jcjs333 Elitist porn i suppose. Acting is mediocre and it's all contrived and silly. Typical French cinema. Italians are warm and smart and this is cold and dumb. An aging artist getting his kicks out of being sullen and uninteresting. The aging artist has a wife who used to pose for him and they almost split up over it. Big deal! They all sit around eating or hanging out when not doing the art naked bit. The conversations are as stilted and boring as anything i've heard. French mumbo jumbo yakking and yakking and yakking about 'nothing of any importance. They have a tone in their voice as if to say their talking is important and it's as trite as can be. There's no substance or plot. I think i could have liked it if it were 90 minutes long. But, even 90 of this is too much. Whether his art is 'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant. Everyone is an 'artist' i some way. Just slow pretentious talking going nowhere. 80% of the film is just scratching paper. I guess were supposed to think this is 'the artists process' which is ridiculous since all artists work different. There is no humor anywhere in the nearly 4 hours. I can't recall one ounce of humor or levity. Artists i know , during posing sessions may carry on a conversation but it's not going to be pretentious short of the mark philosophizing from nowhere going nowhere. There's no point to this bore. The words are put in these folks mouths by writers who have their heads in the clouds. One guy said 'good show if you like watching paint dry'. That sums it up perfectly. I wouldn't watch the rest if i hadn't paid to watch it. I'm writing this while the aging artist and wife are arguing with words that mean nothing. The model is so stilted and dull. I don't think there is even a smile. Everyone is SULLEN and SAD. Dull people doing dull things. Blows my mind people like this. I ain't on that band wagon' This flick is ridiculous.

Christian Relationship rich, this story revolves around a young couple who's man, Nicolas, agrees to let his woman, Marianne, be the nude model for a friend's hopeless and hapless attempt to make his long sought masterpiece he was unable to finish 10 years ago. Nicolas' relationships with the painter, the painter's wife (Liz), Marianne and later his sister are affected and deteriorate. Meanwhile the painter and his subject become entranced in an artistic and metaphysical dance.Relationship with the painter and his wife slowly unravels until it explodes. Will it stabilize or severe their bond? Also the interplay between the painter's wife and Nicolas, the painter's wife and Marianne, Marianne and her sister-in-law, etc. are all exquisitely explored with tense writing, intimate and beautiful cinematography as well as daring directing.At almost 4 hours and divided into two parts, the first part focuses on process of painting (and can be painful for limited attention-span people) while the second part reveals the fleeting purpose and puts people, art and life in context. The images and words are hard not to remain with you after viewing and sense of increase sensitivities to living. The screenplay is sublime with sparks of genius, genuine life glimpses and poetic prowess. Transfixion, transformation, transgression...Jacques Rivette has made his masterpiece regardless if his protagonist did or not. The subtext and unanswered questions add to the mystery.Life naked, complex, like the model or actress. Beautiful. Art is born.

fedor8 Summary of a 4-hour movie: a sex-starved old bald artist gets to watch a beautiful naked woman for hours every day.If you want to see the height of French (or European) cinematic pretentiousness, go ahead and watch this dull piece of celluloid nonsense. However, if you want REAL entertainment, no need to watch a different movie: I suggest you take a peak at many of the favorable reviews of LBN. However, if you're a fan of drivel like this, you'll most likely enjoy them and mark this with a "NO" (and then phone up all your friends to mark it with more "NO"s). Just make sure you don't break your keyboard when you smash a "NO" vote...Piccoli plays an old artist, who has stopped painting/drawing i.e. scribbling crap-on-a-canvas, due to some tortured artist reasons. More likely, he stopped because he lives in the South of France and he'd rather just have fun in the sun and have sex a bit, occasionally wining and dining with friends. It's understandable. In the movie, however, the reason for this becomes apparent later: he tried painting his wife, and that pretty much ruined the fun in art forever for him. After all, would YOU want to spend hours and days painting your wife? Especially when she looks like Jane Birkin. No wonder Piccoli is tortured, suffering and all that: with a wife like Birkin it's a miracle he didn't end up killing himself like all those young tortured poets.But... Voila! Ms.Beart enters the picture, his life. She is young, has a pretty face, and likes to be naked in front of old men. What man, old or young, could resist that? Suddenly, and veeeeery mysteriously, Piccoli is interested in painting again! Of course, officially his reasons are artistic, not sexual. How dare I even suggest that an artist might think with his genitals first, and his divine artistic soul/mind second?? No, no, no: Piccoli is NOT sexually attracted to the beautiful Beart; he just wants to paint her because she has that certain... aaahh... je-ne-sais-quoi. What follows in this monstrously long movie are scenes of Beart undressing, dressing, posing, changing poses, getting bored, and Piccoli trying to calm himself down, i.e. Piccoli hiding his pitched tent while trying to focus on his "art". It is a pervert's dream. A movie the pervert doesn't have to hide from his visiting friends, but actually boast about. Two flies with one swat: watching breasts AND being able to pretend you're a clever art-movie lover. Or loveur.Occasionally, there is some rather dull dialog that serves more as relief for male viewers who are struggling with their sexual feelings towards the naked Beart.In the end, we get to see a large collection of drawings, all based on the body of one called Beart. Needless to say, the drawings are all horrible. All that effort, and for nothing! The reason they are so bad is two-fold: 1) nowadays bad art sells better, and 2) it is very difficult to concentrate on your artistic outpourings of inspiration when sexual feelings hang over you like an albatross. I understand Piccoli's character fully.Oh, and those breasts are fake. This is Beart in her post-silicon, pre-enlarged-lips-like-a-duck phase. I am not a fan of implants at all, but I guess art lovers will not be bothered by the only bit of fakeness in an otherwise impressive feast of utter genuineness. The movie stinks of authenticity. It reeks. I'm impressed.I wonder what the shooting of this movie was like? Did Piccoli have sex with Beart every morning, before the shooting commenced, so he can focus more easily on his lines? No, that can't be it. I just remembered: he barely has any lines. He just sits there and draws.I once watched a chimp with a brush, a canvas, and some paint. There's much more to be learned from that...

FilmCriticLalitRao Edouard Frenhofer-a renowned painter left his supreme creation "La Belle Noiseuse" unfinished for ten years.His wife Liz modeled for it.He receives Porbus-an art agent and a young ambitious painter Nicolas in his château in the south of France.Porbus convinces him to complete the painting with a fresh model Marianne.This leads to an emotional turmoil between Frenhofer,Liz and Marianne.Jacques Rivette has created films which are fascinating examples of human emotions.As an avant-garde filmmaker,he relies heavily on literary texts.The film is a loose adaptation of Honore de Balzac's short story "The Unknown Masterpiece".La Belle Noiseuse is an honest film about creativity and its implications on our daily lives.It is true that Rivette took 4 hours of screen time in order to get to the bottom of his protagonists' emotional turmoil yet the wait is worth it as it is too small a price to pay.La Belle Noiseuse demands active participation on audience's part as Rivette makes us examine all aspects of creative art.Frenhofer,through his art attempts to make us comprehend basic human weakness felt by an artist.He dropped the idea of La Belle Noiseuse as he was scared and had not set foot in his atelier for a long time.The four-hour La Belle noiseuse was also released in 1993 in a two-hour version,entitled Divertimento as France 3 felt that a shorter version would be easy for everyone to grasp.The 4 hour film will certainly prove to be a nerve wrecking cinematic encounter for laid-back viewers who are not used to Rivette's protracted style of film-making.