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La Belle Noiseuse is a 1991 film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Béart. Its title means "The Beautiful Troublemaker".
| La Belle Noiseuse | |
|---|---|
Region 1 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Jacques Rivette |
| Written by | Pascal Bonitzer Christine Laurent Jacques Rivette |
| Based on | Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu by Honoré de Balzac |
| Starring | Michel Piccoli Jane Birkin Emmanuelle Béart Marianne Denicourt |
| Music by | Igor Stravinsky |
| Cinematography | William Lubtchansky |
| Edited by | Nicole Lubtchansky |
Production company | Pierre Grise Productions |
Release date |
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Running time | 237 minutes |
| Country | France Switzerland |
| Language | French / English |
The film is loosely adapted from the short story The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac and also includes elements from The Liar, The Figure in the Carpet, and The Aspern Papers by Henry James.
Screenplay
A reclusive famous painter, Frenhofer (Piccoli), lives quietly with his wife and former model (Birkin) in a rambling château in rural Languedoc-Roussillon. When a young artist visits him with his girlfriend, Marianne (Béart), Frenhofer is inspired to commence work once more on a painting he long ago abandoned—La Belle Noiseuse—using Marianne as his model. The film painstakingly explores Frenhofer's creative rebirth. It uses lengthy real-time takes of the artist's hand (provided by Bernard Dufour) working on paper and canvas.
The film won the Grand Prix at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
The film had a good critical reception, and occasioned much comment on Béart's extensive onscreen nudity and director Rivette's characteristic use of a long running time (in this case, roughly four hours).
Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert added the film to his Great Movies collection in April 2009.
The film holds an approval rating of 100% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Rivette used alternative takes from the film and made changes in the scene order to produce a shorter, 125-minute version, La Belle Noiseuse: Divertimento, for television. It was also released theatrically in some countries.
- Michel Piccoli as Édouard Frenhofer
- Jane Birkin as Liz
- Emmanuelle Béart as Marianne
- Marianne Denicourt as Julienne
- David Bursztein as Nicolas
- Gilles Arbona as Porbus
- Marie Belluc as Magali
- Marie-Claude Roger as Françoise
- Leïla Remili as a maid
- Daphne Goodfellow as a tourist
- Susan Robertson as a tourist
- Bernard Dufour as the painter's hand
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