Last December, the British magazine Sight and Sound announced the 100 best films in history, according to its prestigious list published every decade. Number 1 was the Belgian ‘Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles’. Chantal Akermann. The movie replaced ‘Vertigo’ (1958), it was The first chart-topping film by a woman in its 70-year history and opened a few lines of chat. Lines widening with other notable changes to the list, such as a significant increase in the number of films by female directors, the addition of very new titles, and greater representation of diversity.
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Is Jeanne Dielman the best movie ever? What happened to make a movie that ranked 72nd in 2002 and 36th in 2012 to win? Could it be the best movie in history that the public didn’t know about? Does such a growing list of voters (1,639 experts) make sense? Do votes respond to cinematographic or circumstantial issues? Is a radical canon change possible? These questions captured the cinephile conversation and produced inspiring and conflicting views. And they will continue to produce them.
In fact, the only thing that is clear is that ‘Jeanne Dielman’ attracted the attention of those who did not know her and turned those who knew her back to her. Now everyone has the opportunity to watch or rewatch this movie. a housewife’s day to day (Delphine Seyrig). The film dedicates a cycle of twelve titles to Akerman starting this Friday.Including “Jeanne Dielman, News From Home” (1976) and “No Home Movie” (2015). The director’s films will also be available to watch in theaters from March. Maybe it’s time to ask how much space Akerman occupies in history and how his filmography and legacy are approached.
Famous Sight and Sound list
“A director—says a film critic, PhD in Communications, and teacher—a place before that list—both in academia, in the critical field, or in cinephilia. Violet Kovacsics–. His deduction at number 1 is nothing more than a result. In the specific case of academia, he’s a filmmaker who’s been talked about a lot in class, and that’s been the case before.”.
For Kovacsics, things have changed in recent years when it comes to reviewing film history, despite the general consternation (for better or worse) of Akerman’s #1 film in the Sight and Sound poll. because students wanted it, the university spent its batteries thinking about history in another way, proposing a movie history without all male names. Akerman occupies a very central place in this sense and his claim is a generation of students who need to be explained to them what formerly occupied a marginal place“, bill.
Critic and doctor in social communication Endika Rey, He thinks Akerman is “a more centralized filmmaker in the academic world than the most popular critics,” but agrees with Kovacsics. the concerns of the present shed more light on him: “In recent years, his filmography has been in demand from more and more places. Reminded me of the HBO series ‘Woman. America’ [2020]It ends with a sequence that is a direct homage to Jeanne Dielman. And that has to do with it. the rise of feminist discourses around representation, the increase in the application of the gender perspective to film and cultural studies, or the advent of a new, more diverse critique uploaded to the internet and taking it as an explicit reference. ‘Jeanne Dielman’s top spot in the Sight and Sound poll has a lot to do with it’.
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While Akerman’s claim of less minority space is self-evident, His cinema is neither mainstream nor easy. In the specific “Jeanne Dielman” example, and very reductionistically, there are only two factors that are so obvious: duration (three hours and 22 minutes) and relaxed rhythm can invite abandonment. Why should you try? “When viewers think they don’t have time to watch movies, it’s even more urgent to feature Akerman’s,” he thinks. Shaila G. Catalan, PhD in Communications and teacher. And he adds: What have we inherited? Firstly, cinema as an experience from another time. And it’s paradoxical because his cinema can be irritating, boring, and even a waste of time because his time is so similar to ours that it’s either stigmatized as weird or it’s believed it should be left out of cinema. Akerman not only opposes cinema as entertainment, but also shows that the only time lost is precisely the time that is skipped or cut from the audience. It saves trajectories, transits, waits, and repetitions to show that it deserves to be felt, not saved.”
Like G. Catalán, Rey values the use of time in Akerman’s films: “For me, there is something fundamental in ‘Jeanne Dielman’, the necessity to sit and observe and let your head accompany the process. ideas and thoughts that would not have been if we had just stayed in the narrative of the series”. Kovacsics also stands out “Akerman’s way of describing dead times” and evaluates the other reasons that make his films valuable as follows: “He is an important director with the way he represents himself and deals with feminist issues, and the way he approaches the documentary issue very closely. sincere diary. In this way, some ideas of feminist film theory can be explained very well. This was the case before Sight and Sound, but perhaps this will be reinforced by the number 1. And this serves to talk about the need to finally suggest other ways of understanding the canon. It is clear that there is no better movie in history, but the fact that ‘Jeanne Dielman’ is the winner also serves to explain the moment we are in.”.
Self-representation and feminism
As Kovacsics points out, Akerman’s way of working on self-representation and formulating the candid diary is also a highlight. Gloria Vilches, coordinator of CCCB’s experimental film program Xcèntric“Akerman ventured into experimental cinema, a different kind of cinema”. He explains this with a personal anecdote: “I had just arrived from New York to do a thesis on Hollywood cinema and by chance was at an exhibition at CCCB saying ‘This is not entertainment! Cinema in Valencia responds to cinema’. I entered out of curiosity and the first Akerman movie I saw was ‘News from the House’. He is studying cinema in New York. Placed camera, still shots of the street, the subway, reading his mother’s letters. It went through me because it was something I lived through, and it made me incredibly curious: What is this? This is not a movie, not a documentary, what the heck! It was the click that got me where I am now and defends the cinema I stand for.”
Vilches notes that in the CCCB’s Xcèntric Archive (free), in addition to Akerman’s films, documentaries about Akerman’s films and interviews, including the professionals who have worked with him (cinematographer Babette Mangolte or actress Aurore Clément) and Akerman himself. explains. and her mother. “There is something that is very important to me, and I’ve seen it in documentaries about her work, like ‘Writer Jeanne Dielman’. [1975]about the shooting of the movie, this He surrounded himself with women, worked with women’s teams. And I think it was pretty radical back then.”