You've got a clear picture of what we're doing.
When it comes to the great conspiracy films of the '70s, the titles that immediately come to mind are the usual suspects: The Conversation, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, maybe even Capricorn One and Winter Kills. (I haven't seen those last two, so I can't vouch for their greatness.) One that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as them is Jacques Rivette's Out 1, first screened in a 13-hour cut in 1971 and whittled down to a more manageable four-and-a-half the following year. That version, given the subtitle Spectre, is what was screened by the Underground Film Series at IU Cinema since it's enough of an endurance test as it is. It's one that's worth enduring, though, as the mystery that unfolds over its generous running time is never less than compelling.
Inspired by the writings of Balzac (specifically, the three-volume History of The Thirteen) and Lewis Carroll ("The Hunting of the Snark"), Rivette's scenario, written in collaboration with co-director Suzanne Schiffman, revolves around two different experimental theater troupes working on plays by Aeschylus, a pretty petty thief (Juliet Berto) and a panhandler posing as a deaf-mute (Jean-Pierre Léaud) who stumble into situations beyond their understanding, the proprietor of a shop catering to the youth market who has no idea what's become of her husband (Bulle Ogier), a novelist suffering from writer's block (Bernadette Lafont), and a dozen or so others who periodically bob to the surface of its narrative, creating ripples that have unintended effects. Such is also the case with the two competing Aeschylus productions when outside observers are brought in and change them dramatically. In fact, one of the directors (Michèle Moretti) feels so left out of the process that she eventually abandons her production of Seven Against Thebes, while the other (Michael Lonsdale) is bemused by the way the title character has been lifted out of his Prometheus Bound. That's Out 1: Spectre -- a film where its most important characters never appear on screen -- in a nutshell.