This nearly lost film by Jacques Rivette, from 1981, captures the visions and moods of a nearly lost Paris and of a mode of thought that was also on its way out.

NEWYORKER: Le Pont du Nord

Along with Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette, all former film critics, he helped pioneer an informal film movement that turned traditional notions of narrative and style on their head.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Asked to pose for the master, she refuses angrily yet still turns up next morning and obligingly removes her clothes just the kind of odd, unreasoning change of heart that tells us we are watching a Jacques Rivette film.

NEWYORKER: Divertimento

Jacques Rivette made his first feature with little funding and great difficulty between 1958 and 1960 and refracted his struggles into its plot, which combines the paranoid tension of the American film noir and the austere lyricism of the modern theatre.

NEWYORKER: Paris Belongs to Us