Description
Book SynopsisThrough films that alternate between containment, order, and symmetry on the one hand, and obsession, explosiveness, and a lack of control on the other, Chantal Akerman has gained a reputation as one of the most significant filmmakers working today. This title presents the study of this influential avant-garde Belgian filmmaker.
Trade Review“A fine writer and a skilled and gifted critic, Margulies offers many new insights into Akerman’s important work. The readings of Akerman’s films—in particular the contextualization of the work in a wider range of frameworks—are excellent. An impressive book.”—Judith Mayne, Ohio State University
“A significant and original contribution, not just to Akerman scholarship, but to film studies generally.”—David James, University of Southern California
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Chantal Akerman's Films: The Politics of the Singular 1
1. Nothing Happens: Time for the Everyday in Postwar Realist Cinema 21
Charting the Everyday in Postwar Europe 24
A Realism of Surfaces: Bazin and Neorealist Film 27
From Surface to Structure: Barthes, Godard, and the Textualization of Reality 33
Beyond Cinematic Postivism: The Antirescue Cinema of Andy Warhol 36
2. Toward a Corporeal Cinema: Theatricality in the '70s 42
The United States in Real Time: Minimal, Hyperreal, and Structural 48
Quotation Reconsidered: European "Theatrical" Cinema 54
3. The Equivalence of Events:
Jeanne DIelman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 65
Excess Description: Robbe-Grillet and Cinematic Hyperrealism 69
Bracketing Drama: The Other Scene 73
The Murder, and, and, and . . . : An Aesthetics of Homogeneity 80
The Automaton: Agency and Causality in
Jeanne Dielman 88
4. Expanding the "I": Character in Experimental Feminist Narrative 100
The Lure of Center in Rainer's Work: A Cautionary Tale 104
The Eroded Index: Liminality in
Je tu il elle 109
An Alogical, Fitful, Evidence 112
"Here Is": Redundant Description 118
A Mock Centrality: An A-individual Singularity 121
5. "Her" and Jeanne Dielman: Type as Commerce 128
For Example, "Her": Godard and the "Natural" Sign 131
Jeanne Dielman: An Exceptional Typicality 140
6. Forms of Address: Epistolary Performance, Monologue, and Bla Bla Bla 149
Epistolary Performance:
News from Home 150
Talk Blocks:
Meetings with Anna 154
Postscript:
The Man with the Suitcase and
A Filmmaker's Letter 161
What is Wrong with Signing?
A Filmmaker's Letter 166
7. The Rhythm of Cliché: Akerman into the '90s 171
Eight Times "Oui": Singularity in
Toute une nuit 173
Night and Day and Night: The Cycle Revisited 182
So Let's Sing:
The Eighties and
Window Shopping 185
Echoes from the East:
Histoires D'Amérique and
D'est 192
To Conclude: It Is Time 204
Filmography 213
Notes 215
Bibliography 247
Index 263
