Le Pont du Nord

mise en scène:
Jacques Rivette
Le Pont du Nord A Brief Note
i.e., “The North Bridge”

directed by Jacques Rivette Before going into production on Le Pont du Nord, Jacques Rivette directed in 1980 a
scenario by Jacques Rivette medium-length film titled Paris s’en va [Paris Is Fading Away or Paris Is Slipping Away],
Suzanne Schiffman which to this day remains rarely known or seen. Paris s’en va, featuring the same characters
Bulle Ogier and actors from Le Pont du Nord, was created in part with the intention of raising funds
Pascale Ogier for the shoot of the intended feature-length work-proper, Le Pont du Nord.
dialogue by Jérôme Prieur
cinematography by William Lubtchansky It was, of course, our desire to include Paris s’en va in our release and, after a long search,
Caroline Champetier and with great thanks to the patient diligence of our colleagues at Les Films du Losange
Matthieu Schiffman and the CNC Archives, a standard-definition master was finally uncovered.
editing by Nicole Lubtchansky
Catherine Quesemand Regrettably, and at the eleventh hour, we were denied definitively by a relevant third-party
sound by Georges Prat the rights to include Paris s’en va on our release.
Gérard Lecas
music by Astor Piazzolla Nevertheless, the free online circulation of Paris s’en va persists, in a form with
produced by Barbet Schroeder compromised resolution which remains, as of the time of this writing, unsubtitled.
Jean-Pierre Mahot
executive produced by Margaret Ménégoz
Martine Marignac
Table of Contents
format 1.37:1 / 16 & 35mm (blown up to 35mm)
year of première 1981
Letters from the North 3 On Le Pont du Nord 21
Marie Bulle Ogier by Francisco Valente & Sabrina Marques by Serge Daney
Baptiste Pascale Ogier
Julien Pierre Clémenti Director’s Statement 13 Interview with Jacques Rivette 29
First Max Jean-François Stévenin by Jacques Rivette by Serge Daney and Jean Narboni
Second Max Benjamin Baltimore
Third Max Steve Baes Six Questions for Jacques Rivette 17 Homage to Jacques Rivette 45
The Bonto Player Joe Dann by Jean Narboni by Kate Lyn Sheil
A Hungarian Matthieu Schiffman
The Three Children Julien Lidsky Sur le Pont du Nord 19 Notes on Viewing + Blu-ray Credits 54
Antoine Gurevitch traditional children’s song
Marc
2
Truscelli 3
 1 2013
Letters from
the North
by Francisco Valente
and Sabrina Marques

1. From Francisco to Sabrina

Lisbon, June 11th, 2013

Dear Sabrina,

This is a strange letter because it does not come from a real

place nor will it reveal any particular mood as in any ordinary postcard.
You see, the more I think about Le Pont du Nord, the less I think about
the film and more about everything else.

I saw a clip on YouTube with Bulle Ogier speaking about

her relationship to Rivette earlier today. What is there to say about
someone you know who actually makes you feel like you’re crossing all
ways of life at once? Ogier simply says: “I do have my own thoughts

4 5
about Rivette, but there is no way I could translate them or simply give known as a radical and experimental filmmaker. He knows he is being
them away in a short sentence. That would be a betrayal to the way I watched – that couldn’t be clearer in Le Pont du Nord’s ending – and
feel about him.” he lets his actors play upon that feeling. I love the way they walk around
the street and look over – as if someone’s watching over their shoulder.
Ogier actually describes Rivette as a very private and That’s right – we are watching them (Hitchcock also felt this way, I’m
mysterious person. Which is basically the way we could describe sure).
cinema: something private and mysterious because it lives through
our own desires and illusions. Something that is actually fake – in the So what the actors in Le Pont du Nord are saying is really:
same way our dreams are fake – but also true because we do aspire, come take a ride with us, you won’t regret it. But even though it is a
incessantly, to recreate these dreams and illusions in our own life, our joyful ride (Rivette doesn’t take himself too seriously – humour is a big
relationships and the decisions we make in them. part of this film and I love him for it), it also carries a big threat in a
very explicit way. And that is death.
So let me speak about the way I relate to Rivette in a
personal way, although some of these things may be as true as the game Rivette knows that everything, eventually, has its end: every
that the characters in Le Pont du Nord play against their imaginary game, every illusion that lives in our mind, as well as our attempt to
enemies. recreate it in real life. Which is basically what defines loneliness. I can’t
think of any other characters such as those created by Rivette who long
Watching a Rivette film is like going for a walk in your as much for love and affection, while still being aware that loneliness
city and not knowing what will happen and whom you will meet. Or is as steady as the rules of the game they’re playing (except Rohmer’s,
rather, like those rare, beautiful days when you come home and feel that perhaps). Renoir said: “Everyone has their reasons.” Rivette seems to
you could never have planned what you just went through. That is, a say: let’s live them at the utmost. And that means to try and fulfill the
mixture of chance, improvisation, and quick but thoughtfully planned impossible missions of finding true love (like Ogier in this film, which
decisions exclusively based on your wildest desires and curiosity. also takes me back to L’Amour fou [Mad Love, Jacques Rivette, 1969]),
to kill all invisible evil and help those in need (her real-life daughter
There’s a strong sense of pleasure in Rivette’s films: pleasure Pascale), or to build our own imaginary life in a city that is falling apart
of acting, of experimenting, of shooting a film. What I love about him is (a corrupted and fleeting Parisian landscape).
that this kind of love only exists because we – the spectators – are there
to witness it. Rivette doesn’t make films for himself, even though he is Who’s willing to change the rules of the game we keep

6 7
playing in our lives? That is basically what makes us fall in love with 2. From Sabrina to Francisco
someone else – someone who’s making us take another step in this
huge board game. On the other hand, who’s willing to stay in it once Lisbon, June 12th, 2013
they’ve discovered their own rules in it? That is probably what makes
everything else fall apart. Rivette’s cinema comes from both these Dear Francisco,
feelings, I believe. That’s how it makes me feel anyway – or maybe that’s
the game I’ve invented for myself as a spectator of his cinema. Le Pont du Nord brings me a feeling I constantly have by
living in the city – that there is a witness to every gesture. Indeed, where
Meeting Baptiste (Pascale Ogier) in this film is like walking does the succession of watching cycles end? In cinema, one sees and one
around Paris and meeting Breton’s Nadja (“amour, le grand flash du is seen, and Rivette knows it. Is it a camera or a sight of a gun hovering
fantastique,” says Baptiste). Wouldn’t we love to do that? The Nouvelle over Baptiste in that last shot on “Pont des Abattoirs,” a bridge that no
Vague is commonly described as film taking a step closer to reality. longer exists?
That is true. But Rivette also turned it into a surreal experience, while
recognizing, at the same time, that everything goes around like a play, Isn’t cinema the constant subject here? Rivette seems to
and Paris was his own stage for shooting it through a camera. That be fighting for the new, for an invisible force, for an immaterialized
sense of walking around your city and reacting to an invisible camera potency. Destruction and reconstruction are simultaneous… This
while obeying our own rules – that’s not such a strange thing, is it? I’m cinema is like a dagger ripping the eyes out of the previously seen. It
afraid that’s what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day. is the praise of experimentation, a cinema of improvisation and youth.
A cinema against monument-art, that by being destined to be forever
I’ll be seeing you somewhere. admired on a pedestal, opposes the transformations of the constructive
process. A free cinema shaped by a hunger for sensations in which we,
Francisco spectators, voraciously gorge it until its destruction.

Paris nous appartient [Paris Belongs to Us, Jacques Rivette,

1961] had already sowed paranoia, and the conspiracy grew within the
nerve of the city. (The streets of Paris, always the labyrinthine game
in Rivette’s cinema.) They are a mysterious presence imposed at every
corner, each event is a blow calculated by a distant puppetmaster and,

8 9
everywhere, clues for no outcome are waiting to be recognized by the As a continuous adventure of 360-degree panoramas,
narrative of imagination. the film is itself the spiral drawn on the map of the city for a Game
of the Goose, truthful to the violence of life. Between labyrinths and
Isn’t the stillness of statues and buildings, after all, the same traps, fears and yearnings, there is a constant evocation of a perpetual
commandment that imposes the order that keeps bodies apart? Bodies movement of “theoretical fight against imaginary enemies”. Like the
estrange other bodies. Strangers throw gazes of suspicion on strangers. clock, the game never stops. Le Pont du Nord is a statement about
The other is a hell whose presence one barely tolerates. Unexpectedly, being alive, against this and despite of that. The bridge (countless
two women get together in a mysterious bond and gather forces in a bridges appear in the film) is an unstable state of passage where moving
duet of mutual support, prepared for any quest. Under the shadow of forward is to face the risk of the unknown – that will culminate in
uncertainty, they cross the city against the city. We shall tear their eyes Marie’s destruction and Baptiste’s continuity. But the film doesn’t really
out. We shall punch them with precise fists. We shall watch over the end, does it?
unceasing vigil of statues.
From Rivette (is he the old Chinese master we hear of?)
There is a secret city, an underground city. There are rules remains a combat precept to keep: may the breath be found among
for a different society set under the society we know. A reality that is the stir of days to fight one’s own dragons. For, in the end, in life as in
livelier – therefore, more real. A desired clandestinity is born to face all The Game of the Goose, the best luck is to remain alive. Maybe it is
that was not chosen to exist but which still imposes itself upon every like Baptiste says and “everything is written” and all is but accident or
site. chance or fate.

It dances, it runs, it fights, it hides. The movement grows How many years have passed since you played The Game of
indignant, it breaks the quietude, it answers to the buildings and to the Goose for the last time?
the statues and to the rules. It is a physical and contagious madness,
it disquiets stillness, it rules in freedom. These bodies are whole, Sabrina •
larger than the city, unstoppable bodies of energy, vibrance, mutation,
embodiments of the pleasure for a lawless life. They exist in a vertigo,
they fall and rise in every direction. Wouldn’t you wish to fall into this
chaos?

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 2 1981
Director’s
Statement
by Jacques Rivette
The following originally appeared in the film’s press book.
Translated from the French by Craig Keller.

E very film is an adventure; every film is an “adventure film”. But in

order to place the emphasis on the adventures of our characters,
shouldn’t we also make the adventure of the actual shoot that much
more intense?

In this instance, the fiction first of all lends itself to three

rules, or rather three constraints:

— do not use methods other than those of the so-called “reportage

film”, as though surprise were paramount, and following the progress
of our actresses easy, more or less (and so: never any artificial lighting,
require the fiction to course through the streets, refuse it the refuge of
any enclosed place);

— never leave the limits of the twenty arrondissements of Paris (and,

in all likelihood, restrain the field of their wanderings even more than
Bulle Ogier and Jacques Rivette, that);
on the set of Le Pont du Nord. 12 13
— never let either of our two heroines out of sight (don’t leave their successive reprisals, the verbal wandering doubling all throughout the
point of view: see everything, hear everything, encounter everything physical wandering (the model here being, besides Cervantes, Sterne or
through them and across through). the Diderot of Jacques le fataliste [i.e., Jacques le fataliste et son maître
/ Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, 1765-80, an anecdote of which
Thus, two female characters, and their rovings throughout Robert Bresson adapted into his 1945 film Les Dames du bois de
Paris over the span of a few days: yet this is only the “framework” of Boulogne / The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne]. •
our fiction, and by no means its principle motor: we don’t propose to
attempt a female version of Le Signe du Lion [The Sign of Leo, Éric
Rohmer, 1959], or a Parisian version of Messidor [Alain Tanner, 1979];
the “realism” of the methods have no aim but to contradict – and bring
into play – the abstraction of the jumping-off point. For the entire
project comes down to the desire to mix, in a film about Paris in the
autumn of 1980, the memory of our heroes and of certain situations of
Quixote in Cervantes.

At the same time, put another way:

— an itinerary, with all its layovers and obstacles.

— the confrontation between two characters animated by two contrary

logics (for the one, paranoiac fiction, and who finds explanation in
everything; for the other, fascination with this totalitarian fantasising
which is present, in her eyes, at every crossing of “appearances” or
“looks”).

The alternation of dramatic and comic episodes, and long

conversations on “big topics” (good and evil, beauty and ugliness...), the
film thus also having the form of a singular and identical discussion in

14 15
 3 1981
Six
Questions
for Jacques
Rivette
by Jean Narboni
The following originally appeared in the film’s press book.
Translated from the French by Craig Keller.

1. Could we say that Le Pont du Nord is the meeting between a

character out of fiction – Bulle Ogier – and a character out of science-
fiction – Pascale Ogier? The space odyssey of an ex-militant and a
mutant?

2. Le Pont du Nord is the title of a song [chanson]. Is it because the

film is a story for children, a rebus, a game of snakes and ladders, a
spiderweb?

3. Now more than twenty years in the distance, the “À nous deux
Paris!” [“Paris, for both of us!”] of Paris nous appartient has turned
into “À nous deux Babylone!” [“Babylon, for both of us!”] (As Baptiste

16 17
 4
says at the beginning of Le Pont du Nord.) What has changed for you
between the two (geography, technique and conception of cinema, ideas
of things, etc.)? Sur le Pont
4. This is a film shot entirely in exteriors. It’s also a “Paris pedestrian”
[piéton de Paris] film. What does this imply, or draw attention to (in
du Nord
the sense of a glance), about the people and places?
traditional children’s song
5. It’s often said: Bergman, Antonioni, Mizoguchi, they’re filmmakers Translated from the French by Craig Keller.

of The Woman. There’s also a Rivette, filmmaker of The Woman (or

Women). But, more and more, of a particular type of woman: war-
machine: elusive, oblique, and suddenly on-the-counter-attack: a Sur le Pont du Nord un bal y est donné On the Pont du Nord a dance is given
modern-day Penthesilea [an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology Adèle demande à sa mère d’y aller Adèle asks her mother if she can go
–ed.] or Clorinda [possibly a reference to a character in Rossini’s La «Non, non ma fille tu n’iras pas danser» “No, no, my daughter, you shall not dance”
Cenerentola, or Cinderella, from 1817 – one of Cinderella’s sisters – Monte à sa chambre et se met à pleurer Goes up to her room and starts to cry
ed.] So then: Rivette-Kleist – same conflict? Son frère arrive dans son bateau doré Her brother arrives in his golden boat
«Ma sœur, ma sœur qu’as-tu donc à “My sister, my sister, what’s making you
6. André Bazin spoke with regard to Renoir about moments of pure pleurer?» cry?”
cinematographic jubilation, when the role of the actor overtakes the «Maman n’ veut pas que j’aille au bal “Mama doesn’t want me to go to the ball
character and begins to assert itself. Boudu, for example, in order danser» and dance”
to escape marriage, throws himself into the water, and the camera, «Mets ta robe blanche et ta ceinture “Put on your white dress and your golden
beyond any dramatic obligations of the scene, stays on him, follows dorée» belt”
him swimming. Haven’t you always sought the same thing? In Le Pont Le pont s’écroule et les voilà noyés The bridge collapses and so they drown
du Nord there are similar extraordinarily beautiful moments, the final Voilà le sort des enfants obstinés. • Such is the fate of obstinate children. •
scene between Pascale Ogier and Jean-François Stévenin... •

18 19
 5 1982
On Le Pont
du Nord
by Serge Daney
The following originally appeared in the March 26th,
1982, edition of Libération and was later reprinted
in La Maison cinéma et le monde.
Translated from the French by Craig Keller.

B ulle and Pascale Go Boating in Paris (or in Ailleurs-les-Oies?).

[i.e., “Elsewhere-the-Geese”, connoting The Game of the Goose
–ed.] To properly choreograph these “Ogier Follies”, Rivette needed
to succeed in orchestrating his comeback. Done.

As is customary, one says: I’m going to see a film. Often, one

only sees two or three images floating inside of a void, shameful adverts,
stretched-out commercials, but it doesn’t matter; one says: I saw a film.
Force of habit, fatal grip of the a. Sometimes, one truly sees a film,
something that doesn’t resemble anything else around – Le Pont du
Nord, for example. And here, if one was being honest (and less a slave
of the a), one would say: I saw films, or: I saw cinema. Nuance.

I’ll give an example. Towards the end of Le Pont du Nord,

20 21
the two Ogiers wander the length of a railroad. While Marie (Bulle) these are films to see and to listen to all at the same time. A film, Le
carries on in monologue, Baptiste (Pascale) lies down on the ground Pont du Nord? Come on! One should see it like one slides a finger
and puts her ear to the rail. Light euphoria in the theatre, cinephilic gag, (nervously) along a dial in order to tune in to n free-radio stations. Free,
a flash: we’ve already seen this image – we’ve seen it a hundred times, that’s what the film is – Rivette is the needle, and we are the dial.
but we’ve seen it somewhere else: in westerns. It’s the classic situation
of the solitary lawman, lost in a strange land, while some green-horn This is why it would be useless to try and “sum up” the
who wants to make himself useful follows along with the clumsy scenario, the script, of Le Pont du Nord. On the pretence that the two
stubbornness of Rantanplan in Lucky Luke [a long-running Belgian heroines come from nowhere and wander about a Paris filmed as it
comics series created in 1946 by cartoonist Maurice De Bevere, aka never has been before (such a beautiful city!) – on the pretence that the
Morris –ed.] or John Derek in one of Ray’s westerns (Run for Cover film perhaps takes place in “Ailleurs-les-Oies” and that it has to do with
[1955], to be exact). terrorism, a blacklist, and a great deal of paranoia – we’d be pulled too
quickly onto the side of allegory or capital-S Symbolism. No – we have
Except that in Rivette, it’s more than a gag – it gives you the to throw aside the open-ended artwork and the bon chic bon genre
sudden urge to watch Le Pont du Nord over again from the beginning, lacuna (this a bit worn out – at least for the time being) and speak
but as a western. The film lets you: the concrete and scrap-iron city differently about this film. Don’t start with the script.
is like a desert (or like a ghost-town), the Indians (the “Max”s) are
everywhere, there’s shelter to be found at night, places to get some water, There’s good reason for this. Rivette’s cinema always tells the
a map, a compass, showdowns. It has to end with a rancid old story and same story: how to forget about the script, the scenario. A clarification,
rest can only be thought of – later on. here: the Scenario is many things. It’s that thing dictated and banged
out on the machine that you have to write to convince the [French
Fall off or dance? production-financing arrangement] Advance on Receipts or to reassure
a financier. It’s that inevitability that ensures that each generation be
This is just one example. Le Pont du Nord is also in fact deemed at some moment a “lost generation” (for example, a generation
a political thriller with a hunt for a woman and an urban setting, a of terrorists, political and aesthetic, pre- and post-’68, a generation
documentary on the state of Paris in 1981, an old modernist film which the faces of Bulle Ogier and Pierre Clémenti incarnate in an
composed out of an incomplete and undecidable tale, of the Paris nous almost documentary manner, all the way down to the twitching, the
appartient type, a modern metaphor of ancient myths with Ariadne’s tics, and the hippie-locutions). A scenario is obsessive short-circuits
thread and the Minotaur, etc. These aren’t “levels of interpretation”, too, the minuscule rituals we undertake throughout all life-experience

22 23
and which create the automatic reflexes of the cinema, in some way its Return to Paris
safety net. A glance should encounter an object, that’s the scenario – a
bullet should go through a body, there’s another one – a line of dialogue Leaving the scenario aside, frustrating its inevitability,
should fall off before the end, that’s typical too. Every scenario is the dancing it in order to shoot it, is already old news, that of modern
story of a fall. cinema, that of Rivette. Le Pont du Nord is, on this day, its most recent
episode, and its most joyful one, too. Let’s recapitulate. It all started
This is why, besides the fact that it’s a moment of superbly with a paranoiac scenario out of Lang (Paris nous appartient), followed
filmed euphoria, the final scene between Stévenin and Pascale Ogier, by a scenario of persecution whose sadised victim was a woman (La
the karate lesson on the Pont du Nord, tells something of the truth Religieuse [The Nun, Jacques Rivette, 1966]). Then, taking off from
of the film: “Don’t forget your enemy is imaginary,” Stévenin says. L’Amour fou and its entangled device, in which the scenario, which
And if the glances, the bullets, the words “don’t carry”? And if there contained the same idea, was scrapped, with Rivette staying dedicated
was only dance? And if dance alone – “the passion of being someone to his troupe of actresses (Ogier, Berto, Karagheuz, etc.). From Céline
else” – allowed one to forget about the Scenario? And if Rivette (alone and Julie in their boat [as at the beginning of the essay, Daney refers
or almost so within French cinema) were a choreographer making his here to Rivette’s 1974 film Céline et Julie vont en bateau / Phantom
comeback? To speak of Le Pont du Nord as a musical comedy – the Ladies Over Paris, or Céline and Julie Go Boating or Céline and Julie
“Ogier Follies” or “Paranoid in Paris” – that’s already better. Go Off the Deep-End, etc. –ed.] to the company of Amazons of
Noroît [Scènes de la vie parallèle: 3: Noroît (une vengeance), or Scenes
One will say: but the Scenario doesn’t forget about you. from the Parallel Life: 3: Nor’wester (A Vengeance), 1976], the most
Of course. It doesn’t neglect Marie Lafée who foolishly dies in a twist experimental period of his oeuvre corresponds to the unrealised project
of fate after having brought to her murderer the precious “documents” of the “Filles du feu” [“Daughters of Fire”]. Facing a scenario whose
(which were what, exactly? a map of Paris with a Game of the Goose terms are set, more or less hypocritically, by men (stories of secret
drawn over top: again a scenario, with 63 scenes!). It doesn’t neglect societies, scavenger hunts, traps), the women respond by inventing an
Rivette either, who needs it, but in the way one needs a negative pole, even more aleatory way of acting! A game unto themselves, then a game
a trap to avoid, a threat to flee – a wicked North. Whence the Ogiers’ between themselves – beyond all hope, parodic, and excessive. In the
wanderings. face of this fire, Rivette scorched his wings a little.

This is why Le Pont du Nord marks Rivette’s returning, in

the double sense of the term. Returning to the circuit of cinema; re-

24 25
turning in, retracing, his steps. Returning and new departure. For there’s well, said that after years in the studio and making costume films, he
a difference in stature. Up to this point, Rivette was only interested in had rediscovered the desire to go down the street and see if Paris had
what might happen between characters of the same age group. In stories changed any. This resulted in La Femme de l’aviateur [The Aviator’s
of alliances and sects, as it were. With Le Pont du Nord, for the first Wife, 1981, the first in the series of Rohmer’s Comédies et proverbes,
time, he chances the description of two generations. His actresses have or Comedies and Proverbs]. I’m citing individuals from the Nouvelle
gotten older; they themselves could have children – have had them, Vague. Deliberately. These are the only ones today to carry any trace of
in any case, and, what’s more, the children are all grown up. Which is our recent past – twenty years of adventures in and through the cinema.
where Bulle and Pascale come in. A generation is only ever lost when After a period of experimental withdrawal, having lost nothing of their
it no longer knows how to tell its story to the generation that follows. independence, they’re starting once again from square one, from Paris,
It’s rescued when it knows that it no longer knows anything. Between from this fictive and documentary Paris which was the theatre of their
Marie Lafée and Baptiste, time has dug a strange gully. Rivette’s (and débuts. The Game of the Goose has once more been initiated. Amnesia
William Lubtchansky’s) camera becomes ethnographic again, a little is impossible but bereavement is done with; those rugged years of the
Rouchian, sensitive to these two ways of speaking, of thinking, of Seventies are now in the distance.
moving, of shivering or taking in the sun, of acting and of withdrawing
from the act. One must see Baptiste listening with a benevolent gravity Le Pont du Nord restarts in a minor mode what Rivette had
to Marie’s soliloquies, and must see Marie cast a glance upon the once pretended to take too seriously. The squabbles over the scenario of
prowess of karate-ka Baptise. To speak of incommunicability is to say men and the body of women? An enigma and a dance – nothing more.
too much. “To each her own thing” would be better: to you, the voice; Jean-Claude Biette recently said that The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man
to me, the body and an identical space to accommodate the two; an [La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo, Bernardo Bertolucci, 1981] was the
identical film to act in. first Italian film after the death of Pasolini. I’d offer that in France, Le
Pont du Nord is the first film of the Eighties. •
Not everyone gets the chance to make a first film twice.
It’s a luxury that is paid in journeys across the desert and in blacklists.
Like Marie Lafée, Rivette could say: But I’m still alive! Le Pont du
Nord proves that he’s very much alive, even. Last year, Godard was said
to be very happy to have made – with Sauve qui peut (la vie) [Every
Man for Himself, 1979] – a first film for the second time, that is,
for a second generation of spectators. Twenty years later. Rohmer, as

26 27
 6 1981
Interview
with Rivette
(Excerpts)
by Serge Daney
and Jean Narboni
The following is excerpted from Cahiers du cinéma
no. 327, September 1981.
Translated from the French by Craig Keller.

DANEY & NARBONI: You’ve just finished a film, Le Pont du Nord,

which we haven’t seen yet. Can you tell us about it?

RIVETTE: Maybe only anecdotally, because I don’t even know what

this film is yet – maybe I’ll never know, that’s what happens sometimes.
But with this, we have the feeling (I say “we” not in the royal sense
of the word; it’s a collective “we”, as this film was made with several
collaborators, and I think we’re all in the same state of mind) that it’s
very difficult to know what it is. And the reactions from a few people to
whom we showed the work-print are so dissimilar that it hardly helps
us any.

Jacques Rivette on the set of Scènes de

la vie parallèle: 3: Noroît (une vengeance). 28 29
DANEY & NARBONI: At the start, you spoke about it as an difficult to edit, not to mention there not being that many producers on
“appraisal film” about the France of 1980... the horizon. And so one fine day, the fact that Juliet was tied up with
her own film; the fact that, on the other hand, Bulle and Pascale were
RIVETTE: That’s only what I said when I started it!... But no, it’s a very attached to the project; the fact of being told that, if you wanted
small story about two people who wander through Paris... Actually, the chance to make the film, it had to be as marketable as possible – all
we began with the desire to make, ten years after Out 1 [1971/1989] this eliminated the initial project. So we started over with the principle
(since the project goes back to a year ago, April ’80, and the shoot of of being as simple and economical as possible, therefore: to shoot a
Out 1 was April ’70), the desire to make a different film... – “appraisal” film with two characters (Bulle and Pascale) and with exteriors alone:
is too much, but actually, still, a small sort of tableau of France as seen where there wouldn’t be a single interior shot, not a single lit shot,
from my little tower: what Out 1 wanted to be, for even if, concretely everything in the streets of Paris, from the first image to the last, and
speaking, it only deals with a couple people, I hope that something without leaving the confines of Paris. Which gave us a good, precise,
comes across of what France was like two years after ’68 and (this and stimulating framework. Only then maybe would there be the ability
was exactly what the project of the film was) that it comes across in to return in bursts to the first project, “Tableau of France in 1980”,
ricochets, without ever being addressed directly. So, with this, we had but this isn’t “Tableau of France”, it’s just glimpses, overtures, things
the desire with Bulle, and Suzanne [Schiffman], to kind of remake like that, here and there, by way of these two characters and two male
the same thing, ten years on; very quickly, we tried to bang out a story characters who cross their paths (Pierre Clémenti and Jean-François
where there’d be Bulle, and eventually Juliet [Berto] – but it turned Stévenin)... It’s a film that, as is often the case with films I make (this
out the film project she’d been developing for several months was is something I’ve always wanted to do and which sometimes works
starting to take shape [this was Neige (Snow, 1981) –ed.], and that, out well, sometimes badly) seems to be headed in a certain direction
as happens, she was no longer available enough to work with us – and in the first half-hour, takes a 180 at the end of the half-hour, takes a
then the same thing with Hermine [Karagheuz]. In fact, everything second 180 a half-hour later, a third 180 again three-quarters of the
ground to a halt pretty quickly: because, first of all, we had the feeling way through... Sometimes I think this works well, like in Céline et Julie,
that it risked being too much of the same thing from ten years prior, sometimes less well, like in Merry-Go-Round [1978/1981]; sometimes
even if it was the same things that I’m into and with the people that the turns are a little hair-pin, like in Duelle [Scènes de la vie parallèle:
I’ve always wanted to shoot a lot with: then, seen from the point of 2: Duelle (une quarantaine), or Scenes from the Parallel Life: 2: Duelle
departure we’d taken (while using as the backdrop another Balzac (A Quarantine), 1976] and, in this moment of the 180, half the theatre
novel), it risked being a copy of the first film too much. Actually, there heads for the exit...
was just as much risk of making a relatively expensive film, relatively

30 31
DANEY & NARBONI: Is this zig-zag construction, in general, DANEY & NARBONI: So the ignition was the desire to make a new
premeditated, or does it occur to you only once the film is finished? film with people you’re friendly with?

RIVETTE: This is a film that, in my opinion, doesn’t resemble Céline RIVETTE: This is a film that started from the desire to make a film,
et Julie or Merry-Go-Round whatsoever, except through this principle as is always the case. And then to shoot once more with Bulle, because,
of construction I was just talking about, but which operates, I hope, a if it goes great shooting with actors you admire and who aren’t yet
little differently. Aside from this, it was shot in the same fashion, that is, well-known, like, for example, was the case with Geraldine Chaplin
there’s a pretty precise construction at the beginning, more precise than for Noroît or Maria Schneider for Merry-Go-Round, it’s also insanely
for Merry-Go-Round where we were obliged to modify things several great to shoot with actors or actresses you’ve known for a long time and
times in the course of the shoot; here, we largely kept the construction with whom you’ve already made several things; of course, it depends
we’d established beforehand, which anyway was a very simple one. And who it is – but I know that with Bulle, it’s the fifth film, and I have the
it was written, as we went along, by different people, the principal one impression that we could still make at least five other ones, and that I’d
being Jérôme Prieur who did the basic work of writing the dialogue; always discover even more new things. I think that with Juliet, it would
therefore at certain moments it’s Jérôme’s dialogue exactly as it was be the same, with Hermine too, and several others... So, the project
written, then at other, more simple moments, shot with more or less was born out of a conversation with Bulle, and Bulle got on board right
prepared improvisation (for example, Bulle improvises, but Pascale’s away while proposing the idea for an eventual character. Then also
interventions were devised beforehand). This is a formula I really like: Pascale came up with the idea for her character pretty quickly. And with
let the dialogue take its own shape as we go along via someone who’s Suzanne, we started tracing the steps of these two characters.
been somewhat involved in the course of the shoot, with repercussions
and interaction from the one to the other... Aside from this, it was very DANEY & NARBONI: There’s also often an idea, a principle, of
“aleatory” in the same shooting plan because we were outside the entire music at work, as you start planning your films...
time; we were lucky in that it never rained, but on the other hand it
was freezing cold and the days were very grey and short. And when you RIVETTE: The only music is a collage, after the fact, in the editing.
shoot in the cold, you’re not really doing the same things you’d do when There was, from the start, in the work-print, a three-minute sequence
it’s warm out. In this case, I suddenly understood why, as you’re aware, where there was no sound, and so that this sequence wouldn’t be too
despite my being crazy about Altman, there’s one Altman film that I depressing a thing to have to sit through in the first work projections,
won’t defend – and that’s Quintet [1979]: because it’s a film paralysed we said: we’re going to put a record on – and then we got used to this
by the cold! record being there, and we left it in.

32 33
DANEY & NARBONI: What is it? will inevitably be very “staggered” by virtue of its connection with what
October ’80 was... or maybe not even.
RIVETTE: It’s a tango by Piazzolla!... It’s somewhere between brothel
music and church music, but I really like it! So we wanted to keep this •••
music in and, as a result, there are two, three little echoes like this at
other points in the movie, which come like little gusts of wind... DANEY & NARBONI: So, there are two tendencies in your films –
films anchored in a particular moment of time, and then the mythical
••• films; those that want to be marked with a date, and those that don’t.
And yet what hasn’t been elucidated much is what it is for you that was
DANEY & NARBONI: Are you thinking that we’re going to sense, the point in common with the Tetralogy [Scènes de la vie parallèle] that
with your film, the end of the reign of Giscard [Valéry Giscard you were supposed to make: the four days off during which the dead
d’Estaing, President of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981 –ed.], return to earth.
as you liked saying the last time we spoke?
RIVETTE: This was a point of departure, a point of reference for
RIVETTE: Of the first reign of Giscard, is what I said exactly!... Once subsequently telling stories. Because I’m pretty crazy about the carnival,
again, it’s above all a film about two characters who meet and spend the Celtic myths... But it’s great when, suddenly, a desire to film meets
three-and-a-half days together. It happens that, at certain moments, certain elements, and you say to yourself: “Well, maybe this material’s
they get to talking a little about things that connect them, and there’s possible after all!” and then this material ends up working out well, or
a lot to say about France, but, in any case, Paris at the end of October doesn’t. Here, I had the feeling that this little book about the carnival by
and the beginning of November in 1980. Anyway, I was going to Gaignebet, which I came across at random, contained material which
mention this explicitly at the beginning... I’ve got two kinds of films: set me off on my way. In the end, it got mixed together with a bunch of
there are those where I want to put a date at the opening, and those other things: Duelle, for example, uses lots of elements of the quote-
where I don’t. It’s used in Paris nous appartient, in Out 1 (the case of La unquote French pseudo-poetic film, while trying to be, more or less
Religieuse is totally different), it’s used with the date at the beginning successfully, something in a Cocteau-Franju vein; as for Noroît, there’s
of the film corresponding to the date of the shoot (or the writing of practically nothing other than that... But in these films there wasn’t
the scenario, in the case of Paris nous appartient). Since, at best, the really a general idea – it corresponded instead to something that I think
film won’t be released earlier than six months from then, so, I don’t I wasn’t the only one, at that moment, to have experienced, and which
know what the case will be with this one in six months’ time, but it was already there in Céline et Julie – something which was, actually:

34 35
the need to create types of little structures of protection closed-off from time now, but everyone acts like they’re still there.
any connection with the outside world... I think that this is found in the
same subjects: it’s not for nothing that Noroît takes place in a kind of DANEY & NARBONI: This theme of the citadel is certainly there in
citadel, and Duelle entirely in closed-off, nocturnal environments; and the films of Ruiz which recently have begun to deal with it more and
this would have been there just as strongly in [Scènes de la vie parallèle] more, but under a theoretical guise, under the direction of someone
Part One, if it got made – the love story between Leslie Caron and who has a great familiarity with theology and who always poses the
Albert Finney, which was practically nothing but a tête-à-tête between question of point of view, in the way in which power is bred. But with
two people in an isolated house... [i.e., Marie et Julien, the material of you, it’s the citadel of the point of view, perhaps, of the people who are
which Rivette later revisited for his 2003 film Histoire de Marie et already inside of it...?
Julien, or Story of Marie and Julien, starring Emmanuelle Béart and
Jerzy Radziwiłowicz –ed.] Yes, there was a period when I didn’t really RIVETTE: It’s never the point of view of power, that’s for sure! As the
want to make things that were related, either closely or loosely, with only time there are tiny approaches toward people who gaze outward
whatever was going on in France. It was a refusal, it had no interest for from the side of power is in Out 1, with the characters of [ Jacques]
me, and this refusal has for the time being fallen a bit to the wayside. Doniol-Valcroze and Françoise Fabian, who still remain internecine
intermediaries, and who aren’t portrayed in a very serious light. That
The same thing can also be found in La Religieuse or too, I wouldn’t have been able to do any other way. I always feel
L’Amour fou, which are just as much films of imprisonment (but more incapable, it’s probably a handicap, of showing a character of power in a
concretely so, less cut off from what’s called reality) and alternate with serious light. But in order to do this, maybe you have to do what Jean-
two films, Paris nous appartient and Out 1, which are a little more Marie [Straub] does: go looking for Corneille, Schönberg, or Brecht!
opened-up – let’s say that in them, from time to time the windows are
open... However, generally speaking, they’re still films of imprisonment, •••
when all’s said and done.
DANEY & NARBONI: It’s true, if you take the filmmakers of the
DANEY & NARBONI: Isn’t the element of the citadel, whether Nouvelle Vague, that they all had this moment of withdrawal: La
under siege or not, your central theme? Chambre verte [The Green Room, 1978] by Truffaut; Ici et ailleurs
[Here and Elsewhere, Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville,
RIVETTE: Perhaps. Except that in this most recent one, there’s no 1974], Numéro 2 [Number 2, Jean-Luc Godard, 1976], Godard
citadel. Or rather, it’s Paris, whose ramparts have been fallen for a long sleeping on top of his editing table; Rohmer making historical films,

36 37
yourself making mythological films. DANEY & NARBONI: In France, or more generally speaking?

RIVETTE: I’m telling you, it was Giscard!... I think that, without RIVETTE: I have the impression that this is an almost global
exaggerating anything, by the end of ’74 there was a very strong feeling, phenomenon... Yes. Giscard isn’t in power by chance, after all! It’s a
that all of us more or less experienced, of a collective vacuum, and the European phenomenon, in any case. But we’re not going to launch
desire to try to remake ourselves, to close ourselves off from ourselves into the philosophy of history!... This isn’t only related to politics, it
and those who were close to us. also reflects the fact that, after ten years, every filmmaker feels that
the way in which films are made – and this is as much to do with the
DANEY & NARBONI: Do you think you’ve managed to escape it technical method as the method of distribution – is in suspension...
now? And this is a very strong feeling that I’ve had ever since L’Amour fou as
we already did it with Out 1, very prematurely, in a thirteen-hour-long
RIVETTE: I think so, yes! But maybe since we’re going to come back perspective, thinking of a kind of eventual televised serial, along with
to this a few months from now, let’s wait for the counter-shock of parallel, utopian, or even inaccessible possibilities of distribution, but
the elections. And then again, also, maybe the cinema is an outdated already, even so, thinking of something else. It happened that, effectively,
medium. It’s very possible. The distribution of cinema, such as it exists, now, there’s still no possible means of distribution for this type of
in any case, gives one the impression that we’ve arrived at a breaking enterprise; that, or they remain very unsatisfying; same for Jean-Luc’s
point: the way in which films are consumed, are circulated, are viewed, [five-hour long] Le Tour de France [France/tour/détour/deux/enfants,
also figure into it. And, just take music, where everything is now refined, or France/Tour/Return/Two/Children, Jean-Luc Godard, 1977], or, in
digital recording systems, etc., it’s as though there’s some hesitation another way, Syberberg’s [seven-hour long] Hitler [Hitler, ein Film aus
among monied interests to make the jump towards an approaching Deutschland, or Hitler: A Film from Germany, 1977] – there are lots
future, because it’s too strong a shift from the current marketplace. I of examples...
think that’s where cinema is at, as well. Which is where this impression
of being stuck in a rut comes from. Almost every filmmaker of the last •••
ten years has spent their time in a rut; good or bad, with more or less
talent, but during these ten years there hasn’t been a change on the DANEY & NARBONI: [In a previous interview with the Cahiers]
horizon, or anywhere, to my knowledge. As though it were a general you put forward a certain number of ideas very much within the
shut-down... waiting for the messiah, for the apocalypse, call it whatever sensibility of the era: the idea of the obstacle as opposed to the
you want! And we continue filling time waiting, because we live on, we spectacle; the abject in cinema; the rejection of the auteur, the erasure of
get by, years pass... the auteur...
38 39
RIVETTE: I’ve always agreed with this idea of erasing the auteur. mercenary film and the second-coming of The Deer Hunter, in which,
Maybe not erasing, but still... I keep thinking that a film is more in turn, Walken totally wants to be a new De Niro; it’s evident that [De
interesting if aspects of it are handled by different people. There are Niro] was the key figure throughout the entire film, that the project was
of course exceptions to this – Bresson, and a couple others. But all probably built around him, that he’s the one who prepared his character
the same, the entire American cinema, and the major part of Western all on his own for six months, seeing as De Niro was most likely the one
cinema, is never one sole individual – it’s not a writer at his work table who laid down the law – at least that’s the impression one comes away
nor a painter before his canvas; I think something happens by way of with – who influenced all the decisions on the set. De Niro pulls this
a connection between a person who is the director and the actors, and off because there’s no-one to get in the way, thanks to his rapport with
also the principal technicians when they know how to play their part. Scorsese, and yet the result is that this generation of actors – not just
Of course there’s always someone who has to take the responsibility of De Niro or Walken, but also Stallone, etc. – can now only play roles of
the [spoken in English] “last cut”, and not only that. In fact, there are men who are obsessed, paranoid. And likewise, Scorsese, and Coppola,
two responsibilities on a film: the one is “it gets started”, and the other can no longer direct this. Even so, it’s a little disturbing; an enormous
is: “it gets finished”. There obviously has to be someone who says: “we’re limitation of subjects, compared to all the possible and eventual human
starting”, and who brings other people together by way of a project that’s relationships out there. All this because there are still power struggles.
supposed to happen; and another who says: “we’re wrapping up, we’re I for one continue in theory, and as much as I’m able to do in practise,
through, that’s the way it is, done, we’re making the release-print, this is to stand against power struggles. Of course, everyone knows quite well,
the way people are going to see it”. It’s not necessarily the same person bearing that discourse in mind, that there’s an element of hypocrisy, an
who says both of these things. What happens within the French cinema element of cowardice, an element of obvious degradation, and that the
system, more often than not, nine times out of ten, is it’s the filmmaker attitude that this cultivates on my part during the shoot is often very
who makes the initial proposal, and who decides when it’s finished. But difficult for the actors and the technicians to deal with: that is, refusing
everything in between these two things, I think it’s more interesting to hold on – not always, but sometimes – to the place that, in the end,
if there’s an opening, even if this opening is a tactical one, if it’s a should be mine alone. And standing around waiting for something to
manoeuvre. This is what bothers me a little in recent American films, come from one side or the other, and sometimes it comes, other times
like The Deer Hunter [Michael Cimino, 1978] or Raging Bull [Martin it doesn’t, of course... What I’m describing is the method by which I
Scorsese, 1980] – it’s the fact that they’re centripetal, self-sufficient. make films, and this method, as always, creates subjects; one might see a
It’s even more striking in De Niro and all the American actors of his thematic throughline here after the fact, but I believe that it’s always the
generation; it’s evident in a flim like The Dogs of War [ John Irvin, outcome of a way of shooting which is purely physical.
1980], a film which vacillates its entire run-time between being a banal

40 41
DANEY & NARBONI: Yes. And still one senses that you’re closer
to Altman or Cassavetes. By the fact that you allow a certain margin
within your acting?...
“...It’s obviously within the logic of the Rivettean system to allow
RIVETTE: Yes. One which is always rigged and booby-trapped! But accident to modify the course of the film. Le Pont du Nord twice
it’s true, I like this feeling!... You really get the sense in Altman and inscribes à la lettre this truth that Rivette allows to reveal to himself,
Cassavetes that they’re not trying to be demiurges. Maybe what I like by way of accident, his film. In the course of the second day, Marie
the most in Altman is precisely the messy side, which shocks people, accepts a taxi ride with Julien but jumps out right away, feeling ill.
even if it’s not always graceful – far from it – and which gives this Baptiste rejoins her and we see in the background a traffic accident,
impression that something’s happening, something’s coming closer, a police car with lights and siren, a crowd gathered, etc. – an
which hasn’t been anticipated; and which comes about because a accident that had nothing to do with the mise-en-scène, but which
certain number of people found themselves united together by certain chanced to happen in reality during the shoot and which Rivette
circumstances, as though by accident. The feeling also that everyone kept expressly to integrate within his mise-en-scène. Another
would have been different if there were other people involved – the accident: while shooting the final sequence of the film, the camera
opposite of pre-established and interchangable “roles”. inadvertently scratches the film stock, and night setting in renders a
certain number of takes something close to unusable. Rivette decides
And indeed, in the extraordinarily rigid system of American to integrate this accident as well into the final form of the sequence:
cinema, Altman and Cassavetes are practically the only ones to have he ends up adding two other lines, which form upon the image a
tried doing this in the last ten years. When you know how difficult it is viewfinder-cross, and ends the film on this enigmatic splitting-in-
within the European system, you can only imagine the enormity of the two of the images. Rivette doesn’t reject accident as a threatening
difficulties that they must encounter... event, something outside of the film; any accident that arises in the
film is part of the film, can reveal the film to itself.”
DANEY & NARBONI: [And Robert] Kramer?
– Alain Bergala, from “Rivette, Baptiste et Marie”, Cahiers du cinéma
RIVETTE: Yes. But, without wanting to take anything away from his no. 333, March 1982
merits, Kramer had the advantage of his marginality... •

42 43
 7 2013
Homage to
Rivette
by Kate Lyn Sheil
The following script for a New York-based short-film
homage to Jacques Rivette and Le Pont du Nord was
written in May 2013 by actress and filmmaker Kate
Lyn Sheil (Sun Don’t Shine, The Color Wheel, The
Comedy, House of Cards, etc).

EXT. CHINATOWN STREET – DAY

A young woman, NADINE, walks down a crowded Chinatown street. She
stops, drops a duffle bag to the ground and looks at her reflection in a shop
window. She unfastens her tightly wound bun and flips her head over, frantically
rubbing her scalp before flipping it back upright. She zips up her jacket, tugs
at the bottom and faintly nods, more determination than approval. She notices
the woman inside the bakery looking at her. Nadine seems frozen for a moment
before snatching up her duffle and walking quickly down the street.

INT. ARCADE – DAY

Nadine waits at the counter of an arcade. Lights flashing hypnotically, she
becomes impatient as the man behind the counter talks on the phone. She slams
down a dollar bill and adjusts her jacket. The man gives her change without
ceasing his conversation.

44 45
INT. ARCADE BATHROOM – DAY She stoops to pick it up as quickly as she can. She dumps it into her duffle bag
Nadine breathes deeply while looking into the mirror. She shadowboxes. She and drops the bun into a trash can as she hurries to speak to Mo.
takes a knife from her pocket and flips it open, lunges at phantoms. Someone
jiggles the door handle and she jolts, then composes herself and adjusts her EXT. CHINATOWN STREET – CONTINUOUS
jacket. She picks up her duffle bag and exits, squeezing by the waiting patron. Mo flails her arm about trying to hail a taxi. Nadine approaches her cautiously.

INT. ARCADE – DAY NADINE

Nadine aggressively plays a video game. Hitting the machine and sputtering with (standing next to Mo but not looking at her)
anger when she loses. She notices the man behind the counter staring at her. She The green grass grows along the ferry’s cross.
picks up her duffle bag and leaves.
Mo pays no attention.
EXT. CHINATOWN STREET – DAY
Nadine runs down the street, looking behind her as though she were being NADINE (CONT’D)
followed. She stops and doubles over, out of breath. Excuse me.

INT. CHINATOWN BAKERY – DAY Mo turns her head sharply. Her face can be seen in full.
Nadine orders a red bean bun.
NADINE (CONT’D)
EXT. BENCH – DAY The green grass grows along the ferry’s cross.
Nadine sits and eats her bun, exhausted. She takes out her money and counts it
meticulously, holding the bun in her mouth when she needs to use both hands. MO
Three dollars and forty nine cents. Nadine spots a woman on the corner trying Excuse me?
to hail a cab, this is MO. At first she can only see the back of Mo’s head. She
removes the bun from her mouth. Nadine opens her mouth to repeat herself but thinks better of it. This one is
playing hard to get.
NADINE
(to herself ) NADINE
Turn around. Don’t I know you from somewhere?

Mo turns slightly as a cab flies by, enough for Nadine to catch the side of her MO
face. Nadine jumps to her feet, spilling her bills and change all over the ground. I don’t think so.
46 47
Mo returns to hailing her cab. Nadine spots one approaching and whistles using NADINE
two fingers. The taxi screeches to a halt. Mo looks at Nadine before opening the Don’t I know you from somewhere?
door.
MO
NADINE Not to my knowledge.
Do you mind if I ride with you?
NADINE
Mo closes the door. The window is open as they are sometimes on a warm day. (playfully)
Ah! I know. You work at Cafe Petisco.
MO
154th and Amsterdam, please. MO
You’re mistaken.
Mo puts on a pair of sunglasses and the taxi pulls away. Nadine rustles in her
bag, pulls out a pair of sunglasses which she promptly dons and runs to the Mo is quickening her pace.
nearest subway station.
NADINE
INT. SUBWAY STATION – DAY Well, it must be something.
Nadine looks around suspiciously then hops the turnstile.
Mo reaches her destination and rings the buzzer several times. No one answers.
INT. SUBWAY CAR – DAY
Nadine looks around suspiciously then takes out a file. She opens it and pours NADINE (CONT’D)
over the pages of information on Maureen “Mo” Lonsdale, including several Where are you from?
private eye style candid photographs. The train slows to a stop and Nadine
shoves the files back into her duffle. MO
Sacramento.
EXT. STREET CORNER – DAY
Nadine waits on the corner of 154th and Amsterdam. She tries to jump high NADINE
enough to hit the street sign. A taxi pulls up and Mo steps out. Nadine runs after That’s not right.
her.

48 49
 MO waiting for you in 4F but I’m not, am I?
How would you know?
Mo stares at her down the barrel of the gun.
NADINE
Just a feeling. You look so familiar. Are you on TV? NADINE (CONT’D)
I’m not. Am I? The clean up crew will be here any minute.
MO
No. Mo continues to point the gun at Nadine.

Mo is trying to hide her increasing panic. She fishes around in her purse. NADINE (CONT’D)
Either we both leave now or it’s over, and you know it. They don’t allow
NADINE insubordination and they don’t make exceptions.
I know, you’re a friend of Susan’s.
Mo lingers for a moment then lowers the gun and Nadine exhales sharply.
Mo draws a gun and points it at Nadine.
MO
MO Why are you doing this?
What do you want?
Nadine grabs Mo’s arm and drags her away as three men in black suits and hats
NADINE approach the building. They ring the buzzer. There is no answer.
Don’t play dumb.
EXT. CONEY ISLAND – DAY
Mo stares at her. Nadine and Mo sit at Nathan’s Hot Dogs. Nadine slides a ticket across the table
to Mo then takes a big bite of her dog.
NADINE (CONT’D)
You didn’t think they’d let you walk away, did you? NADINE
It leaves tonight at 11 pm. It was the earliest I could find. A man will meet you at
Mo finger twitches on the trigger. the station in Point Pleasant. He’ll be wearing a Maltese scarf.
Listen to him. He’ll help you.
NADINE (CONT’D)
But if I were going to do it, you’d have been dead a long time ago. I was to be
50 51
 MO EXT. CONEY ISLAND – DAY
Will you come too? This is a montage of the women having quite a bit of fun at Coney Island. Riding
the cyclone, eating ice cream and chasing each other around. This montage ends
NADINE with the women descending to the beach to watch the sunset. They sit on the
I’ll meet you later, when it’s safe. It’s best for you to travel alone. sand.

Nadine finishes the last bite of her hot dog. EXT. BRIGHTON BEACH – DUSK

NADINE (CONT’D) MO
Come with me. [SPEECH HERE.]

INT. BATHROOM – DAY Mo removes a knife from Nadine’s pant pocket and lunges for Nadine. They
Both women are in individual stalls. struggle but Mo ultimately wins, stabbing Nadine in the heart. She leans down
to her ear.
MO
Are you sure this is necessary? MO (CONT’D)
(whispering)
NADINE The green grass grows along the ferry cross... It was always me or you.
Quite.
Mo stands and walks away as Nadine rolls around. Bloodying the sand. She
They pass items of clothing over the wall. raises herself on all fours, crawling towards the water, collapsing and dragging
herself along, she begins to laugh uncontrollably. She makes it to the water and
EXT. BATHROOM – DAY walks out into the crashing waves as the sun sets.
Nadine and Mo exit the bathrooms onto the boardwalk each dressed in the
others’ clothing. Nadine adjusts her silk jacket and falters a bit in her high heels. EXT. BRIGHTON BEACH STREET – NIGHT
Mo walks off of the boardwalk and out onto the street. When the sand turns to
MO pavement she puts on her shoes. She walks out into the starlit night, exhausted.
Now what do we do? She walks along the street for quite a while before the sounds of screeching tires
can be heard. A car rushes into frame and knocks Mo down. The three men in
Nadine smiles. black suits step out of the car. They pick up Mo’s body, brightly lit by the car’s
headlights and throw it into the trunk. They drive away, into the night. END. •
52 53
 Dedicated to Jacques Rivette,
NOTES ON VIEWING BLU-RAY CREDITS and all Rivettniks.
Le Pont du Nord was shot in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio. For widescreen systems screening this disc, the
display mode should be toggled (via the corresponding button on the remote or on-screen setup menu)
MoC Producers Special Thanks
until the frame appears with its original dimensions intact, pillarboxed (black bars bordering the left
and right of the image).
Craig Keller Ron Benson
Jon Robertson Michael M. Bilandic
Andrew Utterson Michael Chaiken
INCORRECT: James White Manuel Chiche
Florence Dauman
Booklet Editor Jessica Felrice
Craig Keller Marcus Garwood
Steve Hills
Special Research Gabrielle Juhel / Les Films du Losange
Andy Rector B. Kite
Gabe Klinger
Cover, Booklet, Menus, Bill Krohn
The above images are a distortion and corruption of the original artwork, & Sleeve Design Kevin Lambert
which travesty the integrity of both the human form Craig Keller Sabrina Marques
and cinematographic space. Arthur Mas
Disc Authoring Jacob Perlin
CORRECT: David Mackenzie Martial Pisani
Andy Rector
Ian Sadler
Kate Lyn Sheil
Francisco Valente
Nick Wrigley / MoC Founder
Lise Zipci / Les Films du Losange

“LE PONT DU NORD”

© 1981 Les Films du Losange.
The film image as intended by the director when shown on a
widescreen display (with pillarboxing on the left and right).
The Masters of Cinema Series #62 www.mastersofcinema.org
SPECIAL NOTE: Any “motion smoothing” settings (such as “PureMotion” / “MotionFlow”, etc.) should be
switched OFF so the film can be viewed as intended. Please calibrate your display settings in order to experience
For sale in U.K. and Ireland only. This product is licensed for private home use only. Any other use
this film optimally (many factory default settings are neither suitable nor desirable). including copying, reproduction, or performance in public, in whole or in part, is expressly
prohibited by applicable laws. This edition and package design © 2013 Eureka Entertainment Ltd.
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 The Masters of Cinema Series

EKA70106