In attendance:  Todd McCarthy

In the world of film, for the past 50 years, Pierre Rissient has operated behind the scenes as powerfully as any mythic cardinal in a 19th-century novel—either launching the careers of countless great filmmakers, or giving their work a vital, expertly-timed push when most needed.

Clint Eastwood, John Boorman, Sydney Pollack, Werner Herzog, Jane Campion, Abbas Kiarostami and many, many, many others have benefited from his interventions, and each repays the generosity in this tossed salad of lively interviews, film history and personal biography brought off with entertaining flair by director Todd McCarthy. Abundant clips and stills, well edited by James Taylor, detail Rissient’s rise as a critic, theater programmer, assistant director to Jean-Luc Godard on BREATHLESS, and eventually (however briefly) a critically acclaimed director himself.

But it is as a gallant champion of other filmmakers that Pierre Rissient has made his most lasting mark on the world. “It’s not enough to like a film,” he would proudly repeat when energetically lobbying this or that person of influence. “You must like it for the right reasons.”

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