In Praise (or Not) of Chantal Akerman

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

Oh no :((((((

xp

So sad.

Her first movie, made at age 18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx2RNzl-p3Q

sinking in :(

her mom, with whom C.A. was terribly close, died last year; C.A.'s newest film was compiled from interviews she conducted with her mother.

this is all very very sad.

if you haven't seen "toute une nuit," you should. it might be my favorite of hers, a long series of nocturnal romantic encounters. it has a nouveau roman feel to it, with the encounters playing out--in an ordered fashion--variations on the theme of coupling and uncoupling.

very sad indeed.

the film screens next two nights at NYFF

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2015/films/no-home-movie/

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/no-home-movie

NY Times not reporting on the cause yet, surely it wouldn't be mis-reported

Just struggling with this. Numb.

Glenn Kenny's piece speaks of "differing accounts" of cause in Brit and French media.

wtf.

Maybe it depends on fine point of French grammar that is misunderstood in the UK.

Sorry, not trying to be amusing, it was confusing to me when I looked at the French reports.

seems suicide mentioned in all the french language articles

vaguely recall having read how young she was when jeanne dielman was made, nonetheless thought she would have been quite a bit older than 65

RIP

Fernando Croce:

Once at a film class I heard two dudes enthusing about PTA being only 27 when he made BOOGIE NIGHTS. I couldn't resist chiming in: "Akerman, 25, JEANNE DIELMAN."

I had completely forgotten that i saw her do that Almayer's Folly Q&A three years ago, which shows that ILX will be helpful as i dodder on.

so this is sad and awful. I want to know the cause of death because this indeterminacy is ugly, but maybe that's a delayed way of putting away the fact that death is always going to be indeterminate by its nature because someone becomes finally unreachable. what a great, great artist. her films force us to see the everyday and when we find that torturous that disavowal is really interesting. devastating art making. as others have pointed out, funny and beautiful too. and the attention to the SOUND of everyday life in her work (like those train noises in Les Rendez Vous d'Anna) was always so strong. RIP.

What's the musical about the the shopping mall, Golden Eighties? I recommend that one.

I had completely forgotten that i saw her do that Almayer's Folly Q&A three years ago, which shows that ILX will be helpful as i dodder on.

the french press is quite clear it was suicide -- "s'est donné la mort" :(

claire denis has a testimony to akerman at the libération page. strange to remember that denis is (was) older than akerman. but their careers had dissimilar trajectories... denis was 40 before she finish her first feature. akerman was, famously, a major filmmaker by (at the latest) her early 20s.

Yes, they all word it exactly the same way, little room for doubt.

Here is page you are referring to, I think: http://next.liberation.fr/culture-next/2015/10/06/chantal-akerman-faisait-des-films-avec-sa-chair-sa-peau-sa-vie_1398256

the NYT article has been filled out with more information:

Friends said that Ms. Akerman had been in a dark emotional state after the death of her mother last year, and that she had had breakdowns. She had recently been hospitalized for depression, returning home to Paris 10 days ago, her sister said.

also reporting that cause is "unknown"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/arts/chantal-akerman-belgian-filmmaker-dies-65.html

this might be of some broad relevance

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/15/trauma-second-generation-holocaust-survivors