La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

A reclusive painter (Michel Piccoli) lives in the French countryside with his wife (Jane Birkin). Their lives are radically upended with the arrival of a younger artist (David Bursztein) and his girlfriend (Emmanuelle Beart), who becomes the older painter's muse. Inspired by the short story LE CHEF -D'OEUVRE INCONNU by Honore De Balzac and directed by Jacques Rivette (CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING). Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival, this four hour (plus intermission) drama is a rumination on creating Art, truth in Art as well as the relationship between an artist and his model. This could have been a very dry and stuffy film but Rivette slowly unfurls a spellbinding web that draws us in and keeps us speculating on where this journey is going and how it will end. There are long takes of just the artist's hands (those of Bernard Dufour) as he takes a blank canvas and slowly creates his vision and it's fascinating. A film about creating Art that is worthy of its subject. With Marianne Denicourt and Gilles Arbona.