A Rivette runs through it

Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Céline and Julie Go Boating, 1974) Directed by Jacques Rivette. Written by Eduardo de Gregorio, Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, and Jacques Rivette. Produced by Barbet Schroeder. Cinematography by Jacques Renard. Edited by Nicole Lubtchansky.

Click images to enlarge:


Julie (Dominique Labourier) and Céline (Juliet Berto) woozy outside the RKO house.



Céline performing at the magic club…shades of Desperately Seeking Susan.



Julie and Céline with magic sweets.



Inside the house, the breakdown of reality. From left to right: Juliet Berto, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Barbet Schroeder, Dominique Labourier.

Has anyone yet listed the similarities shared between Rivette’s film and Desperately Seeking Susan? If there’s anything online, please send me the link. In the meantime, however, we could start something here.

A few years ago a friend mentioned that the Madonna movie was a quasi-remake. I’d never considered it, but his description made it clear. When Desperately Seeking Susan came out on DVD, an audio commentary by producers Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford confirmed that Leorah Barish’s screenplay was indeed influenced by Céline and Julie Go Boating. Hired to direct the picture, it turned out to be one of Susan Seidelman’s favorites as well. Here’s a preliminary list to start. Please add whatever you can:

Both films feature two female opposites as lead characters: the bohemian Céline (Juliet Berto) and the conservative Julie (Dominique Labourier) in Rivette’s; the bohemian Susan (Madonna) and the conservative Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) in Seidelman’s.

Julie wants ‘to be’ Céline; Roberta wants ‘to be’ Susan.

Céline and Julie appear on stage in a magic act; Roberta works at the Magic Club where Madonna occasionally hangs out.

Céline and Julie eat candy that transports them to an alternate reality; suffering from amnesia, Roberta begins a radically different life from New Jersey suburbs to the downtown Manhattan of Soho and the Village.

Céline wears an amulet with an eye at its center; Susan (and later Roberta) wears a jacket embroidered with a dollar-bill pyramid with an eye on top.

My friend called Rivette’s haunted mansion the “RKO House,” which is an accurate description. Its mysterious aura is mirrored by Susan’s downtown of dark alleys and hidden lofts. When Roberta asks Dez (Aidan Quinn) “Do people really live here?” it recalls the initial shock of seeing the ghosts who inhabit the RKO House.

Both of these separate realities revolve around danger: the murder of the child in Céline and Julie, the murders surrounding stolen artifacts in Susan.

...any others?

Via If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger…, a Film Comment piece from 1974: Phantom Interviewers Over Rivette, conducted by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Lauren Sedofsky and Gilbert Adair.

Into the Groove by Madonna (mp3)