Théâtralité et représentation: Rivette revu par Diderot

Abstract

This article proposes a comparative reading of the role of theatre in the cinema of Jacques Rivette, as seen through the lens of Denis Diderot’s work, looking specifically at the 1984 film L’Amour par terre and the 1757 ‘novel’ Le Fils naturel. The eighteenth-century philosopher interrogates the specificity of theatre — its theatricality — in the context of a hybrid work that seeks to overcome the lack of live spectacle in the printed text by imbricating the dramatic play within a narrative about the ‘real’ lives of characters, in order to illustrate his ideas on the renewal of theatrical art. In turn, Rivette’s cinematic practice poses parallel questions, probing the border between film, condemned to repeat itself, and the theatre (Rivette’s subject of predilection), whose infinite potential for variation comprises its generic signature. In the work of both artists, acting exercises an important influence on the temporality of the narrative, the status of truth, the relationship to images, and the moral value of art. In this way, Rivette and Diderot illustrate the challenges presented by a theatricality at once rejected and embraced by modernity, revealing performance as a crucial tool for exploring the limits of representation.