Aqui (daqui)

Logo percebemos que essa terra, de uma beleza milenar que devolve a tela de cinema à clareza vibrante de uma Sicília explodindo de sol, exprime o lamento da nossa e da sua destruição presente. Através de Empédocles, Jean-Marie Straub e Danièle Huillet falam evidentemente de hoje: as palavras, o ritmo, a musicalidade do texto da tragédia de Hölderlin se unem bem naturalmente ao concerto das cigarras cortando conscienciosamente o silêncio do verão siciliano. De um mundo em sua aurora ao planeta saqueado de hoje em dia pelos apóstolos do lucro, a compaixão do olhar dos Straub revela, com a mesma lucidez e para além do espaço e do tempo, a amplitude do desastre.

Filme incrível, o Bella addormentata

construção, imaginação, realidade, liberdade

"A imaginação tem sua maior utilidade na compreensão do passado. A trombeta da imaginação, como a da Ressurreição, convoca os mortos em suas tumbas. A imaginação vê Delfos com os olhos de um grego, Jerusalém com os olhos de um cruzado e Paris com os olhos de um jacobino ... A função da imaginação não é tanto estabelecer coisas estranhas, como fazer estranhas as coisas estabelecidas; não é tanto produzir fatos assombrosos, como fazer assombrosos os fatos".

- G. K. Chesterton, The Defendant.

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« Pour moi, la définition de l'imagination au cinéma c'est un plan de The Wings of Eagles, [quand] John Wayne se casse la gueule dans l'escalier. » (Jean-Marie Straub)

''Mas qual a razão de todo esse sistema, de toda a racionalização das soluções cênicas? Dar-se o direito de ter surpresas. 'Ter surpresas é descobrir uma realidade', diz Straub. A rigidez do método é a condição para que apareça a imagem, na revelação da imagem, 'o sorriso que jaz fugidio'. Straub e Huillet pertencem àquela categoria de artistas que, somente dentro de um conjunto de restrições, conseguem encontrar a maior liberdade possível.''

ou

Il coraggio di Rivette

Para começar bem o ano:

(via Mehdi Benallal)

Raramente iam ao concerto, menos ainda ao teatro. Mas se encontravam, sem ter combinado, na Cinemateca, no Passy, no Napoléon, ou nesses cineminhas de bairro, o Kursaal, em Gobelins, o Texas, em Montparnasse, o Bikini, o Mexico, na praça Clichy, o Alcazar, em Belleville, outros mais, perto da Bastilha ou no Quinzième, essas salas sem graça, mal equipadas, que pareciam ser frequentadas apenas por uma clientela heterogênea de desempregados, argelinos, velhos solteirões, cinéfilos, e que programavam, em infames versões dubladas, essas obras-primas desconhecidas das quais eles se lembravam desde os quinze anos, ou esses filmes com fama de geniais, cuja lista sabiam de cor e que, fazia anos, tentavam ver, sem conseguir.

(...) Crônica de Anna Magdalena Bach poderia ter existido já no primeiro minuto após a criação do cinematógrafo. Talvez a verdadeira modernidade seja a eterna capacidade de recomeçar, de recuperar o impulso original de uma arte em qualquer época da sua história.

(pode-se retorquir que os Lumière e seus operadores não podiam filmar, e aliás não filmaram, a música; mas pode-se retorquir igualmente que podiam filmar, e filmaram, musicalmente, e foi o que fizeram com essa fila de camelos, como Straub fez com a vida de Bach)

Uma conversa entre Straub e Daney para a Microfilms, emissão semanal de rádio onde Daney conversava com algum cineasta, na ocasião do lançamento parisiense de Der Tod des Empedokles. É de 1987.

Moses and Aaron as an object of Marxist reflection

Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet Interviewed

from Jump Cut, no. 12/13, 1976, pp. 61-64

(...) In Paris nowadays nobody talks about anything but the deconstruction of cinematic language. A revolution in cinematographic language is what they look for. But that’s clearly not enough at all. There are two good examples now of films which reconcile the demands of critics and the intellectual bourgeoisie in all of Paris, the thinking and the non-thinking. These films by Fassbinder (FIRST RIGHT OF FREEDOM or FOX) and Techiné (FRENCH PROVINCIAL) are saluted by both the left and the right. For example, in (the weekly paper) France Dimanche, they wrote that the films of Techiné have gone further than those of Godard. Techiné is a guy who is not stupid. He’s even partly conscious, and has some talent. But what he’s done is made a film designed to seduce the whole world, which can therefore reconcile everyone in the world with everyone else. But anyway, this film is an example that has revolutionized cinematic language. There’s an obvious problem here, that such a “revolution” doesn't go far enough. It’s indispensable, but not sufficient, a “necessary but not sufficient condition,” as in algebra. (...) I think these films find their audience in dividing. One divides the audience, and there is the difference between the films that I make and those of, for example, Techiné: One reconciles the world, the other divides it. It is the dividing lines that make one’s public. And the dividing lines end up in one way or another being lines which correspond to the lines of class, and class struggle. I believe that, or, I hope that.

From: Tag Gallagher

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/40414

A new film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Quei loro incontri ("Those encounters of theirs"), had its world premier a few days ago in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The movie's dialogue consists of the last five dialogues of Cesare Pavese's Dialoghi con Leucò ("Dialogues with Leuco"). The Straubs did not show up for their press conference; instead they sent a bunch of their actors who left Pisa at 4 a.m. to be there. Festival director Marco Müller announced Danièle was ill and that Straub had sent a statement, which one of the actresses read:

Three messages
Jean-Marie Straub

First) It’s come too soon for our death - too late for our life.
Anyway, I thank Marco Müoller for his courage. But what do I expect from it? Nothing. Nothing at all? Yes, a small revenge. A revenge “against the intrigues of the court,” as is said in The Golden Coach. Against so many ruffians.
Why Pavese? Because he wrote: “Communist doesn’t mean just wanting to be. We’re too ignorant in this country. We need communists who aren’t ignorant, who don’t spoil the name.” Or again: “If once it was enough to have a bonfire to make it rain, or to burn a vagabond on one to save a harvest, how many owners’ houses need to be burnt down, how many owners killed in the streets and squares, before the world turns just and we have our words to say?”
Pavese has the bastard say: “The other day I passed by the Mora. The pine tree by the gate’s not there anymore.” Replies Nuto: “The bookkeeper had it cut down -- Nicoletto, that ignorant man. He had it cut down because the tramps would stop in its shade and beg, you understand…”
Again Nuto, elsewhere: “With the living he makes, I can't hold it against him. If it were useful, the first need is for the government to burn money and anyone who defends it.”
Best wishes.

Second) Besides I wouldn’t be able to be festive in a festival where there are so many public and private police looking for a terrorist - I am the terrorist, and I tell you, paraphrasing Franco Fortini: so long as there’s American imperialistic capitalism, there’ll never be enough terrorists in the world.

Third) I have been: 1. at the Venice Festival (as journalist) in 1954, I chose to write on three films: Sancho Dayu - El Rio y la Muerte - Rear Window. No prizes!
2. At the Festival (short films) in 1953 with my first film Machorka-Muff (‘62): no prize.
3. At the Festival in ‘66 with Nichtversöhnt (Not Reconciled, 1965). Projection paid for by Godard!
4. At the Festival with Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach !
5. At Venice for retrospective in 1975 (wanted by Gambetti) of all our films up to Moses and Aron (included), 1974.
At the Festival of Cinematographic Art with Quei loro incontri for A Roaring Lion.

Marco then closed the Press Conference without any of the actors getting a chance to say a word. (Straub's quotes from Pavese are from Pavese's La luna e i falò [The moon and the bonfires], which the Straubs filmed in 1979 as part of Dalla nube alla resistenza [From the cloud to the Resistance].)

2) This caused a furor in the Italian press and at the festival. Virtually unreported outside of Italy. Nontheless the jury (headed by Catherine Deneuve, probably inspired by Paolo Branco) wanted to give a special Roaring Lion to the Straubs. But one jury member, American Cameron Crowe objected because of 9/11 and consented to the award on his understanding that the Festival would "distance" itself from Straub's "anti-American" message. (Apparently it's anti-American to oppose imperialism.)

3) The award was given -- for "innovation in language" (in essence, for their lives' work), but the announcement of "distance" was not made -- thank goodness! We have nothing to fear from the world being filled with "terrorists" such as Straub defines himself -- people making movies like Straub. But we have everything to fear from neo-McCarthyism like Crowe's, that seeks to hinge an artist award on an endorsement of imperialism.