Screen/Society--"The Gang of Four" (Jacques Rivette, 1989) | 2024 French Film Festival

THE GANG OF FOUR (LA BANDE DES QUATRE)
(Jacques Rivette, 1989, 160 min, France/Switzerland, French and Portuguese w/English subtitles, DCP)

Screening as part of the 2024 French Film Festival
Jan 26 - Feb 10, 2024

A quartet of aspiring actresses live together while studying under a demanding teacher named Constance Dumas (Bulle Ogier). As they rehearse Pierre Marivaux's La Double Inconstance, offstage drama creeps into their lives in the form of a menacing mystery man (Benoît Régent) with a sinister story. Caroline Champetier's moody lensing-muted reds, golds, and browns-creates the feeling of an all-enveloping universe operating according to its own paranoid logic.

Rivette won the Critics Prize at Berlin for this late-career masterwork. With characters trapped between reality and its representation, THE GANG OF FOUR casts an enigmatic look at duality.

"More classical and less experimental than [Rivette's] previous features, it's almost a summary and compilation of his major themes and preoccupations -- an ideal introduction to his work." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

"An accessible and entertaining vision of how the New Wave has survived and evolved long after it was declared dead." - Caryn James, The New York Times