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# If you can afford the luxury of four hours of very beautiful film, watch the screen version, or rather variation, of Balzac's exquisite novella "The Unknown Masterpiece", about the painter Nicolas Poussin
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/esli-vy-mozhete-pozvolit-sebe-takoe-schaste-kak-4-chasa-ochen-krasivogo-filma-to-posmotrite-ekranizatsiiu-variant-utonchennoi-povesti-balzaka-nevedomyi-shedevr-o-khudozhnike-nikolia-pus/
- Published: 2020-11-11T09:00:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:41:59.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Cinema, Books, Observations

If you can afford the luxury of four hours of very beautiful film, watch the screen version, or rather variation, of Balzac's exquisite novella "The Unknown Masterpiece", about the painter Nicolas Poussin. In the leading male role of Jacques Rivette's "La Belle Noiseuse" (1991) is the aged Michel Piccoli; in the roles of his muses are two emblematic actresses of the era, Jane Birkin and Emmanuelle Béart. Love, disillusionment, searching, inspiration, the birth and the dream of a masterpiece, set against a very beautiful villa and the unhurried flow of time, performed by sublime actors to the music of Stravinsky. There is also a two-hour version of the film, "Divertimento", adapted for the needs of distributors, but I would rather fall asleep halfway through the full-length one than watch, in place of a double winner of the Cannes festival, a drama cobbled together by the method of advertising