JEAN-MARIE STRAUB & DANIÈLE HUILLET - UNE VISITE AU LOUVRE

Une visite au Louvre begins with a long panning shot along the bank of the Seine, then moves on inside to examine works by Ingres, Veronese, Giorgione, David, Delacroix, Tintoretto and Courbet. The soundtrack consists of a text by the poet Joachim Gasquet, which evokes comments attributed to Cézanne. His words are spoken in a deliberately artificial manner by Julie Koltaï. The imaginary Cézanne is gruff, quarrelsome and inspiringly meticulous as he comments on his colleagues’ paintings. He attacks the period painters, and purposefully takes sides with the modernists, whose work is characterized by their realist power of expression, light and use of colour.
Shown in two consecutive versions, of respectively 47 and 48 minutes, Une visite au Louvre joins Straub-Huillet’s earlier films about Brecht, Kafka and Hölderlin in their exploration of art made with nothing but cinematic means. The filmmakers requested to present the film in its original format. Please note that the voice-over is in French and there will be no English subtitles.

Une visite au Louvre. Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet. France-Germany, 2004, Colour, 35 mm, 1:1.37, 95 min.

The Ecran d’Art series is a monthly screening of artists’ film and/or video jointly organised by argos and Cinema Arenberg, in collaboration with La Cambre Academy