In Praise (or Not) of Chantal Akerman

her criterion eclipse boxset is finally back in stock at their store & amazon (cheaper on criterion)

No Home Movie is on the Film4 site for a week (think its UK only):

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/no-home-movie

the final shot in News from Home

Yeah.

Floored me. I can’t wait to watch the rest of her Eclipse set, and to see Jeanne Dielman for the first time in a theater in March (!!)

"When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films." The great Chantal Akerman, seen here in her debut feature, JE TU IL ELLE (1975) #IWD2018 pic.twitter.com/GZDqPbHoJJ

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) March 8, 2018

Belgian Google doodle:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/05/14/10/4C36B80100000578-0-The_Belgian_filmmaker_Chantal_Akerman_has_been_celebrated_in_the-a-17_1526291349865.jpg

💔

Oh wow didn’t realize that was for her

Got this collection of 4 documentaries, which are the best? I'm keen on checking out Down There first since it seems like a continuation of News from Home.

ftr the films are:

From the East
From the Other Side
South
Down There

From the East was solid.

thanks Alfred, I loved it. Remarkable film.

lol:

@labuzamovies
D'EST (Akerman, 93) As someone who has waited for many buses, I feel this.

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, April 18, 2016 10:35 AM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol Jeanne Dielman's son looks exactly like Michael Cera

Now funnily enough Matmos dedicated a piece to her tonight at their show.

! small world

Les Rendezvous d'Anna has a Janus page now, looks like there's a new restoration. would love to see this one in theaters http://www.janusfilms.com/films/1323

My Mother Laughs by Chantal Akerman, translated from French by Daniella Shreir. Silver Press, June 2019. Country of origin: Belgium

great news!

has this been shared before? really nice piece on the final shot in News From Home: http://reverseshot.org/features/2105/news_from_home

http://reverseshot.org/images/uploads/news2.jpg

Thanks!

on this week’s episode of triple d we’ve taken a road trip to scenic brussels where we visit a mother whose home cooking is the real deal. seriously, wait till you see this meatloaf. some come on & roll on out with me, guy fieri, on another diners, drive-ins & dives pic.twitter.com/uI0OZOK4Lq

— Nick Usen (@nickusen) January 27, 2019

oh my GOD

Je Tu Il Elle seems like one of the great first feature films by any director that I’ve seen, but is more difficult than most. It’s completely free-form and mysterious in a way that even Jeanne Dielman isn’t. Akerman wants to show you the external manifestation of something that is happening internally with the main character, but also avoids any kind of interpretation.

you have to bring a lot o your own experience and feelings into the events here to come up with any personal sense of what the film is about, it requires a big feat of projection

seemed like three distinct parts: the isolation in the room at the beginning, the experience with the truck driver, and the relationship with the other woman at the end

I see that one as Chantal quite not relaxing into her mode just yet. Only lasted a while before she masters everything.

loved News From Home

all those subway scenes and shots of wide 70s cars on 10th Avenue and cross streets looking out on the Hudson River

wasn’t sure what to make of Hotel Monterey, although I did like that the camera started moving halfway.through

I wish she got sound for that one. Anything.

the silence of that film made it feel very experimental but it was also hypnotic.

Unless my scan of the thread lied, it appears I never linked the memorial piece my genius friend Kate wrote for Cinema Scope shortly after Akerman's passing.

http://cinema-scope.com/columns/deaths-of-cinema/

really great, thanks

Hotel Monterey has no story, it’s just a black and white film document of a residential hotel in NY in 1973, featuring mostly elderly people, with no sound, starting in the lobby and moving in to the elevator and up to individual rooms (open doors, closed doors) to the roof and its views

also lots of shots of fluorescent-lit corridors.

I once synced Hotel Monterey with Eno’s Discreet Music and it was just about perfect.

I loved Les rendez-vous d'Anna

so many of the shots in it had the subject in the middle of the frame, with the sides of the frame mirroring each other. it felt like it really matched the anonymity and dissatisfaction of the narrative

have been watching her films over again and there haven't been any that seem like a throwaway

Finally found this screenshot of Chantal akerman on Facebook pic.twitter.com/8uyDF7rsT3

— alexander iadarola (@aliadarola) October 9, 2019

I loved Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Full retro happening in Toronto and I started with this. Bolstered by someone I briefly dated with the same name being in attendance. Great movie.

it was very enigmatic

Hoberman had a good review

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/movies/les-rendez-vous-danna-chantal-akerman.html

I love the repeated visual of revolving flashing lights from outside that are reflected in the room in Jeanne Dielmann and still wonder what it is supposed to mean, It didn’t seem like it could be from a nearby neon sign, more like it was police lights, maybe a foreshadowing of the ending

not really revolving so much as swinging back and forth

I think I also loved this because I have a deep emotional attachment to long aimless train rides

I was just thinking about this movie yesterday, it's been a while and I haven't thought about it much.
Was it a new DCP? a friend of mine in NYC saw it last year & I'm pretty sure it wasn't a print. I always forget it's in her Eclipse set.

has anyone seen Window Shopping / Golden Eighties? looks potentially awesome but I can't find it anywhere

it was a new "restored" DCP apparently

also have tix for:
Les Annees 80s
La Captive
and a double feature of Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles and Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman

I've only seen La Captive and the self portrait. I haven't read the Proust book, but I couldn't get into it. Very formal, but not like her other films, like dud Chabrol. I was bored by it, though not as much as Almayer's Folly.

CA/CA is cool, it's a clip show w/o much manipulation iirc. it's not like Beaches of Agnes (unfortunately)

spurred on by tonight's viewing, I just also picked up tix for Golden Eighties, No Home Movies and Demain on Demenage. (I had vouchers to use up by year's end.)