While The Criterion Collection and Janus Films tend to have the market cornered on repping arthouse auteurs and legendary filmmakers both on the big screen and on home video in North America, the folks at Cohen Media Group are starting to carve out their own strong niche. The company has been quietly building up a strong catalog of titles, including the recent restoration of James Ivory‘s “Howard’s End,” plus films by Claude Chabrol, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Abbas Kiarostami, Douglas Sirk, and more. Now, it looks like the company has snapped up its most impressive batch of titles yet.
READ MORE: Review: Jacques Rivette’s Newly Restored Masterpiece ‘Out 1’
Cohen Media Group has acquired the North American rights to ten feature films by Jacques Rivette, plus three newly discovered short films. The features are drawn from the director’s latter-era career and include: 1984’s “Love on the Ground”; 1985’s Emily Bronte adaptation “Wuthering Heights”; 1989 Berlin Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize winner “The Gang of Four”; 1991’s four-hour, Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner “The Beautiful Troublemaker” (aka “La Belle Noiseuse”); 1994’s two-part Joan of Arc biopic “Joan the Maiden: Part 1 – The Battles” and “Joan the Maiden: Part 2 – The Prisons”; 1995’s “Up, Down, Fragile” ; 1998’s “Top Secret”; and 2003’s “The Story of Marie and Julien.” Yes, that’s only nine titles, but presumably the tenth is “Divertimiento,” the two-hour cut of “La Belle Noiseuse.”
While these films are not as revered as “Out 1” or “Celine and Julie Go Boating,” they are a big part of Rivette’s catalog that have certainly long gone unseen stateside. And with each film set for a new restoration and big screen release, it will allow for a fresh appreciation of the director’s catalog by a new generation of filmgoers. And that’s very exciting news, especially given that some of the films barely got released in the U.S. (if at all) at the time.
So there’s lots for arthouse cinephiles to get excited for next year, and on the Merchant/Ivory front, Cohen Media Group has also snapped up the rights to a total of 21 films, with restorations and re-releases slated for those pictures too. Damn! [Variety]
