kristi Mitsuda

• Friday Night by Eric Hynes

• L'Intrus by Genevieve Yue

• Vers Mathilde by Sarah Silver

• 35 Shots of Rum by Adam Nayman

• An Interview with Claire Denis by Adam Nayman

• The music videos of Claire Denis: “Incinerate” and “Jams Run Free” by Damon Smith

35 Shots of Claire Denis (and more)

Image from Vendredi soir (Claire Denis, 2002)

Film Studies For Free's author is excitedly preparing to give a talk at the event 'Drifting: The Films of Claire Denis'. This is the first of an annual series of symposia on 'Modern Directors' to be held at the University of Sussex on May 2nd (programme here), and is organised by Rosalind Galt and Michael Lawrence.

Below are more than sixty links to freely-accessible, mostly scholarly (or otherwise top-notch) material about Denis's work that FSFF's author has found helpful for this and previous work on this filmmaker (HERE's a link to the text of her paper on Denis's 2002 film Vendredi soir). The lists will be added to (all suggestions welcome), so please bookmark this post (last updated June 1, 2009).

Audio and/or Visual Resources Online:

In English/or with subtitles:

• Claire Denis and Jean-Luc Nancy, philosopher, author and writer, discussing and screening L'Intrus, her film based on his book, at the European Graduate School in 2007 - online at at YouTube
• Claire Denis at European Graduate School 2003 - 'Claire Denis, a director talking about the film making process...' at YouTube (also at Denis's EGS page)
• Dickon Hinchliffe's remarkable music from the score of Vendredi soir is currently available HERE (Click on 'Films & Discography' and scroll down to 'Vendredi soir' to listen to it, or to download it for free)
• At v2v you can download a video which contains the full recording of the wonderful 1.5 hours long 'Vienna Conversation' between Claire Denis and the Austrian film critics Michael Omasta and Isabella Reicher on Saturday, May 7th, 2005 (help on downloading the video is given here).
• NEW Via Filmbo's Chick Magnet, FSFF heard of two YouTube videos (part 1 and part 2) in which you can see excerpts of Claire Denis's film of Serge Daney interviewing Jacques Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer. A must watch for those who haven't yet seen Denis's Jacque Rivette, The Watchman. Thanks Filmbo!
  

In French:

• YouTube - 35 RHUMS itw de Claire Denis et Alex Descas, par Léa Rinaldi
• YouTube - Lilan Thuram par Claire Denis (Extrait de l'installation de Claire Denis pour l'exposition "Diaspora", musée du quai Branly)
• 'Où va le Cinéma?: L'auteur, le cinéaste, le collectif - Qui fait l'oeuvre?' round table event videoed at the Centre Pompidou, 4 December 2008, with Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Daniel Deshays, and Bruno Dumont (thanks to Screenville for the link - Merci, Harry!)
• 'Interview exclusive de Claire Denis à propos de son dernier film "L'Intrus"'- Entretien réalisé dans le cadre de la Mostra de Venise par Olivier Bombarda - Septembre 2004, Arte.TV (2 RealPlayer video files)
  

Scholarly Articles and Chapters:

• Aimé Ancian,'Making Contact: Claire Denis’ Vendredi soi', translated by Inge Pruks and William D. Routt, Senses of Cinema, No. 23, 2002
• Muriel Andrin,' The Intuition of the Body, Time, and the Sixth Sense - from Chantal Akerman to Contemporary Women Directors [including Claire Denis]', Zehar, n° 58, 2006, pp. 14-19 & 20-24
• Martine Beugnet, 'The Practice of Strangeness: L'Intrus - Claire Denis (2004) and Jean-Luc Nancy (2000)', Film-Philosophy, Volume 12, Issue No.1, 2008
• Samantha Dinning, 'Claire Denis [Great Directors Series]', Senses of Cinema, No. 50, 2009
• Lisa Downing, Re-viewing the Sexual Relation: Levinas and Film', Film-Philosophy, 11.2, August 2007
• Rosalind Galt, 'The Obviousness of Cinema [with reference to the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire Denis], World Picture Journal, 2, Autumn 2008
• Nikolaj Lübecker, 'The Dedramatization of Violence in Claire Denis's film I Can't Sleep (J'ai pas sommeil, 1994)', Paragraph, Vol. 30, July 2007
• Adrian Martin,'Claire Denis and the cinema of the body', Screening the past, 2006
• Todd McGowan, 'Resisting the lure of ultimate enjoyment: Claire Denis' J'ai pas sommeil (I Can't Sleep, 1994)', Kinoeye, Vol 3, Issue 7, 9 June, 2003
• Laura McMahon, 'Deconstructing Community and Christianity: 'A-religion' in Nancy's Reading of Beau travail', Film-Philosophy, 12.1, 2008
• Philippe Met, 'Looking for trouble: The dialectics of lack and excess (Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day, 2001), Kinoeye, Vol. 3, Issue, 7, 9 June, 2003
• Douglas Morrey, “Introduction: Claire Denis and Jean-Luc Nancy”, Film-Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008
• Douglas Morrey, 'Open Wounds: Body and Image in Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire Denis', Film-Philosophy, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008
• Douglas Morrey, 'Textures of Terror: Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day', Belphégor: Littérature Populaire et Culture Médiatique, Vol. 3, No. 2, April 2004
• Jean-Luc Nancy, 'Icon of Fury: Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day, Film-Philosophy, 12.1, 2008
• Hilary Neroni, 'Lost in fields of interracial desire: Claire Denis' Chocolat (1988)' Kinoeye, Vol 3 Issue 7, 9 June, 2003
• Elena del Río, “Performing the narrative of seduction in Claire Denis’ Beau travail (Good Work, 1999)”, Kinoeye, vol. 3, no. 7, 9 June, 2003
• Wim Staat, 'The Other's Intrusion: Claire Denis's L'Intrus', Thamyris/Intersecting No. 19 (2008) 195–208
• Anja Streiter, 'The Community According to Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire Denis,' Film-Philosophy, 11.1, 2008
• R. Emmet Sweeney, 'The Hither Side of Solutions: Body and Landscape in L'Intrus', Senses of Cinema, April 2005
• NEW Justin Vicari, Colonial Fictions: Le Petit Soldat and its revisionist sequel, Beau Travail, Jump Cut, No. 50, Spring 2008
  
• Fiona A. Villella, 'A Postcolonial Reading of Claire Denis' Chocolat', Senses of Cinema, vol. 1, Dec 1999
• Emma Wilson, 'Contemporary French Women Filmmakers,' French Studies 2005 59(2):217-223

Relevant (and Informative) Book Reviews:

• Acquarello, 'Claire Denis by Judith Maine', Strictly Film School, January 16, 2006
  
• John Orr, 'Claire Denis by Martine Beugnet', Senses of Cinema, No. 37, 2005
• Saige Walton, 'Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression by Martine Beugnet, [Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2007],' Senses of Cinema, No. 50, 2009
  

Excellent Items of Film Criticism:

• Joe Bowman, 'The Decade List: Trouble Every Day', Fin de Cinéma, 3 April 2009
  
• Joe Bowman, '[on L'Intrus]', Fin de Cinéma, 28 April 2006
  
• Adrian Danks, 'Travellin' Light [Vendredi soir], Senses of Cinema, No. 31, 2004
• Paul Grant, 'Jacques Rivette - Le veilleur', Senses of Cinema, No. 42, 2007
• Daniel Kasman, '35 Shots of Rum: In Honour of Changing the World', The Auteurs: Notebook, 13 September 2008
• Daniel Kasman, 'L'Intrus (The Intruder)', D+Kas, 20 December 2005
• Ryland Walker Knight, '35 Rhums on The Night Shift', The Auteurs: Notebook, 13 March 2009
• Travis Mackenzie Hoover, 'Rewriting Documentary: Claire Denis's Jacques Rivette, le veilleur', The House Next Door Online, April 3, 2007
• Travis Mackenzie Hoover, 'In the realm of Work and Play: Claire Denis's Vers Mathilde', The House Next Door Online, January 16, 2007
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Unsatisfied Men [on Beau Travail]] , JonathanRosenbaum.com, 6 May 2000 (also published in the Chicago Reader Online same date, with images)
• Diana Sandars, 'Chocolat', Senses of Cinema, No. 17, 2001
• Daniel Stuyck, 'ELETRIK ALCHEMY: Claire Denis Films Sonic Youth', Film Comment, January-February 2008
• Charles Taylor, 'Beau Travail', Salon.com, March 2000, p. 1
• Tamara Tracz, 'Beau travail', Senses of Cinema, No. 42, 2007

Enlightening Interviews in English:

• Aimé Ancian, “Claire Denis: An Interview”, translated by Inge Pruks, Senses of Cinema, No. 23, 2002
• Annett Busch, 'Claire Denis about Intrusions', (Interview, May 2005), Theory Kit, January 2006
• Chris Darke, 'Desire is violence' [Interview with Claire Denis] Sight and Sound Vol. 10 no. 7 July 2000. p. 16-18
• Robert Davis, 'Interview: Claire Denis on 35 Shots of Rum', Daily Plastic, March 10, 2009
• Robert Davis, 'Outtakes from Claire Denis Interview', Errata, 14 August, 2008
• Darren Hughes, 'Dancing Reveals So Much: An Interview with Claire Denis [about 35 Rhums]', Senses of Cinema, No. 50, 2009
• Kevin Lee, 'Spectacularly Intimate: An Interview with Claire Denis', The Auteurs: Notebook, 2 April 2009
• Craig Phillips, with Jonathan Marlow, '"Making Film is to Be Inside": a Talk with Claire Denis [on Vendredi Soir]', GreenCine, May 14, 2003 (Continues on Page 2 HERE)
• Mark A. Reid, 'Interview by Claire Denis', from Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996, pp. 67-72
• Jonathan Romney, 'Claire Denis Interviewed', The Guardian Online, 28 June, 2000
• Gavin Smith, 'Claire Denis', Film Comment, January/February 2006
  
• Damon Smith, 'L’Intrus: An Interview with Claire Denis”, Senses of Cinema, No. 35 (April-June 2005), p. 2

Unmissable Articles, Criticism, and Interviews in French:

• Séverine Boularan, 'Un article sur le film "Vendredi Soir" réalisé par Claire Denis', www.cinema-poet.com, N. 4, 2008
• Saad Chakali, 'A Corps ouvert[s]', Cahiers du Cinéma (22 avril 2005)
• Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff, '«L'Intrus» - Transférer la greffe', Atopia: The Polylogic E-Zine, 2009
  
• Jean-Luc Nancy, 'L'Intrus selon Claire Denis', remue.net, Spring Issue, 4 mai 2005
• Jean Luc Nancy, ‘L’Areligion (Beau travail de Claire Denis)’. Vacarme, n. 14, 2001
• Jean-Philippe Renouard & Lise Wajeman, '« ce poids d'ici-bas » Entretien avec Claire Denis', Vacarme, n. 14, 2001

Relevant Google Books Links (limited previews):

• Martine Beugnet, Claire Denis (Manchester: Manchester and New York University Press, 2004)
• Judith Mayne, Claire Denis (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005)
• Martine Beugnet, Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007)
  

Open Access campaigning note:
(Film Studies For Free's hobby horse...)
There are, of course, many further, excellent Denis resources available 'for free' if one is a student or member of faculty at an educational institution with a well-supplied library or with relevant online subscriptions. But the above list indicates, if nothing else, that truly openly accessible, high-quality, and, indeed, essential resources for researchers in and outside the academy are plentiful nowadays, especially on contemporary topics.

A big thanks, then, to the authors, artists, editors and publishers of the above works who helped to ensure that their writings, recordings, or videos about Claire Denis's films were freely available to any reader or viewer on the internet.

Agnès Varda on gleaning, plus other free public open video lectures from the European Graduate School

Agnès Varda, French director, photographer and filmmaker discussing filmmaking and her film Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse/The Gleaners and I, 2000, at the European Graduate School, in 2004 (video 1 of 6). See also 'Beautiful Trash: Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse' by Virginia Bonner at Senses of Cinema

As 'gleaning' is this blog's favourite activity, Film Studies For Free was happy to explore the European Graduate School (EGS) video channel at YouTube. The channel offers access to videos and video clips of great lectures, sessions, and interviews with well-known guest professors, including many filmmakers and film/media academics at the EGS Media and Communication Studies Department, Saas-Fee in Switzerland. You can access another list of older, shorter guest-lecturer, videos/clips (streamed using RealPlayer) at the EGS website, too. See below for the film and media studies highlights (in FSFF's opinion) of both EGS video-lists:

• Slavoj Zizek - Rules, Race, and Mel Gibson. 2006


• Peter Greenaway. Filming and Directing Night Watch 2006


• Sophie Calle - About Sophie Calle 2004


• Atom Egoyan - Citadel 2007


• John Waters - Filth 101. Film, Taste and Philosophy 2000


• Jean-Luc Nancy + Claire Denis. L'Intrus/The Intruder 2007


• Morgan Fisher - About Film and the Richness of Life. 2007


• Agnès Varda. The Things We Leave Behind. 2004 (embedded above)


• Jean Baudrillard. Violence of the Image. 2004


• Chantal Akerman + Catherine Breillat. Film and Theory. 2001


• Peter Greenaway - The Slavery of Music and Sound. 2002


• Peter Greenaway. Opera, Film, and Death. Video 2001


• Slavoj Zizek - On Belief and Otherness. 2002


• Volker Schlöndorff. Circle of Deceit False Witness. 2004


• Barbara Hammer. Film, Creativity and Process. 2004


• Barbara Hammer. Resisting Paradise. Discussion 2005


• Pierre Alferi. Films, Novels and Poetry. 2008

See also the following, shorter, film/media studies-related videos from 1999-2001, archived at the European Graduate School website . Just click on the lecture titles to open RealPlayer files:

• Giorgio Agamben (University of Verona, Italy) "On the State of Exception"


• Claire Denis Film Director "Cinema as Cultural Anthropology"


• Peter Greenaway Film Director "Cinema for the New Millennium"


• Agnes Varda Film Director "On Cléo from 5 to 7"


• Chantal Akerman Film Director "Crossing Cinematic Borders"


• Alain Badiou (Collège International de Philosophie in Paris) "On the Construction of a Truth"


• Jean Baudrillard 'Finalities of Change' (2002)


• Victor Burgin Goldsmiths College, University of London, and University of California, Santa Cruz "Creativity and Unknowability"


• Claude Lanzmann Film Director "On the Destruction of Destruction"


• Slavoj Zizek (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) "On Happiness"


• Wolfgang Schirmacher (European Graduate School) "Philosophy and Media"


• Michael Schmidt "Globalization of Music"


• Peter Greenaway, Film Director "Have We Seen Any Cinema Yet?"