Out 1 - Plot and Themes

Plot and Themes

From the starting image of a small group of actors lying down with their legs bent back towards themselves, Rivette again focuses his film around rehearsals for a play, a motif present in both L'amour fou and his debut feature Paris nous appartient (1960); in particular, he extends L'amour fou's relentless reportage-style examination of the continual development of a play under rehearsal (in that case Jean Racine's Andromaque) and its effects on the director and his wife. In the case of Out 1, the two main anchors of the film are two different theater groups each rehearsing a different Aeschylus play (Seven Against Thebes and Prometheus Bound), and the film does not particularly privilege any character within these groups more than any other. External to these two groups, two outsiders peripheral to the theater are featured: Colin (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a young man who believes that there may be a real-life Thirteen group in operation, and Frédérique (Juliet Berto), a young swindler who happens to steal letters which may prove to be communication between members of the Thirteen. Other featured characters include Emilie (Bulle Ogier), who runs a local hangout under the name Pauline and whose husband, Igor, has been missing for six months. Michael Lonsdale plays Thomas, the director of the Prometheus Bound group, and there are cameos by directors Barbet Schroeder and Éric Rohmer, who plays a Balzac professor in a scene of both plot exposition and comic relief.

The first few hours of the film alternate between documentary-style scenes observing the two troupes' rehearsals, Colin soliciting money from cafe patrons as a deaf man by playing irritating harmonica tunes, and Frédérique stealing money through a variety of deceptions. The plot gradually develops when Colin receives three mysterious messages in quick succession containing cryptic references to "the Thirteen" and to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark. He quickly connects this to Balzac and begins a quixotic quest to uncover what the messages mean and who the Thirteen are. Sometime afterwards, Frédérique casually interrupts a businessman, Etienne, playing chess against himself at home; when she has the room to herself briefly, she attempts to locate a stash of money but instead steals a collection of letters. Sensing that they refer to some sort of secret society, she attempts to sell them to several of the correspondents in exchange for either money or more information on the group, but fails to gain any information. Only Emilie buys the letters, but only because they refer to her husband.

The Seven Against Thebes production takes on a newcomer, Renaud, to assist in the production, but he quickly begins to take over more and more of the creative direction of the piece from Lili, who recedes into the background in disgust. Their fortunes appear high when Quentin wins a million francs at the races, but during the ensemble's celebration, Renaud steals all the cash; the production is cancelled and the members undertake a futile search for Renaud, spreading out all across Paris with a photo of him to try to discover his whereabouts. Thomas brings in old friend Sarah to help work through a creative block on Prometheus Bound, but she instead causes a rift within the group and the play is abandoned after another player leaves for unrelated reasons. It turns out that Thomas's block was largely due to his break-up with Lili after being with her personally and professionally for seven years.

Thomas also is revealed to be a key member of the Thirteen, although the group never really was fully functional and had agreed to go into a period of dormancy two years earlier. Ironically, a chance encounter between Colin and Thomas motivates the latter to suggest reviving the Thirteen to Etienne, who is reluctant because the group never really did anything to begin with. One of the main correspondents in Etienne's letters, Pierre, is frequently discussed but never seen, and is described alternately as sinister and childlike. After reading the contents of the letters sold to her by Frédérique, Emilie prepares packages to be sent to major Parisian newspapers containing photocopies of these letters and purporting to disclose the existence of a scandal involving Pierre setting up Igor. Since Pierre and Igor are both members of the Thirteen, members of the group are forced to reconstitute to prevent the disclosure, and Thomas, Etienne and the ruthless lawyer Lucie de Graffe (Françoise Fabian) meet to discuss what to do.

Frédérique eventually meets up with the young man that her gay friend Honey Moon (Michel Berto) is infatuated with, who turns out to be Renaud; the two become married in a blood ritual, but she suspects that he may be a member of another secret society even more sinister than the Thirteen. After seeing him associate with a local gang, she draws a gun on him, but warns him - causing him to turn around and shoot instantly, killing her.

Colin gives up on the idea of the Thirteen, while it is quietly suggested during a discussion between two other members of the Thirteen, Lucie de Graffe and the cynical professor named Warok (Jean Bouise), that perhaps Pierre was the author of the messages to Colin and has been the invisible hand behind much of the plot, because he misses the Thirteen and wants to either restore it or replace it with young blood like Colin. Several of the characters retreat in the end to Emilie's small seaside house in Odabe, where she breaks down in front of Sarah, confessing her love for Colin (who had been courting her earlier) and Igor at the same time. Her dilemma is solved at the end, when she receives a call from Igor telling her to meet him in Paris. She and Lili set off for Paris.

Thomas remains behind on the beach at Odabe with two of his actors and has a drunken hysterical episode there, when he pretends to collapse on the sand. His actors are worried and frantically try to revive him. When he reveals his jest, they walk away in disgust and get in the car to go back to Paris. Thomas is left alone on the beach, crying and laughing at the same time, stranded in Odabe and for the first time in the film, part of no group whatsoever. The film then quickly cuts to a completely unrelated shot of Marie, an actress from the Thebes group who still seems to be searching for the missing Renaud and the money he stole. A golden statute of a Greek goddess, perhaps Athena, towers above her. The shot is held for a second before fading out.