By Guillemette Odicino
Published on May 21, 2024 at 8:00 a.m.
IIt has been ten years since the famous painter Édouard Frenhofer abandoned a painting, The Beautiful Noiseuse, for which his wife Liz served as a model. But now, thanks to the chance of a courtesy visit, the beautiful Marianne could become his new model. At first reluctant, the young woman accepts and even ends up devoting herself body and soul to the creation of the painting…
We could talk for so long about the long version, the real one, and for some, the only one that matters: a masterpiece about the throes of creation, the tensions and twists between a body and the hand that paints it, but, also, on the very current theme of the muse as the flesh of inspiration – Rivette explores but never misuses this cruel relationship whose center is the nudity of Emmanuelle Béart. But this version is therefore the short one, due by contract to the TV channel which had financed a two-hour film, not four. So let’s divide the 4Ts into 2Ts…
Many things differ in the editing, and even the ending where Marianne’s rebellion is replaced by the power of money. Above all, this Entertainment, this “light music” relies much less on the psychological and carnal confrontation between Emmanuelle Béart, sublime, and Michel Piccoli, exceptional as an absolute figure of the artist struggling with doubt and matter: Rivette leaves the workshop- volcano, leaving only insolent chatter in the alleys of Frenhofer’s castle house. And it is Jane Birkin, supporting role, former muse, who becomes the heroine. We realize, then, how formidable she is as the bittersweet wife of a creator who has stopped fantasizing about her.
