In Praise (or Not) of Chantal Akerman

Been to the last two screenings of the Chantal Akerman season and going again tonight.

Didn't know this but she is going to be there!

http://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/nos-amours-chantal-akerman-9-un-jour-pina-demand%C3%A9-l%E2%80%99homme-%C3%A0-la-valise

Akerman gave a brief intro to the films but in between came back for a Q&A which didn't seem pre-planned (the ICA had to get a microphone ready). She was moved by the applause at the beginning an like to think she wanted to give sometime for people to ask anything. It sorta started as a talk on what Pina Bausch was like and how the doc was made, then went into "well I am not going to be here after my next film is shown as I want to sleep so if you'd like to ask anything then its now or never...you don't have to, sometimes its better not to say anything"

There were three questions but they were basically interrupted (good on the first one which was just a v dry question about where does performance start and end that you could never pin her down to -- too much of an attempt to reveal a method -- its interesting that the question's phrasing may sound as precise as her images but they miss all the colour and sense of humour present that are such a big part of her films...for the most part) as she started giving a riff on a theme about half-way through, because her English is at 70% they were kinda half-replies half-rants that would go to funny places. When she talked about how she needed to do different things after Jeanne Dielman it was all "I could've stopped...but not like Rimbaud where I could've been a drug dealer, or sell slaves" (!)

I loved how she talked about Pina -- Akerman was very honest and open at how the beauty she first saw in her choreography turned to anger as she gradually uncovered the sadistic side, involving sinister manipulation of the people in her company -- its something you see on Wenders' film through interviews but here its shown via a series of rehearsals for scenes flowing through performances on stage (she aimed to edit her film like a piece by Pina, and it certainly gives that feel of attending to contemporary dance). She compared Pina to Celine (who I happen to be reading!) and how the work -- the end result -- is what matters. But those questions are never really resolved?

Three years too late, I know, but that circle dance scene described above is from Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels.

― Cherish, Monday, August 13, 2012 3:41 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Almost two years too late on me, but THANK YOU!

Ha, you're welcome. Slow but steady... There should be a Jeanne Dielman joke in here somewhere. :)

Looks great, on tonight:

https://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/nos-amours-chantal-akerman-11-golden-eighties

The musical about the shopping mall? I like it.

Jeanne Dielmann is playing Friday in 35mm and I want to go but if I couldn't even sit through Celine & Julie Go Boating w/o getting extremely bored I feel like this is going to be TORTUROUS. Any tips of things to focus on or contemplate while watching this film that will make it tolerable? Should I sit in the back of the theater where no one sits and like idk work on stuff during the slow bits?

whatever you do, don't take a bathroom break 15 mins before the end.

compare the multiple times she performs her kitchen tasks and goes to the post office.

also this kicks the shit out of Celine & Julie.

idk work on stuff during the slow bits?

NO NO NO, the slow bits are i dunno, 98% of the film, and also the point.

I knew the ending of the film before I saw it and personally it helped me to focus on the deviations to her routine and where it leads.

i know nothing about the film or its ending apart from it's about a woman and she does mundane household things and maybe also is a prostitute, idk, i want to know AS LITTLE about it as possible

i never take bathroom breaks during movies so

No need to compare Akerman to Celine & Julie, they are going for a diff thing althogether.

Even if you know the ending (and I did) the execution is still amazing thing to sit through. Have fun!

well i mean i compared them bcz they are v long and v slowly paced. The other two Akerman films I've seen (Toute un Nuit and Rendesvous d'Anna) were kind of... boring... but I watched them on TVs so they weren't v immersive.

I feel like smoking a bowl beforehand would either be THE BEST or THE WORST idea, possibly the latter bcz when I tried to watch a Bela Tarr film stoned I wanted to claw my fucking eyes out.

as you might guess i vote no there.

it's not boring.

I watched the Eclipse prints of Je tu il elle and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna two weeks: lovely.

I'd never seen the latter (liked a lot) and the former not since 16 mm in college.

Je tu il elle

This was given a few screenings about a week ago in a few cinemas over here. Didn't go - glad to have seen it, although I never quite liked it that much myself. The season at the ICA goes on and on, a few interesting films to come. Even though she made her best film in the mid-70s Akerman has clearly made one great film after another.

this movie got me really amped up about housekeeping

also it was not boring at all. the photography is really addictive

it's at the level of low activity that becomes hypnotic and engrossing

I don't know why Morbs get so crabby. If there was one movie made for which viewers can perform purely functional habits besides Warhol's entire filmography it's Jeanne Dielmann.

I vote no on functional habits since it would ruin the spell

Inhaling Pledge fumes from the newly clean coffee table >> popcorn

china & morbs otm; it really isn't boring, stevie. you get kind of hypnotically involved. celine & julie's a broad thing & this is a very specific, narrower & richer thing.

really don't think you need prep but i really adore reading christine smallwood talk about watching it-

People used to fret about the “masses” using the movies as “escapism.” It is actually supremely difficult to escape into a movie. The impulse to send texts during a movie, or the power of the smallest square of light to distract everyone in a six-seat vicinity, is proof of this. Besides: escape from what? Into what? When I watch movies, I have a running internal monologue of thoughts like, “What would I do if I had to clean all day?” or “Do I look that good when I smoke?” The human brain does not turn off so easily. The drive to identify with narrative, to insert oneself into the story, the basic desire to be in that story, is boundless. That’s not escapism, that’s participation. And even if you can stop identifying, you’re still thinking—if not of something else, then at least of something also. As Chris Fujiwara has written, in a piece called “The Force of the Useless,” “it’s impossible to concentrate entirely on a film or on one’s self.”

The whole point of going to the movies in the first place is to experience this slide. It’s to have the freedom to be thinking in tandem with the film—really, to be thinking at all. At home, it is nearly impossible not to interrupt viewing—to pause, to get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, to check email, yes, to send a text. In the theater you are captive, or you should be, and so your mind ranges more freely, because it traverses the same course, bouncing against those images, again and again, back and forth, until it arrives at last at someplace new.

I've been saying that for years *drinks water*

In the theatre if you pull your phone to text I can tell you to fkn stop it.

no no no i mean at this theater the back 15 rows are always empty and I turn the brightness all the way down so there is no possible way that anyone could see it.

WATCH THE FILM as the Mekons insisted u goddamn Sotosyn. In the dark. Eyes front.

but I'm a millenial with ADD and I get bored so easily

how can you expect me to spend 90+ minutes engaging with only ONE SCREEN???

don't make me quote the druggist in West Side Story about "you kids"

Do it, it'll be funny.

The first time I saw JD (which was the only time I saw it projected, albeit from a digital source) the copy didn't have subtitles, which added to the claustrophobia. That, and these two people sitting in the back of the theatre who were chatting in French for about 75% of the runtime. It was easy to think of them as Jeanne's noisy neighbors.

too bad they didn't show up before the last client

this is a great movie but i don't get why you would watch it in a cinema if you're already determined on not paying attention

Well, if that wasn't the best car chase scene this side of French Connection...

That was infinity more pleasant to watch than I imagined. I longed so much to know this person, what made her laugh, what her favorite food was, what she's thinking... It was really bleak and painful.

shit, RIP

http://next.liberation.fr/culture-next/2015/10/06/mort-de-la-cineaste-chantal-akerman_1398190

:(

Wow. I finally caught up with her last year after the release of those exemplary Criterion releases.

:-(

She was coming to London to give a masterclass and there was also an exhibition coming up.

http://www.anosamours.co.uk/

New film out soon too.

Can anyone read French, how did she pass away?

This is at the end of a near two-year retrospective of pretty much all of her work at (mostly) the ICA (one film a month).

Can't believe this.

Can someone post further confirmation when they see it?

One of her protégées/disciples/what have you is at NYFF right now.

:(

rest in peace.

The link above just says more details forthcoming.

Good intentions here: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/zac-goldsmith-knock-down-ugly-estates-to-build-better-homes-for-londoners-a3083756.html

aargh wrong thread sorry.

According to Le Monde it was a suicide. Such sad news.

oh no

I love Taxi Driver but I'm not so sure it belongs. Feels like that serve as more of an element in the psychodrama that's going on around Bickle.

Blind Spot (Von Alemann, 1981)

This film was on MUBI a few days ago. It's much less interesting as a narrative of a feminist researcher but there were so many great shots worthy of Ackerman. The corridors, the narrow streets, the spacious rooms, the corners, the restaurant. I recommend it as a follow-up

Blu Box:

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/7045-chantal-akerman-masterpieces-19681978