# Merry-Go-Round (1981 film)
**Merry-Go-Round** is a 1981 French film directed by Jacques Rivette, starring [Maria Schneider](https://www.edgepedia.org/maria-schneider-actress) as Léo and [Joe Dallesandro](https://www.edgepedia.org/joe-dallesandro) as Ben, two strangers summoned to Paris by telegrams from the same woman and drawn into a labyrinthine conspiracy. Although dated 1981, it was filmed in late 1977 and did not reach French cinemas until 6 April 1983, after a production marked by the lead actress's departure from the set and the director's nervous breakdown.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) • [2](https://www.offi.fr/recherche-850183.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / country | Jacques Rivette, France[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round) |
| Principal cast | Maria Schneider (Léo), Joe Dallesandro (Ben), Danièle Gégauff (Elisabeth), Françoise Prévost, Maurice Garrel, Michel Berto[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round) |
| Screenplay | Jacques Rivette, Eduardo de Gregorio, Suzanne Schiffman[4](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/54595.html) |
| Cinematography / music | William Lubtchansky; improvised jazz by Barre Phillips (double bass) and John Surman (bass clarinet)[4](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/54595.html) • [5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/merrygoround/) |
| Production | Sunchild Productions, producer Stéphane Tchalgadjieff; original distributor Gaumont[4](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/54595.html) |
| Filming and release | Shot in late 1977; first shown at IFFR 1981; French theatrical release 6 April 1983[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) • [3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round) • [2](https://www.offi.fr/recherche-850183.html) |
| Runtime | Reported as 160 minutes by the Cinémathèque française; festival listings give 153, 157, and 151 minutes[4](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/54595.html) • [6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/merry-go-round/) • [7](https://www.viennale.at/en/films/merry-go-round-0) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Elisabeth (Danièle Gégauff) sends telegrams to her former boyfriend Ben, a New Yorker, and to her younger sister Léo, who is in Rome, asking them to join her in Paris, where she is selling her dead father's estate.[8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/merry_go_round_1981) The two have never met. When they arrive, Elisabeth is nowhere to be found, and the pair begin a scavenger-hunt-like search for her through Paris and the French countryside.[7](https://www.viennale.at/en/films/merry-go-round-0) • [3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round)
The search uncovers a conspiracy. According to Dennis Schwartz's synopsis, the sisters' father stole four million francs and probably faked his death in an airplane crash; Elisabeth is kidnapped, and a woman named Shirley appears with further confusing information.[5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/merrygoround/) Rivette repeatedly cuts away from the shared quest into paranoid interludes in which each character imagines the other as a murderous antagonist, and Léo is played in these surreal scenes by Hermine Karagheuz rather than Schneider.[6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/merry-go-round/) The film culminates in a climax set in sand dunes, which several critics count among Rivette's finest finales.[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round) • [6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/merry-go-round/)
## Production and troubled release
The shoot was long and difficult. Rivette described it himself: "We started work with the two actors, and after eight days, things were going very badly. It was like a machine that, once set in motion, must continue running despite changing regimes, forced or arbitrary accelerations, until the energy was all burned up, exhausted."[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) Maria Schneider, then a recovering addict, left the production before it was finished; according to a later interview with co-star Joe Dallesandro, the actors encouraged Rivette to keep filming but also helped him recognize when to stop.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) Dallesandro's own drug use during the shoot is part of most accounts of the production.[6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/merry-go-round/)
**Aftermath.** After the chaotic shoot Rivette suffered a nervous breakdown, and the film could not be seen in France until 1983.[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round) [Le Monde](https://www.edgepedia.org/le-monde) reported in April 1983 that producers had kept it "in a drawer" since 1978, releasing it between the earlier Duelle and Noroît and the recent Le Pont du Nord.[9](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1983/04/15/merry-go-round-de-jacques-rivette_2848225_1819218.html) Claire Devarrieux's review found the hand-held camera work the strongest reason to see the film, while judging that the staging "turns in a void" as the plot's reversals pile up and cancel one another.[9](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1983/04/15/merry-go-round-de-jacques-rivette_2848225_1819218.html)
## Place in Rivette's work
Merry-Go-Round was a separate thriller made after the planned Scènes de la vie parallèle (Scenes of Parallel Life) series was interrupted.[13](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2024/08/jacques-rivette-chapter-from-film-the-front-line-1983-tk/) Only Duelle (1976) and Noroît (1976) had been completed; investors at the Centre National de la Cinématographie withdrew, and Rivette raised just enough money to make a separate thriller.[5](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/merrygoround/) • [13](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2024/08/jacques-rivette-chapter-from-film-the-front-line-1983-tk/) The failure of the project contributed to a depression that ended in his breakdown in the late 1970s.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/)
Unlike Duelle and Noroît, the film lacks overt supernatural or fantastical elements; it reworks themes Rivette had introduced in his first feature, Paris nous appartient (1961), namely paranoia, mystery, and madness, subverting crime-genre tropes in a tale of revenge, family conflict, and betrayal.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) A recurring symbolic device is the eighteenth-century satirical rhyme "Cadet Rousselle", quoted on a postcard that serves as a mysterious clue in the plot.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/)
**Reception.** Rivette himself called the film "unfortunate" in a 1990 filmed interview, invoking [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut)'s notion of "great sick films", works beset by problems that remain fascinating for what they attempted.[1](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/) Critics affixed the label film maudit (French for 'cursed film', one plagued by production troubles) to it on release, and Dennis Schwartz gave it a C, calling it "a tough one to sit through".[10](https://www.ica.art/films/rivette-merry-go-round) • [8](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/merry_go_round_1981) Later assessments have been more generous: the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London has described it as "a stunningly original work and perhaps the quintessential manifestation of Rivette's cinema of this period", a mystery that emerges organically from the fractious combination of its two stars and its director, in the spirit of [Out 1](https://www.edgepedia.org/out-1).[10](https://www.ica.art/films/rivette-merry-go-round) The chemistry between Schneider and Dallesandro, tracked by Rivette's hovering camera through stormy fights and hesitant rapprochements, is a large part of the film's appeal, though one festival note calls the result uneven, more so than any of Rivette's other films of the time.[7](https://www.viennale.at/en/films/merry-go-round-0)
The film has since circulated in restored form: it appears in Arrow Academy's Jacques Rivette Collection Blu-ray set alongside Duelle and Noroît, and a Japanese Blu-ray release carries an "HD Restored" label.[11](https://www.unseen-cinema.com/files/art/edizione.pdf) • [12](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BD10847647)
## References
1. [Samm Deighan, "Three Houses With Neither Beams Nor Rafters: Jacques Rivette's Merry-Go-Round from Crime Serial to Surrealistic Fable", The Cine-Files](https://www.thecine-files.com/three-houses-with-neither-beams-nor-rafters-jacques-rivettes-merry-go-round-from-crime-serial-to-surrealistic-fable/)
2. [Merry-go-round, L'Officiel des spectacles](https://www.offi.fr/recherche-850183.html)
3. [Merry-Go-Round, International Film Festival Rotterdam 1981](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1981/films/merry-go-round)
4. [Merry-Go-Round, La Cinémathèque française](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/54595.html)
5. [Dennis Schwartz, "Merry-Go-Round" review](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/merrygoround/)
6. [Keith Uhlich, "Review: Merry-Go-Round", Slant Magazine](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/merry-go-round/)
7. [Merry-Go-Round (Karussell), Viennale](https://www.viennale.at/en/films/merry-go-round-0)
8. [Merry-Go-Round (1981), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/merry_go_round_1981)
9. [Claire Devarrieux, "Merry-Go-Round de Jacques Rivette", Le Monde, 15 April 1983](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1983/04/15/merry-go-round-de-jacques-rivette_2848225_1819218.html)
10. [Merry-Go-Round, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London](https://www.ica.art/films/rivette-merry-go-round)
11. [Unseen Cinema festival passes catalogue (Jacques Rivette Collection, Arrow Academy)](https://www.unseen-cinema.com/files/art/edizione.pdf)
12. [CiNii Books: Merry-go-round (Blu-ray)](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BD10847647)
13. [Jacques Rivette (chapter from FILM: THE FRONT LINE 1983), Jonathan Rosenbaum](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2024/08/jacques-rivette-chapter-from-film-the-front-line-1983-tk/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1980s films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license