JEAN-MARIE STRAUB - TROIS FILMS

The French director Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933) made more than 25 long and short films with his late partner, the filmmaker Danièle Huillet (1936-2006). Straub’s solo work is also usually based on other, existing works, ranging from operas, short stories and plays to political works. Straub’s films are characterised by a rigid style composed of such elements as long shots, precise but technically simple framing and the use of local sounds. They stimulate the intellect and strive for active viewing (for example, important events and key moments are often not shown, which leaves the viewer plenty of room to manoeuvre). At the same time they are a critical study of the codes that exist between the film industry and the public and they often have Marxist leanings.

Le genou d’Artémide (Il Ginocchio di Artemide)
2007, 35mm, 26 min., colour, Italian spoken, French subtitles.
Le genou d’Artémide is based on La bête sauvage, part two of Dialoghi con Leucò by Cesare Pavese (1908-1950). In his turn, this poet, novelist and antifascist activist who joined the Italian Communist Party in 1945, based his 1947 collection of short stories on Greek mythology and his own war experiences. Straub’s film starts with a black screen lasting four minutes. Accompanied by Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, it is a tribute to Huillet, Straub’s late partner, with whom he shot De la nuée à la résistance (1979) and Ces rencontres avec eux (2006), which are also parts of Pavese’s Dialoghi con Leucò. Le genou d’Artémide, which is uncomplicated, delicate and profound all at the same time, comprises the passionate, existential conversation between two men (Endymion and the stranger). Words, gestures and attitudes, birdsong, a rich wooded setting and the play of light in the trees all create an atmosphere that is richly contemplative and yet somewhat melancholy. Le genou d’Artémide is the first film Straub made after Danièle Huillet passed away.

Itinéraire de Jean Bricard
2008, 35mm, 40 min., B&W, French spoken.
Straub’s Itinéraire de Jean Bricard is a portrait of a landscape, a history lesson, a documentary portrait and a ghost story all at the same time, based on the book of the same name by Jean-Yves Petiteau. This is the last film he made together with Danièle Huillet. Shot in silvery tones of black and white, the viewer embarks on an almost uninterrupted travelling shot filmed from a boat. The camera follows the Loire, on one of whose islands the character Bricard grew up during the German occupation. The history of the region (good fishing, advancing occupation and the ruthless elimination of the resistance movement) is contained in Bricard’s narrative, which Petiteau recorded earlier, in 1944. Zigzagging between collective and personal memories and focusing on the changing landscape, moving space and the years slipping by, Itinéraire de Jean Bricard recalls a forgotten part of the earth and the lives that were lost in the war.

Le streghe / Femmes entre elles
2008, 35mm, 21 min., colour, Italian, French subtitles.
Like Le genou d’Artémide, Straub based his latest film on Le streghe (‘The Witches’), a part of the collection of short stories entitled Dialoghi con Leucò. This work by the Italian writer Cesare Pavese is based largely on Greek mythology and comprises 27 razor-sharp conversations between people, heroes and gods on ‘fundamental issues’ (the impossibility of a life without pain, the gift of death, the rejection of immortality). In Le streghe, Straub presents us with a dialogue between Circe, enchantress and daughter of the sun god Helios, and the goddess Leucò. Seated side by side and supported by the music of Ludwig von Beethoven, the women reflect on men (read: mankind) and the pleasure they can derive from men’s blindness and illusions, partly caused by man’s limited intelligence. Le streghe / Femmes entre elles is a personal interpretation of a history that is fundamental to Western culture. At the same time the intellectual power game the two actresses play presents each of us with a method of inner examination.