…Nun But The Lonely Heart, Nun Dare Call It Treason…yeah, yeah, you know me and you know that I could and would go on in this vein for hours were there nothing else to be done. But there are other things to be done. So I'll just tell you that a new DVD release of Le La religieuse, which translates as, wait for it, The Nun, Jacques Rivette's 1966 second feature, is out in France. Great news for fans of Rivette, not to mention fans of Anna Karina (that's her above in the title role), fans of Francisco Rabal (that Nazarin man is above at left) and fans of great cinema in general. It's really great news for fans of the above who speak, or at least understand spoken, French, as the disc has no subtitles. I muse upon this circumstance in today's Foreign Region DVD Report, at The Daily Notebook, as ever.
FYI: The New York Public Library has a VHS of this film that one can take out if they are so inclined.
So radically different from all Rivette’s other work, but excellent nonetheless.
I found this online with English subtitles, so a more-understandable version is definitely available.
I watched this right after Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie and found Karina even better in Rivette’s film, and also thought his exploration of women in society (albeit an older society) much more interesting. The final scene was pretty damned powerful, as opposed to the laughable pulpy ending of Godard’s film, which I had been mostly enjoying up until that point.
Two questions:
1. How does this compare with Zinneman’s The Nun’s Story?
and
2. HFS what IS it with the French and no freaking subtitles? This is the digital age, they aren’t that hard to do and probably don’t cost THAT much. Dan Sallitt and his onlne confreres manage it all the time so WTF?
And I say this as a woman whose Francophilia is so over the top she actually married one…
Credit where credit is due — Gaumont’s Sacha Guitry set, L’âge d’or 1936-1938, 8 DVDs/9 films (Faisons un Rêve! Remontons les Champs Elysées!), includes both English and French subtitle options, the better to catch that lightning-fast wordplay, PLUS, although the set is listed as Region 2, it seems actually to be region-free. Joyeux Noël?
I’ll be that person: unless Rivette took a remarkably gender-bending approach to Diderot, it’s LA Religieuse.
As I learn to be kinder to myself, I understand: typos happen. And then “that person” happens. And then life goes on.
You could almost look at this film as an absolute INVERSION of “The Nun’s Story.” Dour, contemplative, anti-inspirational. Really beautifully done of course. Oozing with tragic French irony!
Yeah, the sub thing varies and varies and varies. The Carlotta set of German Sirks has French subs and no English, which is babelicious and makes me dearly wish for Eclipse to step in. Cheap being what it is, I doubt that “not that expensive” registered overmuch with the Canal people who put the Rivette disc in print. I should note that on Amazon fr. it IS a very reasonable ten Euros…
I know there’s a way to attach subtitles to a DVD without them, but I’m not quite tech-savvy enough to know how to do it. And it may involve ripping the disc.
Who knows what Google might turn up if one looks…
streaming a subtitle file into a DVDFolder is quite doable, if a bit fussy and it does involve ripping the original DVD FOlder. Do a google search via “videohelp” and subtitle muxing.
Glenn – finally – the French who have been so blithe about the uninclusion of subs even in their own language are finally required by law to include French SDH or “sous-titres pour malentendants” from 2011. Menawhile – with no rhyme or reason – the new Bluray of French Cancan from Gaumont and the new Arte Bluray from a new 2k transfer of Demoiselles de Rochefort include optional English subs. And both are region free. The Renoir is a thing of indescribable beauty and essential to life. The Demy is nto far behind it.
Once I figured out how to view DVDs with external .srt subtitles, nothing could stop me. And ripping the DVD isn’t required.
Forgive me if this doesn’t work for anyone else, but… well, too bad. I used Media Player Classic.
File > Open DVD;
File > Load Subtitle.
(Locate the desired subtitle), and that should work. Does it work? It works for me. It’s possible an adjustment needs to be made to the MPC Option-settings.
(View > Options);
my DirectShow Video (Playback > Output) setting appears to be VMR7 (renderless).
Does that work? I hope so, Rivette’s La religieuse is too special a film to be disregarded on behalf of a lack of words.
THE NUN played some years ago on TCM — that was where I saw it, as part of a Nouvelle Vague Month, completely unprepared, and utterly blown away, though I was scratching my head at the sudden compression of events at the end. The last 5 minutes, maybe, felt more like a “highlights from next week’s episode” teaser at the end of Part One of a miniseries. That aside, THE NUN is still my favorite Rivette, though I’ve seen only five (all of which I like, but only DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS otherwise do I love). It was as if Dreyer was asked to make a horror film in color — the passion elements, the glowing-wall lighting schemes, the way Karina is often isolated in the frame. And ultimately the way that, whatever might be said about the convent at which she spends the bulk of the film, the “enlightened” convent she goes to near the end is just simpering and silly, and both are ar superior to where she ends up in the social scale.