SCREENING OF JACQUES RIVETTE’S CLASSIC FILM LA RELIGIEUSE (THE NUN)
TUESDAY MARCH 3, 7 PM
AS PART OF THE TOURNEES FILM FESTIVAL OF FRENCH, FRENCH-SPEAKING AND FRENCH-PRODUCED FILMS ON CAMPUS
JANUARY 31-MARCH 3, 2020
The screenings take place in the Bijou Auditorium as part of “Film Today” and “Film History”. They are free and open to the entire Institute.
New Wave master Jacques Rivette’s second feature begins with a succinct explanation of the film’s historical context: based on a novel by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot, which was itself inspired by real characters, The Nun is set in 1760, at a time when French convents were used by the aristocracy to hide away unmarried or otherwise inconvenient young women. Abbeys were bought and sold by the rich, church superiors were all-powerful, and the monastic environment was frequently anything but pious. The Nun tracks the downfall of Suzanne Simonin, a young woman forced into the convent by her insolvent aristocratic family. While Suzanne feels no calling to take holy vows, she is a devout being who resists the fanaticism she discovers in the convent. Faced with gas-lighting and persecution, Suzanne manages to be transferred to another convent, only to be exposed to the lust of a mother superior who has lost sight of her own vows. While in some ways Rivette’s closest brush with conventional storytelling, The Nun reaches a terrifying level of intensity through the rigorous depiction of confined spaces, the jarring mix of atonal and religious music, and the searing performance of Anna Karina as Suzanne Simonin.
Tournées Film Festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
