Celine and Julie Go Boating
Encyclopedia
Céline and Julie Go Boating is a 1974
French film
directed by Jacques Rivette
.
Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie (Dominique Labourier
)--sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic incantations. But after a few minutes of random looks around the park—children playing, a cat on the prowl for pigeons—Julie is suddenly taken by the sight of a lithe woman woozily staggering across the park, a long scarf dangling from her neck. No one else seems to notice the dazed woman when she drops that scarf except for Julie, who leaps up from her park bench. She calls after her. Julie will chase after Céline (Juliet Berto
), at first seemingly only on the mundane task of returning a dropped scarf. But with just that simple act, the magic of the narrative—both of this particular story and, in Rivette's meta-approach, that of cinema itself—begins.
The film won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Locarno International Film Festival
in 1974 and was an Official Selection at the 1974 New York Film Festival
.
when a woman (Céline) walks past, and begins dropping (à la Lewis Carroll
's White Rabbit
) various possessions. Julie begins picking them up, and tries to follow Céline around Paris
, sometimes at a great pace (for instance, sprinting up Montmartre
to keep pace with Céline's tram). After adventures following Céline around the Parisian streets — at one point it looks as if they have gone their separate ways, never to meet up again — Céline finally decides to move in with Julie. There are incidents of identity swapping, with Céline pretending to be Julie to meet the latter's childhood sweetheart, for example, and Julie attempting to fill in for Céline at a cabaret audition.
The second half of the film centers around the duo's individual visits to 7 bis, rue de Nadir aux Pommes, the address of a mansion in a quiet, walled off grounds in Paris. While seemingly empty and closed in the present day, the house is yet where Céline realizes she knows as the place where she works as a nanny for a family — two jealous sisters, one widower, and a sickly child — that appears in their dress and language to be from another time, perhaps the early 20th Century. Soon, a repetitive pattern emerges: Céline or Julie enters the house, disappears for a time, and then is suddenly ejected by unseen hands back to present day Paris later that same day. Each time either Céline or Julie is exhausted, having forgotten everything that has happened during their time in the house. However, each time upon returning via a taxi the women discover a candy mysteriously lodged in their mouth. It seems to be important, so each makes sure to carefully save the candy. At one point, they realize that the candy is a key to the other place and time; sucking on the sweet transports them back to the house's alternate reality (in this case a double reference to both Lewis Carroll and to Marcel Proust
's madeleine) of the day's events.
The remainder of the film consists of the pair attempting to solve the central mystery of the house: amidst the jealous conniving of women of the house over the attentions of the widower, a young child is mysteriously murdered. But this narrative is one that repeats like a stage play, with exact phrases they soon learn well enough to start joking about. Each time they repeat eating the candy, they remember more of the day's events. Just as if reading a favorite novel, or again watching a beloved movie, they find that they can enter the narrative itself, with each twist and turn memorized. Far from being the passive viewers/readers that they were at first — and most movie viewers always are — the women come to realize that they can seize hold of the story, changing it as they wish.
Now, even as the plot continues to unfold in its clockwork fashion, the women begin to take control, making it "interactive" by adding alterations to their dialogues and inserting different actions into the events unreeling in the house. Finally, in a true act of authorship, they change the ending, and rescue the young girl who was originally murdered. Both realities are fully conjoined when, after their rescue of the girl from the House of Fiction, the two not only discover themselves transported back in Julie's apartment, but this time it isn't another "waking dream" for the young girl, Madlyn, has joined them, safely back in 1970s Paris.
To relax, Céline, Julie, and Madlyn take a rowboat on a placid river, rowing and gliding happily along. But something isn't quite right. They go silent upon seeing another boat quickly coming to pass them on the water. On that boat we see the three main protagonists from the house-of-another-time: that alternate reality has followed them back to their world. But Céline, Julie, and Madlyn see them as the antique props they are, frozen in place, clothes and make-up glaringly out of time.
The film ends as we watch Céline this time, half nodding off on a park bench, who catches sight of Julie hurrying past her, who in her White Rabbit way, drops her magic book. Picking it up, she calls and runs after Julie.
is one of the themes of the film. Céline, the fetchingly clad stage magician, does her magic tricks in a nightclub performance, pouting and making faces as necessary. Magic seems to come too from Julie's Tarot card readings. Finally, "real" magic comes from the design of a potion, which enables both women to enter the house and take charge of the narrative.
At the start, the two women are leading relatively conventional lives, each having jobs (Julie, a librarian, is more conservative and sensible than Céline, a stage magician, with her bohemian
lifestyle). The early scenes show the streets of Paris, marketplaces, and the steps and railway of Montmartre, which are shot in straight forward, realistic style favored by the nouvelle vague. As the film develops, Céline and Julie separate from the world by leaving their jobs, moving in together, and gradually becoming obsessed with the mysterious and magical events in the old house.
In one scene, according to critic Irina Janakievska, Julie is playing Tarot cards, with one of the cards interpreted as signifying that Julie's future is behind her — exactly when we see Céline, wearing a disguise, observing Julie from one of the library desks. As Céline draws an outline of her hand in one of the books, Julie echoes that as she plays with a red ink pad.
Another theme is memory, most obviously in the way events from the house are only remembered after the women have left, but only after some memory trigger occurs. For example, Julie spends all of one day in the house, but when she leaves, she has amnesia
. It is only by sucking on the magic candy that the events she has witnessed return to her as flashbacks. At first the glimpses of a story are illogical and incoherent, but the two friends gradually piece them together into a narrative, and try to uncover the secrets being hidden from them, most importantly, who killed the little girl?
Another noticeable aspect of the film is its liberal use of pun
s. For instance, the title of the film, Céline et Julie vont en bateau, has other meanings from that of taking a boat ride: "aller en bateau" also means "to get caught up in a story that someone is telling you", or, in English
, getting taken up in a "shaggy dog story".
1974 in film
The year 1974 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 7 - Blazing Saddles is released in the USA.*August 7 - Peter Wolf, lead singer of The J...
French film
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
directed by Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
.
Shot casually in a documentary style, we see a red-haired woman—we will learn that it is Julie (Dominique Labourier
Dominique Labourier
Dominique Labourier is a French actress. She starred as Julie in Jacques Rivette's film Celine and Julie Go Boating. She has appeared in over 40 films since 1968...
)--sitting on a bench in a pleasant but rather non-descript Parisian park. She is reading a book, we can see, on magic incantations. But after a few minutes of random looks around the park—children playing, a cat on the prowl for pigeons—Julie is suddenly taken by the sight of a lithe woman woozily staggering across the park, a long scarf dangling from her neck. No one else seems to notice the dazed woman when she drops that scarf except for Julie, who leaps up from her park bench. She calls after her. Julie will chase after Céline (Juliet Berto
Juliet Berto
Juliet Berto was a French actress. A member of the same loose group of student radicals as Anne Wiazemsky, she first appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her, and would go on to appear in many of Godard's subsequent films, including La Chinoise, Week End, Le Gai Savoir,...
), at first seemingly only on the mundane task of returning a dropped scarf. But with just that simple act, the magic of the narrative—both of this particular story and, in Rivette's meta-approach, that of cinema itself—begins.
The film won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Locarno International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
in 1974 and was an Official Selection at the 1974 New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
.
Synopsis
The film begins with Julie sitting on a park bench reading a book of magic spellsMagic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
when a woman (Céline) walks past, and begins dropping (à la Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's White Rabbit
White Rabbit
The White Rabbit works for the Red Queen, but is also a secret member of the Underland Underground Resistance, and was sent by the Hatter to search for Alice...
) various possessions. Julie begins picking them up, and tries to follow Céline around Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, sometimes at a great pace (for instance, sprinting up Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
to keep pace with Céline's tram). After adventures following Céline around the Parisian streets — at one point it looks as if they have gone their separate ways, never to meet up again — Céline finally decides to move in with Julie. There are incidents of identity swapping, with Céline pretending to be Julie to meet the latter's childhood sweetheart, for example, and Julie attempting to fill in for Céline at a cabaret audition.
The second half of the film centers around the duo's individual visits to 7 bis, rue de Nadir aux Pommes, the address of a mansion in a quiet, walled off grounds in Paris. While seemingly empty and closed in the present day, the house is yet where Céline realizes she knows as the place where she works as a nanny for a family — two jealous sisters, one widower, and a sickly child — that appears in their dress and language to be from another time, perhaps the early 20th Century. Soon, a repetitive pattern emerges: Céline or Julie enters the house, disappears for a time, and then is suddenly ejected by unseen hands back to present day Paris later that same day. Each time either Céline or Julie is exhausted, having forgotten everything that has happened during their time in the house. However, each time upon returning via a taxi the women discover a candy mysteriously lodged in their mouth. It seems to be important, so each makes sure to carefully save the candy. At one point, they realize that the candy is a key to the other place and time; sucking on the sweet transports them back to the house's alternate reality (in this case a double reference to both Lewis Carroll and to Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
's madeleine) of the day's events.
The remainder of the film consists of the pair attempting to solve the central mystery of the house: amidst the jealous conniving of women of the house over the attentions of the widower, a young child is mysteriously murdered. But this narrative is one that repeats like a stage play, with exact phrases they soon learn well enough to start joking about. Each time they repeat eating the candy, they remember more of the day's events. Just as if reading a favorite novel, or again watching a beloved movie, they find that they can enter the narrative itself, with each twist and turn memorized. Far from being the passive viewers/readers that they were at first — and most movie viewers always are — the women come to realize that they can seize hold of the story, changing it as they wish.
Now, even as the plot continues to unfold in its clockwork fashion, the women begin to take control, making it "interactive" by adding alterations to their dialogues and inserting different actions into the events unreeling in the house. Finally, in a true act of authorship, they change the ending, and rescue the young girl who was originally murdered. Both realities are fully conjoined when, after their rescue of the girl from the House of Fiction, the two not only discover themselves transported back in Julie's apartment, but this time it isn't another "waking dream" for the young girl, Madlyn, has joined them, safely back in 1970s Paris.
To relax, Céline, Julie, and Madlyn take a rowboat on a placid river, rowing and gliding happily along. But something isn't quite right. They go silent upon seeing another boat quickly coming to pass them on the water. On that boat we see the three main protagonists from the house-of-another-time: that alternate reality has followed them back to their world. But Céline, Julie, and Madlyn see them as the antique props they are, frozen in place, clothes and make-up glaringly out of time.
The film ends as we watch Céline this time, half nodding off on a park bench, who catches sight of Julie hurrying past her, who in her White Rabbit way, drops her magic book. Picking it up, she calls and runs after Julie.
Themes
MagicMagic (fantasy)
Magic in fiction is the endowing of fictional characters or objects with magical powers.Such magic often serves as a plot device, the source of magical artifacts and their quests...
is one of the themes of the film. Céline, the fetchingly clad stage magician, does her magic tricks in a nightclub performance, pouting and making faces as necessary. Magic seems to come too from Julie's Tarot card readings. Finally, "real" magic comes from the design of a potion, which enables both women to enter the house and take charge of the narrative.
At the start, the two women are leading relatively conventional lives, each having jobs (Julie, a librarian, is more conservative and sensible than Céline, a stage magician, with her bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
lifestyle). The early scenes show the streets of Paris, marketplaces, and the steps and railway of Montmartre, which are shot in straight forward, realistic style favored by the nouvelle vague. As the film develops, Céline and Julie separate from the world by leaving their jobs, moving in together, and gradually becoming obsessed with the mysterious and magical events in the old house.
In one scene, according to critic Irina Janakievska, Julie is playing Tarot cards, with one of the cards interpreted as signifying that Julie's future is behind her — exactly when we see Céline, wearing a disguise, observing Julie from one of the library desks. As Céline draws an outline of her hand in one of the books, Julie echoes that as she plays with a red ink pad.
Another theme is memory, most obviously in the way events from the house are only remembered after the women have left, but only after some memory trigger occurs. For example, Julie spends all of one day in the house, but when she leaves, she has amnesia
Amnesia
Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...
. It is only by sucking on the magic candy that the events she has witnessed return to her as flashbacks. At first the glimpses of a story are illogical and incoherent, but the two friends gradually piece them together into a narrative, and try to uncover the secrets being hidden from them, most importantly, who killed the little girl?
Another noticeable aspect of the film is its liberal use of pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s. For instance, the title of the film, Céline et Julie vont en bateau, has other meanings from that of taking a boat ride: "aller en bateau" also means "to get caught up in a story that someone is telling you", or, in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, getting taken up in a "shaggy dog story".
Cast
- Juliet BertoJuliet BertoJuliet Berto was a French actress. A member of the same loose group of student radicals as Anne Wiazemsky, she first appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's Two or Three Things I Know About Her, and would go on to appear in many of Godard's subsequent films, including La Chinoise, Week End, Le Gai Savoir,...
– Céline - Dominique LabourierDominique LabourierDominique Labourier is a French actress. She starred as Julie in Jacques Rivette's film Celine and Julie Go Boating. She has appeared in over 40 films since 1968...
– Julie - Bulle OgierBulle OgierBulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
– Camille - Marie-France PisierMarie-France PisierMarie-France Pisier was a French actress. She appeared in numerous films of the French New Wave and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:...
– Sophie - Barbet SchroederBarbet SchroederBarbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
– Olivier - Nathalie Asnar – Madlyn
- Marie-Thérèse Saussure – Poupie
- Philippe Clévenot – Guilou
- Anne Zamire – Lil
- Jean Douchet – M'sieur Dede
- Adèle Taffetas – Alice
- Monique Clément – Myrtille
- Jérôme Richard – Julien
- Michael Graham – Boris
- Jean-Marie Sénia – Cyrille
External links
- Irina Janakievska at Culture Wars
- Gonzalo de Lucas, 'Vindication of Jacques Rivette' (special attention to Céline et Julie)
- 'Phantom Interviewers Over Rivette' by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Lauren Sedofsky, Gilbert Adair
- Céline et Julie Vont en Bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris by Jonathan Romney
- Page at Les Films du Losange, the film's production company and distributor.