Notes on Va Savoir

Yes, Rivette cuts on continuity at times, but only at times - most of his cuts are irrational - mid-sentence, unexpected scene changes - but even when he cuts on continuity, he does so to surprise/stun. Just as in the scene where Bonaffé meets Balibar for the first time - it's clear they know each other, but yet Bonaffé pretends he doesn't - he makes to stand up, then abruptly sits down again - gestures neither reveal nor advance - gestures are mysterious, inexplicable.

Yes, Rivette cuts on continuity - but no, it's better to say that he cuts around it - a circle - just like the circle his camera inscribes - the camera never just follows, it encircles, traps, moves away - its own gestures are mysterious - dancing together with those of the characters.

Rivette constructs his films like Scheherazade - it's always about what's next, how does one go from one scene to the next scene, and the next... So every scene contains a new element, if only to carry the film forward. Having a big 'whatsit' (like that of Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly) is useful because it organizes (encircles) the gestures into a quest, and a quest always brings you to a new place - it is a strategy that constantly renews itself (like Feuillade, Lang, Hitchcock...). But within it, gestures and dialogue are mysterious - they fit uneasily with this forward-advancing scheme - they come from elsewhere.

Something is always withheld from view - that something is always the empty center of his films - the characters circle around it. The gestures seem to come from this empty 'essence,' this point of indeterminacy between theater and life, life and cinema, cinema and theater (another circle, or rather, concentric circles) - and thus their gestures evoke the mysterious, even in the most mundane (Out 1, Gang of Four) - also the reason why the sound of his films (always boomed location sound) is always clear and mysterious.