In Praise (or Not) of Chantal Akerman

Her films will be running for free on Hulu through the 21st:

http://www.hulu.com/search?q=chantal+akerman

is it just for the US? Watched all those but I'll certainly re-watch one or two of these.

Yes it is :-(

obit from Romney: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/08/chantal-akerman

I dunno, academic and theoretical language is a context based practice- people who are fluent in it speak it, those who aren't don't, and the awkwardness described is like someone just speaking French to you when you speak English- they are presuming fluency for all present in a way that can just seem gauche or irrelevant. But If I know you speak French and I speak French then is it really so rude to just ask in French? It is if you're not in a Francophone context. And so then the question is: is public space so generic that theory jargon is banned? wouldn't a Chantal Akerman Q+A be a pretty plausible space in which to wheel out certain terms that make certain kinds of conversations move faster given who tends to like her work? Without hearing the text of the question it's hard to go further.

Re: that book project above, I don't think the problem there is jargon (not saying you said it was) but that there's a failure to make the core analogy stick: bureaucrats "withdraw" (okay, maybe) and so do philosophers (yes, to a degree) but the concept of "regret" is not a moving part, and that book proposal does not succeed in showing how or why. Since that's a key term for the project, it sounds shaky and tendentious. Which is bad at the level of the thinking, not the terminology.

wouldn't a Chantal Akerman Q+A be a pretty plausible space in which to wheel out certain terms that make certain kinds of conversations move faster given who tends to like her work?

Its plausible if two people who are familiar with that kind of language are talking in those terms about her films, and if other ppl want to watch that its not like you can complain too much that this is taking place.

Akerman is pretty clear she had no familiarity in particular ways her work was talked about - so plenty to say about that gap, and how her work attracts that kind of language when the person who spent all the making it was so uninterested in it.

Yup

Learned my lesson on this when I tried to chat briefly with Bob Rafelson about his version of The Postman Always Rings Twice and he scowled at me when I used the words film noir. Decided to keep that stuff to a minimum so that years later at a Claire Denis Q&A I just told her I liked the traffic sounds in her soundtracks and she laughed and said it was the result of budgetary constraints and shooting on location.

Re: that book project above, I don't think the problem there is jargon (not saying you said it was) but that there's a failure to make the core analogy stick: bureaucrats "withdraw" (okay, maybe) and so do philosophers (yes, to a degree) but the concept of "regret" is not a moving part, and that book proposal does not succeed in showing how or why. Since that's a key term for the project, it sounds shaky and tendentious. Which is bad at the level of the thinking, not the terminology.

right, but the opacity of the ideas (and the glib assumption that we will go along with some of the more dubious assertions) is characteristic of academese, i think.

also, it's not just about terminology (the words being used) but usage... familiar words are being used in non-standard ways in that paragraph without much attempt to clarify what they might mean.

obviously there are different kinds of academese, but i guess by posting that graf i meant to demonstrate how it can be somehow both grandiose and opaque (not to mention verbose) and how that combination could really repel someone.

Decided to keep that stuff to a minimum so that years later at a Claire Denis Q&A I just told her I liked the traffic sounds in her soundtracks and she laughed and said it was the result of budgetary constraints and shooting on location.

ironically (?) claire denis is probably one of those filmmakers who would feel a bit more at home with the jargon of academic film studies, since she's worked with jacques ranciere, has taught alongside zizek, etc. etc. at the european graduate school. (i still imagine she prefers to talk about her work in more concrete terms, but i don't think she's as allergic to academese as akerman. even though akerman has had her academic connections, e.g. teaching production at harvard.)

So you are saying that next time I see her, I should bring up objet petit a and the Big Other?

ironically (?) claire denis is probably one of those filmmakers who would feel a bit more at home with the jargon of academic film studies,

Cronenberg and Assayas too.

Missed my chance with Assayas.

I think Clint Eastwood would be very welcoming too.

My cousin told me once about a show he was at where Eastwood was in the audience to see his son's band perform. One of my cousins friend went up to him and went on about what a big fan he was. Eastwood stood stock still against the back wall, gritted his teeth and said "the pleasure's all mine."

whereupon he quietly pulled out a .45

A 78 rather. "Relaxin' At Camarillo."

Learned my lesson on this when I tried to chat briefly with Bob Rafelson about his version of The Postman Always Rings Twice and he scowled at me when I used the words film noir.

That sounds pretty uncomfortable, but in your defense, film noir is hardly academic jargon at this point! It's a widely recognized genre, and the term is used by both academics/cinephiles and lay-people.

I mean obviously one can have a debate about the usefulness of the term or whether it's over-applied, but I wouldn't call it academese.

And The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 version) is one of the quintessential film noirs!

At least he didn't punch me out, like he told us he did to one of the producers of Brubaker!

But yeah, it is a common enough term. This was in Spain, maybe he thought he was safe from American fanboys such as he may have perceived me to be.

Anyway I basically agree with your previous string of posts about the uses of academic language. I would formulate my own version in my own words but no doubt as this is an ILX film thread we might have to argue, if only due to the narcissism of small differences.

That sounds pretty uncomfortable, but in your defense, film noir is hardly academic jargon at this point! It's a widely recognized genre, and the term is used by both academics/cinephiles and lay-people.

that's true, but to someone's rafelson's age (he was born in the mid-1930s IIRC) "film noir" might sound a little hoity-toity, since it really isn't until the 1970s that the concept became mainstream in english-language criticism (thanks in large part to paul schrader!).

but bob rafelson just kinda seems like a jerk

He is definitely a little bit of a grump. Not holding it against him though.

"if i told you bob rafelson was a grump, would you hold it against him?"

Get into Raybert, cowboy.

there's an outdoor screening of 'les rendez-vous d'anna' near my place tomorrow night. is it good? i couldn't really handle 'jeanne dielman' but seems like stuff happens in this one

not much more stuff. it's a great movie but if you didn't like jeanne dielman, you probably won't liek it.

Agree, although most of her films don't run very much on this notion of stuff happening apart from Golden Eighties, say.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/chantal-akerman-primer?utm_content=buffercddf3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

Great overview. Seen about 2/3rds of her films and mad @ all the ones I wasn't able to catch.

a/v essay on Almayer's Folly

https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/video-essay-before-and-elsewhere-chantal-akerman-s-almayer-s-folly

dielman is on tcm tmorrow am iirc

La Captive was marvelous, the best Proust adaptation I've seen.

Thanks. The lack of appraisal of the later work was missing from the obits. The problem is until the ICA two-year retrospective (in London) you couldn't really get much beyond La Captive. Ultimately no excuses, the retro showed she went to so many places over 30+ years.

So we were probably at the same screening of Almayer's Folly last week. Wouldn't say it was evident that it was Cambodia and not Malaysia. Apart from that some good stuff, really felt it was a - not departure - but inspiring how Akerman seemed to be fully conversant with Hou (coming from the BFI season last month) and especially Tsai's work - evident from the last shot in the film and also w/the lack of 'corridor shots' (like the one instance of an alleyway shot was notable) - again that could be the environment, but she could've confined the plot to a chamber-like setting. Compare that with her other literary adaptation. xxp

The John Cale ref is inspired, might need to pull that alb out.

No Home Movie has US distro: http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b4b814acfe115ea55c6413e83&id=ab8a6e2759&e=b191b4e79b

watched Ju, Tu, Ill, Elle (Eclipse DVD) last night. Won me over eventually, tho i think US commercial prospects wd've been aided by title change to Half-Naked Gal Eats from a Bag of Sugar.

...And Then Eats...Something Else

oh yeah, love JTIE, the way she looks soooo hungrily at the trucker dude, and his monologue/handjob face, so good. That first long shot of the freeway overpasses is so jarring after the claustrophobia of the early shots when she's in catatonic depressive sugar ritual mode.

So I guess Babette Mangoite is at UCSD- has anybody on here ever talked to her about this period of CA's work?

I bet she has some cool stories.

JTIE is my favorite -- the best movie I've seen about being single and horny.

https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201601&id=56695

^ this is great

Tomorrow We Move (2004) screening at Lincoln Center tonight. "Accessible! Comedy!" wrote Sam Adams. Apparently there was a DVD in '05, but i can't get hold of it.

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/tomorrow-we-move/

http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-08-04/screen.shtml

btw, pretty good interview with Akerman by Sam Adams in 2010:

...when I started to shoot Jeanne Dielman, at the beginning, I was not aware of what was going to be the film. Everything was written in the script already, but still. After three or four days, when I saw the first dailies, I realized and I said, “My God, the film is going to be three hours and 20 or 40 minutes long, and it’s going to be developing little by little.” For example, when after she sleeps with the guy for the second time, and you feel something happens, even though the length of the shots is more or less the same as before, certainly there is an acceleration inside the viewer, just because, “Oh, she forgot to put the money there, and then suddenly she doesn’t know what to do.” It’s like the end of her life. She doesn’t leave any room for anxiety. It’s like the workaholic, they do the same. When they stop, they die, because then they have to face something inside of them that they don’t want to face. When she has that, that’s the anxiety.

I think I am speaking about people. Jeanne Dielman is not special. I can do that with a man, going to work and doing the same thing and being happy because he has the key and he opens the door and then his papers are there and his secretary. Imagine, and then something has changed and he can’t stand it. Because change is dangerous. Change is fear, change is opening the jail. That’s why it is so difficult for yourself to change deeply.

http://www.avclub.com/article/chantal-akerman-37600

I remember liking Tomorrow We Move, particularly the sustained "Pile-On" energy in the set pieces.

FSLC had Stuart Klawans introduce Tomorrow We Move, he made the mistake of descibing it as a "screwball comedy," leading the rather large audience to expect a Hawks-Lombard romp. Very little laughter except the hilariously elided birth scene. Group of 60somethings in front of me complained afterward that it was "silly" and "there were no consequences to anything" (not nec debits in either case, even if debatably true). I was charmed by Testud and Clement but in addition to my now-standard sleepiness issues, didn't chuckle more than 3-4 times.

I wrote this about Chantal's suicide and how it might (or might not) change how we watch her films, focusing on "News From Home":

http://openhumanitiespress.org/feedback/film/rememberingakerman/

One of the things that has been missed in a lot of the discourse surrounding her work is a talk of any sense of emotion(s). Her work was so good but formal (so its good to read this), and when the subject matter was written about it was larger stuff like feminism or politics.

She was bipolar - which I didn't know about. But knowledge of that while she was alive wouldn't mean very much, beyond some vague sense that she could put so much work out there - never mind that the work was so good.

Her death has been unexpectedly hard to process. It felt like a hammer blow on the day and I seldom feel anything about the death of people I don't know - even if what they do is important to me. As the weeks pass I try to read all the recollections or any pieces written about her. Whereas for almost anybody else I'd be 'bored' by now (Bowie). The manner of it might have played a part in it but idk I read a lot of works by people who have killed themselves.

Saw No Home Movie today. I think a pretty key thing is that the title might be a pun. It's both 'No Home-Movie' (that's debatable) but moreso it's a 'No-Home Movie'. The scenes of Akerman on the road is so incredibly dull and lonely that it's pretty powerful every time she gets to talk to her mom again.

i saw Golden Eighties last night in 35mm and was quite taken with it... a '50s Technicolor pastiche that manages to incorporate her mother's Holocaust experience.

Was Delphine Seyrig ever not All-World in anything? Heartbreaking.

Not that I know of, although never saw Pull my Daisy