French director Jacques Rivette, a secretive pioneer of convention-bashing New Wave film renowned for creating rich roles for women such as Emmanuelle Beart, has died at 87.
Rivette's films – like many of the New Wave era – routinely appeared at elite film festivals though didn't always enjoy commercial success.
French President Francois Hollande, in a statement Friday announcing Rivette's death, hailed him as "a cineaste of the woman." Serge Toubiana of the Cinematheque museum in Paris described Rivette's "sense of conspiracy, sense of secrecy" and the "magnificent place" he provided to women characters.
Among them were roles in an early film "La Religieuse" (The Nun), censored when it first came out in 1966; the award-winning, nearly-four-hour "La Belle Noiseuse" (The Beautiful Troublemaker) with Beart in 1991; and a 1994 version of the Joan of Arc tale called "Jeanne la Pucelle" starring Sandrine Bonnaire.
With often-tousled hair and a slight stature, Riviere was lesser known than other New Wave icons Francois Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard. Like them, he started out as a film critic – and was the first of the group to go on and make his own movies.
In a critique more than half a century ago in the esteemed journal Cahiers du Cinema, he observed, "There are things that should only be faced with fear and trembling; death, without a doubt, is one of them."
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More