{"id":107800,"date":"2015-10-06T09:32:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=107800"},"modified":"2016-08-28T05:52:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T09:52:38","slug":"r-i-p-chantal-ackerman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=107800","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Chantal Akerman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman.jpg\" alt=\"Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman\" width=\"624\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-107801\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman-100x77.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman-200x154.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Chantal-Akerman_jetuilelle-still-courtesy-akerman-400x308.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\nThe news of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2015\/oct\/06\/chantal-akerman-pioneering-belgium-film-director-and-theorist-dies-aged-65\" target=\"_blank\">death of pioneering Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman<\/a>, came as a shock this morning. Even worse, it is being reported as a suicide (although I&#8217;ve read different reports), which, if true, is just heart-breaking and awful. Akerman has a new film called <i>No Home Movie<\/i> (an autobiographical video-essay film about her Holocaust survivor mother), and it&#8217;s about to open at the New York Film Festival. (See Glenn Kenny&#8217;s take on that film, <i>No Home Movie<\/i>, below.) But the impact of Akerman&#8217;s 1975 film (<i>Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles<\/i>) was such that when word of <i>No Home Movie<\/i> reached me I felt a bolt of excitement. When Chantal Akerman spoke, it was important. She had plans coming up, film festivals, symposiums, etc.  She was only 65 years old. If it was suicide, this is even more tragic. <\/p>\n<p>Here she is in 1975 talking about <i>Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles<\/i>. Akerman was only 24 years old when she made it. Astonishing, really. Many film-makers have to work decades before they make a film that confident, that knowing, that stylistically sophisticated. Look at how young she is. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QY59Ph2L0N0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nIn the film Delphine Seyrig plays the widowed Jeanne, who lives in a flat with her son, filling her day with housewifely tasks (shown in excruciating real time: cleaning the sink, making veal cutlets, etc.), and from 5 to 5:30 every day she &#8220;entertains&#8221; men in her bedroom. It&#8217;s a compartmentalized part of her day, a part that seemingly does not touch all of the other parts. The film is (not surprisingly) a feminist classic (although Akerman didn&#8217;t like being referred to as a &#8220;feminist&#8221; film-maker). The majority of the action is unbelievably banal and may try your patience at times (&#8220;Do we really have to watch every step of her making breakfast? With NO CUTS?&#8221;). Dennis Lim wrote a short essay about the film in the book <i>Defining Events in Movies<\/i> and his words capture what Ackerman was up to with her style of storytelling in <i>Jeanne Dielman<\/i>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Covering 48 hours over three days, the film immerses itself in the ritualized minutiae of Jeanne&#8217;s household chores. These mundane events are captured with a static camera, often in real time. The viewer is compelled to experience the full monotony of each task &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Akerman so firmly establishes Jeanne&#8217;s routine that when the tiniest cracks start to emerge &#8211; overcooked potatoes, a dropped spoon &#8211; they play like major events. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The film&#8217;s portrayal of deadening ritualistic housework is a critique of the very concept of &#8220;woman&#8217;s work.&#8221; Alongside of that is Jeanne&#8217;s matter-of-fact compartmentalized prostitution, also seen as &#8220;woman&#8217;s work,&#8221; right? This topic has been covered before in many films, from <i>Belle de Jour<\/i> to the more recent <i>Concussion<\/i>. Happy homemaker by day, whore by night. But <i>Jeanne Dielman<\/i> breaks that mold, shatters it, forces us to endure the &#8220;homemaker&#8221; stuff, endlessly: each day the same, so that we watch the routine, we understand how it should go, we see her meticulous nature &#8230; and then, slowly, also mundanely, it unravels. How can a spoon dropped on the floor open up a crack revealing an abyss? Watch how Akerman does it. With no language. Sometimes it is not just the story one wants to tell that provides fascination or interest. It is the APPROACH that breaks new ground, and that&#8217;s the case with <i>Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles<\/i>. You watch, there are moments of extreme boredom. But then the rhythm of the film, its own insistent and ruthless commitment to itself, cracks you open. You can&#8217;t stop watching because <i>something is going on<\/i>. And that &#8220;something&#8221; is <i>not visible<\/i>, but you can <i>feel<\/i> it. A story is being told, an event unfolding, a woman revealed. We see her through what she does. When things start to go awry, no matter how small, we know she doesn&#8217;t have much time left. The routine will be shattered for good. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ih3nBxjkBH8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nChantal Akerman has made many more films since that masterpiece in 1975. Some I have seen, more I have not. While she has spoken eloquently about how Godard inspired her to get into film-making (she and the rest of her generation), she was that very rare thing in cinema, a unique visionary with a unique voice. An original.<\/p>\n<p>Her first film, made when she was 18, financed herself, where she played the lead, is a 12-minute short called <i>Saute ma ville<\/i>, and it&#8217;s on Youtube. She shot right out of the gate, confident, bold, personal, and believed in her own perspective, her own voice and vision. She&#8217;s 18 years old. Look at this film.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jx2RNzl-p3Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bfi.org.uk\/news-opinion\/sight-sound-magazine\/features\/chantal-akerman-primer\" target=\"blank\">Chantal Akerman Primer<\/a> from <i>Sight &#038; Sound<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote a terrific essay about Akerman entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/lolajournal.com\/2\/integrity_exile.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Chantal Akerman: The Integrity of Exile and the Everyday.&#8221;<\/a> Rosenbaum writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This desire for normalcy accounts for much of the difficulty of assimilating Akerman\u2019s work to any political program, feminist or otherwise. As an account of domestic oppression and repression, <em>Jeanne Dielman<\/em> largely escapes these strictures, and Akerman herself has admitted that this film can be regarded as feminist. But she also once refused to allow <em>je tu il elle<\/em> to be shown in a gay and lesbian film festival and, more generally, has often denied that she considers herself a feminist filmmaker, despite the efforts of certain feminist film critics to claim her as one.<\/p>\n<p>On one hand, her films are extremely varied. Some are in 16 millimetre and some are in 35; some are narrative and some are nonnarrative; the running times range from about 11 minutes to 201 and the genres range from autobiography to personal psychodrama to domestic drama to romantic comedy to musical to documentary \u2013 a span that still fails to include a silent, not-exactly-documentary study of a run-down New York hotel (<em>Hotel Monterey<\/em>, 1972), a vast collection of miniplots covering a single night in a city (<em>Toute une nuit<\/em>, 1982), and a feature-length string of Jewish jokes recited by immigrants in a vacant lot in Brooklyn at night (<em>Food, Family and Philosophy aka Histoires d\u2019Am\u00e9rique<\/em>, 1989), among other oddities.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, paradoxically, there are few important contemporary filmmakers whose range is as ruthlessly narrow as Akerman\u2019s, formally and emotionally. Most of her films, regardless of genre, come across as melancholy, narcissistic meditations charged with feelings of loneliness and anxiety; and nearly all of them have the same hard-edged painterly presence and monumentality, the same precise sense of framing, locations and empty space.<\/p>\n<p>More generally, if I had to try to summarise the cinema of Chantal Akerman, thematically and formally, in a single phrase, \u2018the discomfort of bodies in rooms\u2019 would probably be my first choice. And \u2018the discomfort of bodies inside shots\u2019 might be the second.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Catherine Grant has put together <a href=\"http:\/\/filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.co.uk\/2015\/10\/no-home-movie-in-warm-memory-of-chantal.html\" target=\"_blank\">such an impressive list of content about Chantal Akerman<\/a>. I will be delving through.<\/p>\n<p>My friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slantmagazine.com\/house\/article\/q-a-with-chantal-akerman-jeanne-dielman-three-decades-later\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Callahan interviewed Akerman for Slant Magazine<\/a> via email and some of the answers were wonderful. The orgasm bit, for example. I also loved Dan sharing the anecdote about seeing <i>Jeanne Dielman<\/i> in a crowded theatre and the audience gasped when she dropped the spoon. That&#8217;s it exactly. <\/p>\n<p>Was waiting, on some level, for Glenn Kenny to speak, and he has, <a href=\"http:\/\/somecamerunning.typepad.com\/some_came_running\/2015\/10\/chantal-akerman-le-patron.html\" target=\"blank\">and it&#8217;s beautiful and sad.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And finally <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/richard-brody\/postscript-chantal-akerman\" target=\"_blank\">from Richard Brody at <i>The New Yorker<\/i><\/a>. The following bit about <i>Jeanne Dielman<\/i> is so important to keep in mind, especially when you think about how often women&#8217;s accomplishments are sidelined, ignored, diminished. It&#8217;s the first sentence that one really needs to remember, for context, <i>take note<\/i>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Akerman was younger than Orson Welles was when he made \u201cCitizen Kane,\u201d younger than Jean-Luc Godard was when he made \u201cBreathless.\u201d The three films deserve to be mentioned together. \u201cJeanne Dielman\u201d is as influential and as important for generations of young filmmakers as Welles\u2019s and Godard\u2019s first films have been. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you see any extensive list of Great Films of the 20th Century and <i>Jeanne Dielman<\/i> isn&#8217;t on it, or Great Directors of the 20th Century and Chantal Akerman isn&#8217;t on it, toss that list, it&#8217;s no good.<\/p>\n<p>This is very sad news. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312.jpg\" alt=\"big_381618_5274_web_image_41312\" width=\"960\" height=\"671\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-107803\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312-100x70.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312-200x140.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/big_381618_5274_web_image_41312-400x280.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The news of the death of pioneering Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, came as a shock this morning. Even worse, it is being reported as a suicide (although I&#8217;ve read different reports), which, if true, is just heart-breaking and awful. Akerman &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=107800\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,23],"tags":[2476,2394],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107800"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107938,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107800\/revisions\/107938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}