Just imagine you’ve got nothing time. You have no clear goal and around you events are unfolding. You feel actively, and curiously engaged in them yet also carried along by serendipity. From this description you could be either an actor in or a viewer of the film Out 1. What distinguishes you from being an actor or a viewer could be your outfit — are you wearing a sweater dress, a macrame shawl, or a floppy hat? But more likely its your location that gives you away — either you are inhabiting abodes and streets of Paris in 1971 or you are sitting in a seat in a movie theater. Yet, it’s kind of remarkable that even 45 after the making of the film the performers and the audience of Out 1 are still engaged together in a kind of collective daydream.
Some say that endurance is required to watch Jacques Rivettes 13 hour experiment Out 1: Noli Me Tangere. And yes, its true in Part 1 there is a sequence where actors cling closely together in a very long (45 minutes) group hug. But like any good improv exercise this scene gets the participants warmed up. In this case I’m not just talking about the actors and but the audience too.
Considering all the touching, biting, and licking during this famous scene its kind of ironic the film’s subtitle Noli Me Tangere translated from the latin means don’t touch me. But Out 1 is full of jokes. It is a very funny film and it is a lot of fun. If you can just sit back and roll with it then you are in for an endlessly fascinating experiment in performance, narrative, improvisation and play.
The film script was just an outline, and the actors were left largely to improvise. Jacques Rivette describes the kind of “realism” he was going for as performance as its being invented by the performers in front of the camera — “a cinema which does not impose anything, where one tries to suggest things, to let them happen, where it is mainly a dialogue at every level, with the actors, with the situation, with the people you meet, where the act of filming is part of the film itself”
A restored version of this epic French New Wave Classic had its world premiere screening in its entirety at BAM the first two weeks in November and has been released in in its entirety on DVD by Carlotta Films this month. Now you can binge watch it over a weekend with popcorn and pillow.
It may go against the spirit of the film to try to pin down such a roaming experiment chock full of inventive scenes and propelled along by a nonsensical plot so I will wander through my experience and impressions of this film which seems to me above all about the creative process in action.
Episodes 1 & 2 are for the most part devoted to the antics and improvisations of two avant-garde theater troupes each working on a different play by Aeschylus. The time given to these groups’ improv exercises provide a touchstone throughout the film for ideas about collaboration, creative investigations, and performance.
One group is lead by a red head named Lili who leads her brightly attired cohort through vocalization and formal movements while exploring Seven Against Thebes. The other group is lead by Thomas a dark-haired intellectual who engages his earthy, blue jean clad team with activities that require extreme physical contact and trust as they work on Prometheus Unbound.
The collaborative group activities are presented alongside the activities of two individuals: Colin, a deaf/mute is played by Jean Pierre Leaud and Frederique a lackadaisical con artist played by Juiliet Berto. In Parts 1 & 2 Leaud is literally, a silent film actor and he plays it with a Chaplinesque enthusiasm. Alone in his sparsely appointed room (bed, books, and a blackboard that will come in handy later) he stamps and stuffs “I’m a deaf/mute” envelopes with intense rhythm and focus. Outside he moves among parisian cafes dropping his envelopes on unsuspecting customers before treating them to a wild, erratic bursts of harmonica. A determined, aggressive, busker he sticks out his hand until he gets his coin in a wide variety of encounters.
Frederique also lives in a spartan apartment and moves about Parisan cafes. She halfheartedly performs lame cons. When she does manage to fleece some cash from her marks she insists on giving it to her pal Honeymoon, a love lorn gay man with a dog and a taste for grenadine milk who insists he doesn’t need it anyway.
From the beginning conventional jobs and attitudes toward making money do not seem to be a primary concern or motivation for any of the main characters. Lili’s group, tellingly, doesn’t even have any intention of putting on the play for an audience. So what might these meandering, Parisian proto-slackers represent, especially to a filmmaker who once worked himself into nervous exhaustion trying to film too many movies at once? I want to suggest that what all these characters are engaged in is a creative process without any definable goal. They are whimsical, romantic figures embodying the artistic spirit and the actors in the film seem to be executing their roles in the same spirit. They play it in the moment, sometimes magically and sometimes falling flat. The film is both a document of and a story about the creative process which makes so many conversations and situations in the film both delightful and absorbing to watch as there is the impression that it’s unfolding as we are watching it.
Now I will attempt to describe the story because there is a slow germination of a story to tell here. After spending a good deal of time watching the work of the theater troupes which include everything from rhythmic screaming, knitting, excessive smoking, to dangerous feats of endurance and discussion all intercut with the adventures of Colin and Frederique, there is a moment in which a character, Elaine, from Lili’s group crosses paths and makes contact briefly with Colin. She presses a piece of blue paper into his hand. This is the first contact between an individual and the group and also the start of the plot,
As Colin begins to receive more mysterious blue pages with typed text he puzzles them out on his chalkboard connecting, Balzac, Lewis Carroll and the number 13. He reads these texts as signs and connections to be made. So begins his creative investigation, like a detective, and he has no idea where it will all lead.
At the end of Episode 2, we are introduced to Lucie a character who actually does have a regular job. She’s a glamorous looking lawyer who bears some resemblance to Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman. It turns out she is the colleague of a person named George, who may or may not be Lili’s boyfriend. George is also some kind of lawyer somehow involved in abducted child cases and Lili is suspicious of his activities. So Lili and Lucie meet briefly to discuss George and Lili’s alleged sighting of George with a character named Igor. Lucie, however claims that Igor’s appearance is impossible. And this is where, 3.5 hours in Episode 2 ends. Only 6 more episodes to go.
In Episode 3 the caper starts to unfold. Characters who are mentioned but never seen like Igor and a man named Pierre take on a more mysterious significance. Colin, propelled by his research into the meaning of the typewritten messages consults a Balzac scholar (played by New Wave director Eric Rohmer). Colin is eager to learn more about a shady secret society called The Thirteen in Balzac stories, and wonders if such a society could still be in existence. According to the scholar The Thirteen were a secret criminal society that functioned as a kind of plot devise. And it is Colin’s growing sense of a real-life Thirteen-style secret society/conspiracy that holds together the film’s loose narrative.
New characters also begin to arrive on the scene. There is collective of aspiring quasi political newspaper publishers who meet in the back room of a shop aptly called Corner of Chance — part slacker drug den, part mysterious front (for what it is unclear). It is owned by a blonde woman named Pauline, who gives the impression of being somewhat central to the group yet also something other than she appears to be. The group engages in endless circular discussions that, unsurprisingly, go nowhere. Colin, infiltrates the group, posing as a journalist. Meanwhile Thomas the director, takes a day off from his arduous improvisations to drive to the coast to fetch a reclusive writer named Sarah who lives in a sprawling and possibly haunted house on the beach. Over a supper of snails they discuss at length the mysterious Pierre, who was once a lover of Sarah. Thomas convinces Sarah to come to Paris, where she joins the troupe, in the hopes of bringing new perspective to their work. And back in Lili’s camp a character named Renaud is brought into the fold with absolutely no explanation.
There are numerous diversions from this sketchy plot, including a shocking scene with a character named Marlon who roars up to a cafe on his muffler-challenged motorcycle dressed as Marlon Brando in the Wild One. Frederique, who is in the bar when Marlon saunters in seems to already be acquainted with him. But their conversation quickly turns hostile. Then in a stunningly violent scene Frederique, is beaten up by Marlon in a brutal, terrifyingly fashion, leaving this viewer thinking, “what the hell just happened there?”
This is one of many moments in the film where the improvised play of the theater groups and their discussions reflect onto other scenes in the film. Earlier Thomas and his group had been debating how and if it is possible to “act” violence after they had engaged in a particularly dangerous improv that involved tossing a woman in their group around like a rag doll. Thomas worried about accidentally “cracking someone’s skull.” That particular scene, despite its risky acrobatics was played, and edited to incite a giddy nervous laugher. However, the fight between Federique and Marlon brings the fear of cracking skulls to the forefront. I found myself wondering if Juliet Berto was actually surprised by the force violence let loose on her and if it was possible that she was actually hurt. Or if it was all well in control.
Even when Frederique succeeds getting money out from her marks it doesn’t seem to bring her satisfaction. She seems to get no pleasure from the process. Berto is skilled comedic performer which she continually demonstrates throughout the film including in a memorable silent pantomime of an OK Corral type of shootout with herself. But Frederique, unlike Colin who has attached himself to Pauline’s group an is in puruit of an unknowable goal, seems vulnerable and a little unhinged. However, things start to look up for her after she pilfers some letters from the home of a man named Etienne. Through those letters she is, at last drawn into the main caper.
The letters she steals are exchanges between the mysterious off screen characters Igor and Pierre as well as Lucie, the lawyer. At this point the it starts to feel like the kind of film where a team of disparate characters are assembled to either perform a heist or to solve a crime, but in this movie its happening at a much slower pace. The characters, who seemed at first entirely separate are starting to connect. Lili, inexplicably appears and disappears at the Corner of Chance. Thomas ends up in a lengthy conversation on the floor with Pauline, along with her infant twins, a tortoise, and a dog. A scene where its impossible to ignore the potential unpredictability of what every actor know they should never share the stage with — children and animals.
Do explicit goals drive the creative process or do the goals emerge out of a creative exploration and commitment? In parts 5 and 6 there is more explicit action around this idea. Lili is in the process of being usurped by the young, shaggy-haired interloper Renaud. He has a bold new idea for the group — he actually wants to stage the play. Lily slouches into the couch, as she watches him bewitch her colleagues with his dream. She complains bitterly that new approach changes the nature of the work entirely. Her colleague Quentin begs her see that troupe is energized by having a goal.
In the meantime Frederique is motivated by her own goal, to test the letters as potential instruments of blackmail. She undergoes a charming transformation from long-haired mod into a boyish girl wearing an oversized jacket, a cravat, and short hair. In this new guise she calls Lucie for a meeting to discuss payment in exchange for the letters. Lucie shows up in a long denim skirt with an equally long a slit up the front. The adorable but naive, chain smoking Frederique is no match for Lucie’s cool elegance. The scene between them plays like screwball comedy. Like Barbara Stanwyck bewitching Henry Fonda in the Lady Eve — Lucie easily befuddles and beguiles Frederique and simply takes the letters from Frederique’s hand without exchanging a single centime.
I think at this point I should mention that the actual content of the letters is entirely vague. However they do suggest a general, unspecified conspiracy or a secret society that Colin is not only on the trail of but that he now also suspects he may be a part of. This secret society includes Tomas, Pauline, Sarah, Lucie, Etienne and Lili, the Corner of Chance, and the mysterious Pierre and Igor.
Colin doggedly follow his uncharted path. He has fully infiltrated the Corner of Chance and has developed a debilitating crush on Pauline. After seeing Pauline talking to Sarah at the Corner of Chance he follows Sarah to Tomas’s rehearsal space. Posing as a journalist from France-Soir Colin he asks Thomas pointedly about the connection between The Thirteen and Prometheus (SPOILER ALERT: Colin can talk). Thomas puts Colin off the scent by teaching him a card game called Thirteen, which he describes as “a game of patience” — the same patience which may be required by some in the audience to follow the story or survive the running time of the film.
The encounter with Colin, however, bears fruit. It spurs Tomas to entertain the idea of reviving the dormant secret society. A secret society called The Thirteen (Sarah, apon learning of Colin’s connection and discovery describes him as “a visionary”). Thomas is convinced that if they all come together and commit as a group again the commitment itself will help them find their goal. Never mind that the past purpose and the future purpose of the group remains entirely opaque suggesting, once again, that a preconceived goal is beside the point here.
Back at the rehearsal space Lili is shooting daggers at the charismatic Renaud when Quentin bursts in with wonderful news for the group. He has won a million francs! The troupe is ecstatic. While he longwindedly explains exactly he won the million franc by betting on horses and using a complicated formula that involved their birthdays, Renaud makes off with all the money.
At first the group is deflated by Renaud’s betrayal and the reversal of their fortune. For a while they mope together around a shared pot of plain pasta. But the arrival of Elaine with a pineapple brings a jolt of new energy and she suggests that they actually try to find Renaud.
Now the theater troupe becomes a band of detectives as they fan out across Paris with a photograph of Renaud. First they were performers without a goal, now they have committed to an objective that is comically futile. In a lengthy sequence on the streets of Paris they show regular people a photo Renaud asking if anyone has seen “this man”. This activity culminates in a very funny extended scene with Elaine stopping cars in the middle rush hour traffic to show the drivers Renaud’s picture. By now, of course, we have seen stunts like this in films and television, but within this film the performers are so committed to the change of motivation and the scenes feel spontaneous and there is the sense that anything can happen and is happening.
By the end of the film we’ve been treated to an assemblage of cinematic tropes — a shoot out, a love scene, a shady man with a briefcase who gets beamed by a lead pipe, and so on. There are of dropped characters and narrative rabbit holes. During a lengthy discussion in the final episode Lucie says to a another member of the secret society, “You used to like all those mysteries and conspiracies”. He responds, “Yes, they are funny for 5 minutes” Of course nearly at the end of the film this line gets a big laugh.
The “narrative”, as fun as it is, is really just the red herring that provides a framework for the real stuff of the film which is to let and watch the actors play and see what happens. Whether the film is a success or a failure in any conventional way seems besides the point. Rivette shot 30 hours footage and edited it down to 13 so clearly careful decisions were made. However the film itself in many ways led the director rather than the other way around and for that reason Out 1 is a fun loving testament to the value of investigation without any clear, pre-determined goal. It is mysterious and open-ended and, like any great work of art, it can be revisited and will offer new things to discover.