“La Religieuse” – Nun but the lonely heart [MOVIE REVIEW]
Anna Karina in Jacques Rivette’s “La Religieuse.” (1966) Photo courtesy of Rialto Pictures/Studio Canal. In a new 4K restoration, Jacques Rivette’s highly controversial film, La Religieuse (The Nun), is given a long-awaited revival. Finished in 1966, this film generated controversy even before completion, and its release in France was delayed further when the Ministry of Information refused to license it for distribution, despite a board of censors twice declaring the film fit for release. It was not until 1967, when a politically astute André Malraux, the Minister of Culture, lifted the ban so the film could be screened at the Cannes Film Festival. It later premiered at the New York Film festival in 1968, not opening in New York until 1971. Adapted by Jean Gruault and Rivette from the novel by Denis Diderot written in 1780, although not released until 1796 after his death. The Nun was first intended more as a practical joke in the form of a series of letters to Diderot’s good friend the Marquis de Croismare who had recently taken, and lost, the case of a young woman, Marguerite Delamarre, committed to a convent against her will. Diderot, pretending to be a novitiate named Suzanne…
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