La Belle Noiseuse

Rather than asking, "What is Art?" this film poses the less common question, "How is Art?" For those who find this question fascinating, this movie offers a thorough and rewarding reply. [29 May 1992, p.19]

It's an Olympian achievement - warm, full, worldly, ravishing and above all generous. [08 Nov 1991, p.40]

In its own way this sensual, granular experience is just as pure and obsessive as Rivette’s less hospitable masterpieces, and almost as mysterious.

Rivette takes four fully necessary hours (with intermission) to explore this work in progress - inviting us to witness its evolution and the private, uniquely privileged relationship between an artist and his subject. [10 Jul 1992, p.23]

The film runs for four hours, but the overall effect is mesmerizing and perpetually mysterious (as Rivette always is at his best), and not a moment is wasted.

Confronting the issue of creativity with honesty and insight, Rivette's loose adaptation of Balzac's short story 'The Unknown Masterpiece' is for the most part hypnotically fascinating.

Jacques Rivette’s much praised Cannes Grand Prize winner vacillates between genuine insight and didactic mystique-of-the-artist bullshit.