Jul 03, 2009
Huillet-Straub : unsolicited advice. (5/8)
Jean-Marie Straub’s refreshingly basic concerns about « Cézanne, dialogue avec Joachim Gasquet » allow the average viewer to be equally down to earth in his own comments and candid about suggestions he believes could further enhance audience’s comfort and eventual understanding of the film.
In his « dialogues », Cézanne-Huillet tells of his struggle to see reality as it really is, but his language, after passing though the prism of Gasquet’s memory, is so dense, at times ungainly and dated, that we cannot simultaneously comprehend his search fully and try to put his lessons into practise : we are unable to « see » his paintings and listen to him at the same time.
The old « rachâchant » way would carefully separate theory from practical work and we would first listen to Cézanne’s method without the distraction of any image : watching a black screen ; only afterwards would we be allowed to put the painter’s teachings to the test and try and « see » his paintings or Montagne Sainte-Victoire « for good » : their image would then appear on screen, while the soundtrack would switch to silence.
Such advice may seem a bit reckless as, if followed, it would result in a longer film, but the minutes spent watching it might not only be more, but also better.
Huillet-Straub actually anticipate this criticism, as one last Cézanne painting appears on screen and stays there, without any comment, dialogue, German poetry, or even a whisper of wind, to turn our attention away or influence it.
But it is too late and, without information as to the length of the shot, we are left wondering what we should do, wait for something to happen and consequently waste our time rather than try and look at the painting « Cézanne’s way » in the hope that we shall ultimately « see » it.
The addition of a clock in one of the screen corners could provide a simple and elegant solution to this irritating situation.
The clock would count down the minutes -it feels like a long shot, when one passively awaits its end- and seconds before the painting disappears : we would thus know how much time is available to us to explore the painting and would be able to use it best. As a bonus, the film would become a thriller : shall I « see » before I run out of time ?
Do I have a gift for « minority cinema » ?
A clock would prove similarly useful in the film final shot of buildings, of course unidentified, behind an iron gate. We would understand that we must not lose our time with such trivial questions as what ? where ? and why ? but only watch for good what is put before our eyes.
It is true that, without clocks and countdowns, the film confirms Huillet-Straub works require more than one screening to be fully appreciated, but all viewers are not called Empedocles : most are mere mortals without the guts to jump more than once into the Etna fire.
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Jul 01, 2009
Huillet-Straub : 2,400 year side-trip. (4/8)
The second digression takes us on an even more unexpected trip.
As Cézanne-Huillet evokes the combination of atoms at the beginning of the world and Lucrèce’s « De natura rerum », « action » abruptly shifts to what looks very much like a German sword and sandal movie : a middle-aged character dressed like an ancient Greek declaims poetry in German in a green landscape.
His words are less « rachâché » than beautifully articulated and, even to French ears, their German accents sound surprisingly harmonious. Huillet-Straub’s « greatest hit » was devoted to Bach ; here too, we care more for the music than the words and resent the French subtitles for polluting the image and even the melody as they try and urge our attention back to the poem lyrics.
Less than ever, the film feels the need to tell us where we are or what we are witness to, as the true Huillet-Straub fan instantly identifies an excerpt from one of the couple’s more famous works, « Der Tod des Empedocles » : Empedocles’s death.
An adaptation of the eponymous poem by German writer Friedrich Hölderlin, who wrote it in 1798-1800, the film tells the story of pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles, who committed suicide by throwing himself into the Etna crater.
We understand from the French subtitles, tiny bits of German and the actor’s play that Empedocles is waxing lyrical about nature and how it came into being.
In the interview -which looks increasingly like the user’s manual to their film or the « Cézanne » chapter of « Huillet-Straub for dummies »-, Jean-Marie Straub confirms the connection between Empedocles and Cézanne runs through Lucrèce and the similarities between the two ancient writers’ cosmogonies and the painter’s own search for the reality of things.
It was also an offer, which con artists could not refuse, to recycle and promote their own work.
The film « user’s manual » also discusses apparently much more down to earth matters, such as the filmmakers’ painstaking effort to film Cézanne’s paintings at such a distance and under such angles that they would suffer absolutely no distortion when shown on screen.
These concerns somehow echo comments by French music composer and conductor Pierre Boulez -famous and notorious for many of the same reasons as Huillet and Straub-, who explained his number one priority, when directing Wagner’s « Ring » in Bayreuth : to ensure the operas « libretti » were perfectly articulated, accented and therefore understandable to the German-speaking audience.
A similar priority seems to have presided, with respect to Hölderlin’s verse, over Huillet-Straub’s « Der Tod des Empedocles », and the film and music directors « back to the basics » comments sound like a pleasant break from the lofty and often inscrutable motives to which they are more often associated.
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Jun 29, 2009
Huillet-Straub : overdue agricultural Oscar. (3/8)
The film also includes two major digressions, which make liberal use of borrowed or recycled material.
As Cézanne-Huillet explains that an old maid in Flaubert’s « Madame Bovary » inspired him for a portrait, Jean Renoir’s 1934 filmed version of the novel pops up on screen and takes us from Provence -and the various European Museums where Cézanne’s paintings were filmed- to Normandy for the « comices agricoles », a mix of country fair and agricultural Oscars ; it is one of the book most famous chapters, about which generations of school teachers have « rachâché » ad nauseam before countless Ernestos.
Why bring in a 1934 black and white film to illustrate a comment made by a painter obsessed with colour and dead in 1906 in relation to a book written in 1857 ?
Because the film was by the son of another painter, Auguste Renoir, who belonged to the same generation as Cézanne ? In order to tie-in more tightly the various art forms of painting, literature, photography, cinema ?
Just like Cézanne does not explain himself in his paintings, but in conversations with the likes of Joachim Gasquet, Huillet-Straub leave their film to stand alone and answer the question in an interview about it.
It appears Cézanne’s comment about the old maid had reminded Danièle Huillet of a line in Renoir’s film which said the old maid was to receive a medal for « serving fifty-four years in the same farm » ; the filmmaker had thought the line « énorme » -huge- and wished to include it into their own film.
We do hear the line and the old maid shows up on screen, but disappears after a few seconds, while the excerpt of Renoir’s film runs and runs and we have enough time to notice that, if Pierre Renoir looks at his best portraying a character, Monsieur Bovary, badly mistreated in the novel, Valentine Tessier and Fernand Fabre make for cruelly shallow Mme Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger.
As we eventually return to Provence and Cézanne, we wonder : why such a lengthy excerpt?
Were Huillet-Straub in need of screen fodder to beef up their own film to fifty-one minutes ? Or in search of a sure way to anger their Musée d’Orsay financiers ?
No, according to their interview. One, Danièle Huillet had forgotten the old maid and her fifty-four years went so quickly on screen ; two, as per Jean-Marie Straub’s words, Renoir is like a « block of marble » : you « cannot cut it wherever you please ».
Whatever the filmmakers’ reasons, their audience shall not complain : to trade minutes directed by Huillet-Straub for minutes directed by Renoir minutes is a very fair bargain.
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