The last of the great French film directors of the New Wave, Jacques Rivette, has died aged 87 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> From “Paris belongs to us” in 1961 to “Around a small mountain” in 2009 , via “Celine and Julie go boating”, his best-known movie, he established a unique style many said represented the summit of the New Wave aesthetic.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> A Marxist, Rivette never shied away from experimentation, and his films started to get incredibly long. 1971’s “Out 1” ran for an astonishing 770 minutes, but in the mid-seventies he suffered a nervous breakdown.<br /><br /> In 1991 he roared back with, first, 1991’s “La Belle Noiseuse”, and then flushed with that film’s commercial success, a mammoth two-part examination of the legend of one of France’s most potent national symbols, Joan of Arc, which ran for 336 minutes and starred Sandrine Bonnaire.
