This article is about the film. For the novel by André Breton

André Breton

André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....

 see Mad Love. For the episode of The Sopranos, see Amour Fou.

L'amour fou is a 1969 movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....

.

L'amour fou follows the dissolution of the marriage between Claire, an actress (played by Bulle Ogier

Bulle Ogier

Bulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...

), and Sebastien, her director (Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Jean-Pierre Kalfon

Jean-Pierre Kalfon is a French film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* The Rabbi's Cat * Parc * The Dreamers * Lulu * La Repetition...

). It is black and white with two different film gauge

Film gauge

Film gauge is a physical property of photographic or motion picture film stock which defines its width. Traditionally the major film gauges in usage are 8 mm, 16 mm, 35 mm, and 65/70 mm...

s (35 mm and 16 mm) employed at different times throughout the film. The film focuses on a long cycle of self-destruction in Claire and Sebastien's relationship.

The central event in the films narrative is a three week period of preparation by a theater group for a production of Racine's

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

 version of Andromaque

Andromaque

Andromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thérèse, by the royal company of actors, called "les Grands...

. A crew films the preparations of the theater company in handheld 16 mm, while the rest of the film is shot in 35 mm. This framework allows Rivette to focus on the act of direction, in the formation of an artwork and the dissolution of a relationship.

The film is pivotal in Rivette's career as a precursor to his vast 12+ hour opus Out 1

Out 1

Out 1 is a 1971 film directed by Jacques Rivette, one of the major filmmakers of the French New Wave. Notorious for its unwieldy length of twelve hours and forty minutes, it is also referred to as Out 1: Noli me tangere...

which followed two years later.

Cast

• Bulle Ogier
  Bulle Ogier
  Bulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
  
   - Claire
• Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  Jean-Pierre Kalfon
  Jean-Pierre Kalfon is a French film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* The Rabbi's Cat * Parc * The Dreamers * Lulu * La Repetition...
  
   - Sébastien-Pyrrhus
• André S. Labarthe
  André S. Labarthe
  André S. Labarthe is a French actor, film producer and director. He starred alongside Anna Karina in the 1962 film Vivre sa vie.-Selected filmography:* Vivre sa vie * L'amour fou...
  
   - Le réalisateur
• Josée Destoop - Marta-Hermione
• Dennis Berry - Dennis-Pylade