1997 ‘Cinéma, de notre temps : Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman’ Directed by Chantal Akerman
Janine Bazin and André Labarthe approached Chantal Akerman about making a film for the series; eagerly, Akerman proposed a number of filmmakers—but all had already been done. So she suggested…“How about me?” Akerman creates a fascinating self-portrait that takes us through her career, aided by critics Emmanuel Burdeau and Jean Narboni and filmmaker Luc Moullet.
“But as I make this film about myself, I’m not scared. I’m up against a black hole.”
Earnest. Introspective. Invigorating to see Akerman discuss herself and her work so intimately. One part monologue, one part filmography montage. I wish there were hours upon hours more of something like Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman, where we are able to sit with Akerman as she dissects what it means to create a self portrait of your work, an extension of yourself. A personal hero of mine the more and more I learn about her and the way she saw the world.
“What he said was: She started at the age of 18. Unabashed. Not realizing how hard it was for a girl in Brussels in a family which didn’t care about film. They weren’t interested in it, but Chantal was interested in them. And if they saw nothing in their past worth talking about, it was that “nothing” which interested Chantal.”
Watching truth through the lenses of fiction is never as easy nor as hard as it seems at first glance. One of the most honest and beautiful self portraits. On a personal note, whenever Akerman speaks I feel so close to her inner conflicts, her words resonate so strongly within my own, and whenever I watch her films I am frequently marveled, but the identification process is quite different, it’s not like a mirror, it’s more like understanding, filled with admiration and learning. I love her work so much, and even if I never met her personally, I feel like I love her, the woman, too.
Funny to think that the character of Jeanne Dielman was based partly on Akerman herself. On the one hand, duh, of course she was; no one makes a film that micro-tuned to the specifics of routine or the weight of alienation without investing some of themselves in it. That's one of those films, though, that is so easy to get lost in the rigor of its form, the intensity of the feeling it conjures, that I think I lose sight of it as a character piece, even more so as an autobiographical one. Akerman reclaims it as such, though, here, along with everything else she's made, recontextualizing them as a sort of egoless self-portrait, an autobiography that isn't a bullet…
[November marathon of Chantal Akerman movies that are leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month 6/5 - surprise, I can't count apparently and missed one!]
Chantal Akerman takes on one of the most challenging topics in her catalogue - herself. As one would expect, she uses an innovative approach rooted deeply in an effort to circumvent self perception and see herself as objectively as possible from the outside. One has to admire the boldness requires to undertake an impossible task like this even before the merits of the project are considered.
It's structurally fascinating. The first portion consists of Akerman reading a prepared statement about herself. She strips away all artifice by appearing plainly, seated in a…
J’aurais aimé voir et entendre plus de Chantal avant de tomber dans les extraits de films, surtout que je les ai tous vus pour la plupart dans les derniers mois. Elle est extraordinaire en lisant son introduction. Par contre, j’avoue avoir éprouvé une grande déception en voyant qu’elle a un chien et non un chat. Comme quoi nul n’est parfait.
I've always been amused knowing Chantal Akerman had directed Cinema du Notre Temps episode about herself so I must say it was great that this starts as she explains how it ended up happening. It is a self-portrait in two parts, first she talks straight to the camera in a very disarming simple manner than we get a longer collection of scenes covering most of her filmography till the mid-90s. Those clips are very well selected and edited together but presented without the expected commentary which seems to annoy some people but makes a lot of sense. Akerman has put herself on movies with or without a fictional lens more than most of her peers, so the work does speak…
At the beginning Akerman puts herself on the spot and pours out the doubt that she felt approaching this self portrait and the uncertainty about presenting it to the world. Despite the sadness in her filmography and her life coming to an early end she obviously has always been an empowering figure in cinema with her perceptive views about being a human. And with the insight of the beginning in mind she then chooses to cut together clips of her films, displaying how she has always overcome those doubts and invigorated the spirit in her that wants to create art and bring important matters to forefront. That's only my reading though (it isn't just about her creative process) and rather…
Tasked with constructing a “self-portrait,” Akerman initially decides to let her “old films speak for themselves” (which she eventually does, in a beautifully, frequently playfully edited montage); but on the road to getting back to this first idea, she tries to follow the producers’ command to speak about herself. “That’s where the trouble began.” Prevaricating, perambulatory, self-doubting, the film’s opening seventeen minutes are among the most moving expressions of pure human presence I’ve ever seen. “There’s something for the Jews like ethical order, which concerns the relationship to the Other, something Levinas analysed so well,” Akerman explains of her one-time Torah instructor in a long interview with Nicole Brenez from 2011. “You’re face to face with the Other. It’s from…
