484, 1203 Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

If we took out prostitution, her life probably wouldn't seem nearly as bad, albeit still boring and uneventful (and unfulfilling, meaningless, etc.) -- that is, if we consider selling one's body is "bad," although many of today's OnlyFans creators would say otherwise.

I find this a rather obtuse and offensive comment. When you frame it that way, how can't it be bad? Thankfully sex work is not a commodity industry, but a service industry, where one performs services. You don't sell your body, your body is still your own.

Sex work in the 1970s or before cannot be thought of in the same terms as sex work in the 2020s because women had a lot of less protection back then. So you can't really apply today's progressive viewpoint towards yesterday's circumstances, even if they are the same circumstances on paper -- otherwise you would be the obtuse one. And "Jeanne Dielman" happens to be set 40+ years ago when the welfare of women was far below acceptable levels in many areas.

Well, first off, your comments are ahistorical, as you refer to both the fictional character and modern day only fans models in the same breath. You imply that all of them are selling their bodies, which again is not what happens. You sell sex, or images of your body, or images of sex. That’s an issue of modern day interpretation, i.e. yours. And the birth of the modern day sex workers movement begins in the 1970s, and like all movements goes back earlier than that. Your condescension is as grotesque as your gender politics!

[CriterionPhreak]

I find this a rather obtuse and offensive comment. When you frame it that way, how can't it be bad? Thankfully sex work is not a commodity industry, but a service industry, where one performs services. You don't sell your body, your body is still your own.

Sex work in the 1970s or before cannot be thought of in the same terms as sex work in the 2020s because women had a lot of less protection back then. So you can't really apply today's progressive viewpoint towards yesterday's circumstances, even if they are the same circumstances on paper -- otherwise you would be the obtuse one. And "Jeanne Dielman" happens to be set 40+ years ago when the welfare of women was far below acceptable levels in many areas.

Well, first off, your comments are ahistorical, as you refer to both the fictional character and modern day only fans models in the same breath. You imply that all of them are selling their bodies, which again is not what happens. You sell sex, or images of your body, or images of sex. That’s an issue of modern day interpretation, i.e. yours. And the birth of the modern day sex workers movement begins in the 1970s, and like all movements goes back earlier than that. Your condescension is as grotesque as your gender politics!

If "selling their bodies" were words that set you off to such an extent, then in the future try not to get set off by just a couple of words; look at the complete meaning of what was being said instead, and react accordingly. The only thing grotesque is your reading comprehension and total lack of self-preservation -- you're hurting no one but yourself here by working yourself up to such an emotional state, and needlessly to boot. The crux of what I said was simple and irrefutable: without prostitution, Jeanne's life would not seem nearly as bad. Even if you don't think such a profession is "bad", it may be a bad fit for some people, like any profession. Some people are not cut out for certain kinds of work, you know. Maybe that's the case for Jeanne. This is the kind of nuanced thinking that I wish you had too.

[senseabove]

I'm skeptical that you've got standing to criticize anyone's comprehension, even accepting that Dielman does not exactly seem suited to the work, since you saying this is what started us down this track:

If we took out prostitution, her life probably wouldn't seem nearly as bad, albeit still boring and uneventful (and unfulfilling, meaningless, etc.) -- that is, if we consider selling one's body is "bad," although many of today's OnlyFans creators would say otherwise.

"I don't think Dielman is suited to sex work" is a very different statement from, roughly, "This woman's life wouldn't be nearly so bad if it were only unfulfilling and meaningless and she wasn't a prostitute," and your phrasing implies a facetious condescension that no one can possibly consider sex work as anything but bad—or, if I'm being generous, a self-conscious awareness that you think you shouldn't think sex work is inherently bad, while you still really do.

[colinr0380]

Sex work in the 1970s or before cannot be thought of in the same terms as sex work in the 2020s because women had a lot of less protection back then. So you can't really apply today's progressive viewpoint towards yesterday's circumstances, even if they are the same circumstances on paper -- otherwise you would be the obtuse one. And "Jeanne Dielman" happens to be set 40+ years ago when the welfare of women was far below acceptable levels in many areas.

I think this probably resonates the most with the letter from the sister in Canada talking about it having been six years since Jeanne's husband died and suggesting that maybe Jeanne comes over to Canada and finds a man there. Which is then followed by that discussion with the son before bed about the father, with Jeanne, as with everything else, being rather detail-focused but emotionally distant about the history of their relationship together (and of her family pushing her to do it until the man lost all his money, when Jeanne was suddenly told the opposite and that she could 'do better', whilst she herself charted her own course through their flip-flopping into marrying him anyway) which leads to the son saying that if he were a woman he would only marry someone he truly loved, which leads the pragmatic Jeanne to say that he's not a woman so how could he know? Is love the sole perogative of a woman, and not of a man? The only way she is 'allowed' to express herself - through loving and caring 'womanly' gestures? Is having to love or be partnered with someone something that means Jeanne as a widow is now not a complete woman, as her sister in Canada seems to be (albeit sympathetically, even pityingly) only able to see her as?

Whether it is a choice or forced, Jeanne is appearing to be making do with the practicalities of a loveless life, and maybe doesn't even want there to be (and never wanted there to be) an emotional component to relationships and even sex, just a transactional one (and I think 'transactions' are the primary theme of the film), but with things like the letter or the brief flashes of emotion on hearing the son coming home, or even the speculated upon orgasm with a client throwing her off balance, we are seeing that even in this most austere of situations emotion and feeling is still present even when it is being treated as irrelevant or unnecessary, and in a film where the only nudity is present in the form of practical functional (ritualistic) actions of cleaning of the body.

But even in the transactional manner that Jeanne is doing something for others, she is still perhaps inadvertently showing that she is at least acknowledging their needs that she is helping to fulfill in some way (which in some ways bookends the prostitution with the act of child caring. Both actions - the mother and the whore, if you like - being approached from a remove, as if Jeanne is a true outsider to what those actions are, and can see how they have been abstracted out of their original form and into the monetary sphere which she now occupies as a proxy). Which at least has to be better than everything being completely soullessly automated and the human component entirely stripped away into robotic actions. Maybe that is the prescient warning of the film, to not let that future come to pass, or think that it is somehow more practical and efficient to remove the unpredictable human element entirely from the functions of a society.

So, I don't think this is a film about prostitution, or particularly interested in exploring that issue as a 'real thing' outside of it being a particularly blunt example of exchanging money for services. Its a film about interactions and transactions taken to abstraction, musing on how fulfilling a life can be at that extreme, and showing how it makes the smallest moment or gesture or flicker of an expression into a major moment. Plus its about those landscapes of textures and patterns of tiles and wallpapers and painted walls inside that apartment (as well as the narrow corridor to the lift and to the street), which are all so interestingly different from each other, and feel so easy to get lost inside - it feels like it turns a simple bathroom into something terrifyingly, sublimely Kubrickian in scale (which is also what makes that sequence when Jeanne goes out to do the shopping, and thereby suddenly expands the confines of the film wider than the apartment, feel so giddying. It is how I would imagine agorophobia might feel like!)

[colinr0380]

The poster for the French cinema release on 19th April

[FrauBlucher]

I watched this. I enjoyed it as I do with most "slow cinema" as everything happens and nothing happens.

SpoilerShow

I did know something happens at the end but didn't know what. I kind of guessed it would have something to do with one of her encounters. Then when the scissors were left out as Jeanne was always about putting things away or turning things off in her very meticulous manner, I thought they would play a role and they did. It wasn't shocking to me. That final act was as emotionless as most everything else in the film except for a few slight trigger points where Jeanne becomes visibly annoyed as much as she can show any kind of emotion. Very Bressonesque

After seeing this as much as I liked it being number on the BFI is a bit surprising to me

Just few side things... My own obsession with the curtain hanging right next to the burners.Yikes... How many vegans walked out of the room or theater after the endless kneading of the chopped meat ... Upthread some commented about Jeanne not picking the shoes from the cobbler. I'm pretty sure she did. I believe that was the shop where she was waiting for the security gate to rise... I too wonder about those nightly walks. I thought maybe a church where Jeanne was asking for forgiveness perhaps

[Rayon Vert]

Something else I noticed this time around was a small but crucial element of causality. Whatever happens to her when she fucks Jacques Doniol-Valcroze does not precipitate the breakdown in her routine. That is, she doesn't start making mistakes because of some psychic disturbance that takes place during that encounter, be it an orgasm, a rape or whatever. The routine has already been disrupted because that encounter took much longer than usual, and the potatoes have been overcooked (not burnt, as she later comments that she could have mashed them, but didn't because that would have screwed with her OCD in another way by disrupting her regimented weekly menu, which called for mashed potatoes the following evening). It's the overcooking of the potatoes that causes a chain reaction that really disrupts her routine: she has to start the potatoes from scratch, doesn't have any, has to go out for more, which makes their evening meal and subsequent outing later than usual, and possibly also contributes to her radical temporal disruption the following day, making her daily rounds far earlier or later than usual. I'm glad to have noticed this, because it puts more causal weight on the character's existing, oppressive OCD than on the more sensational (and, I find, more than a little silly) Oh-My-God-She-Had-Her-First-Orgasm-And-Can't-Handle-It! explanation that Akerman seems to favour in later interviews. The two 'explanations' aren't mutually exclusive, and they're both about a woman who keeps her life formidably controlled losing control through no fault of her own.

Watching this film again on the blu-ray upgrade, that is exactly my reading as well. At some point (you say it starts with the potatoes as the triggering event), her OCD (and general psyche) starts malfunctioning - almost like a robot with the program suddenly starting to misfire. And in fact I'm tempted to interpret the orgasm as simply something that is now possible because the smoothly running rigidity that had been in place has been tampered with.

Back to potatoes... Now all we see (in a film which keeps us at bay from the characters' inner lives except through what we can interpret through observing from the outside their behaviors) is that she overcooks the potatoes and that that seems to be the 1st moment in the chain of the derailing OCD. But I'm inclined to interpret that the overcooking is a result of the OCD starting to break down - she's starting to become distracted, and the rest of the film is her becoming more and more distracted. We can speculate as to the cause of the OCD and its eventual breakdown (which is the developmental yearning or life-force, if you will, working against the self-protective defensive system that is the OCD) as being depression related to becoming a widow, and whatever other associated life events.

There's a sociological reading about her tragedy and circumstances, but the psychological one (which in the end anyway takes place within a larger social world and can only be in an intimate inter-relationship with it) is more compelling, and the film seems to prompt it more. The film's oppressive quality doesn't come across to me so much as "oh this poor woman is having to resort to prostitution to make ends meet and what a miserable life that is, and look at her tedious circumstances", than "how absolutely miserable and oppressive is such a life where your psyche leads you into this completely narrow and robotic inner and outer life". Even her concerns and psychic content (what her sister is doing in Canada, the buttons on her son's coat) are so incredibly small and narrow and poor. You can't help but think she would be better off dead - anything to get out of that prison.

This is an excruciatingly hard film to watch for me not so much because of the "boredom of nothing happening" but because we're locked for 3+ hours in the narrow world of this character whose entire identity and behavior and motivations seem to be about opening and closing doors, turning off the light whenever she leaves a room, etc.

[swo17]

Jan 23

[soundchaser]

What an odd release this is -- why duplicate Jeanne Dielman without any of the bonus features? I can't imagine it's more cost-effective on the margins to add what is surely an additional disc to this set rather than sending people to the existing one.

EDIT: I'm wrong about this missing all the bonus features, since the page has been updated to include them. Still looks to be missing one or two, unless I'm misreading. (And I still think it's an odd choice to duplicate the disc here.)

[nicolas]

With Jeanne Dielman’s inclusion, it leaves merely two discs for all the other films and bonus features. Pixelogic / NexSpec’s low-pass filter will have a field day with this set. I hate how cheap this set feels.

[dwk]

I assume the Jeanne Dielman disc will just be the current Blu-ray, with all the pre-Jeanne Dielman titles on disc 1 and the two post-Jeanne Dielman titles on disc 3.

[jheez]

Sadly, this also squashes my hopes of seeing a release of Toute une nuit any time soon, which I don't think has ever had a disc release anywhere to my knowledge. Surely for all the films included, this should be a 4 disc set.

[diamonds]

Dearly hope they keep the audio from the Eclipse DVD for Les rendez-vous d’Anna as an option. The "restored" audio sounds atrocious.

Also, looks like the link to the 'Akerman in the Seventies' Eclipse set now redirects to the page displaying Collector's Sets, where it is no longer listed.

[Jgh8xxx]

Interesting this becomes only the second Eclipse set fully upgraded to Bluray by Criterion themselves following Varda.

[dwk]

If it is arranged like I assume it will be, then the run times for the films will be
Disc 1: Films 1-6 (13 + 32 + 11 + 62 + 43 + 86) = 247 minutes

Disc 2: Jeanne Dielman = 201 minutes

Disc 3: Films 8 & 9 (89 + 127) = 216 minutes

[Ribs]

As the first film was on the extent Jeanne Dielman disc, it’s possible that will remain true, at least balancing the load a little between the discs.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I am very excited about this release, I've only seen 2 Akermans but they both struck a cord with me so deeply around my own mundanity and longing that I've been wanting to see more. Especially since this is a great price range for this set, considering it carries more films and extras (though ported from Jeanne Dielman) then the trio of films they typically release that are around this price range.

[im_online]

Sadly, this also squashes my hopes of seeing a release of Toute une nuit any time soon, which I don't think has ever had a disc release anywhere to my knowledge. Surely for all the films included, this should be a 4 disc set.

Gotta assume a vol 2 and vol 3 box set aren't too far off. A great deal of her work is available on the dark web restored and in 1080p including Toute une nuit, and some of it is streaming on Criterion Channel.

[ivuernis]

Sadly, this also squashes my hopes of seeing a release of Toute une nuit any time soon, which I don't think has ever had a disc release anywhere to my knowledge. Surely for all the films included, this should be a 4 disc set.

Got a French DVD release (now OOP), no English subs:
https://www.amazon.fr/Chantal-Akerman-G ... B000EWC34A

[Red Screamer]

Gotta assume a vol 2 and vol 3 box set aren't too far off. A great deal of her work is available on the dark web restored and in 1080p including Toute une nuit, and some of it is streaming on Criterion Channel.

Yeah, to reiterate:

I reckon Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d’Anna will also get a spine-numbered Blu at some point.

The Belgian Cinematek is finishing restorations of Akerman's complete filmography. I bet they will all come out on HD, and sooner rather than later.

Any reasonable company would capitalize on Akerman having the most press she's ever had in the past year and the not-insignificant number of new, curious viewers it has brought to her work. I imagine one won't have to settle for bootlegs too much longer. Anyway, I'm happy about this announcement, glad to have a few great films together along with some shorts I haven't had the chance to see yet!

[furbicide]

I’ve been waiting so long for an ’80s/’90s Akerman set that this release – which is about 90% previously released material from the Criterion Jeanne Dielman edition and the Eclipse set – feels kind of bittersweet.

There is some genuinely new stuff on here: L’enfant aimé was long something of a holy grail for Akerman fans, and didn’t even have English subs on backchannels until relatively recently; Le 15/8 is a pretty interesting short in its own right; and her silent unfinished early work Hanging Out Yonkers, which seems more of a curio, is here too. So, for completists, this is a must-have, though I wish there were at least a single new feature on here, say Toute une nuit. If there’s another set on the way that spans 1980–1991, or some such, I’ll be thrilled; if not, this’ll feel like a missed opportunity.

[Kracker]

Yeah it seems the Akerman Eclipse set has been removed from the Criterion website. The Varda set is still up though.

[hearthesilence]

I assume the Jeanne Dielman disc will just be the current Blu-ray, with all the pre-Jeanne Dielman titles on disc 1 and the two post-Jeanne Dielman titles on disc 3.

I'm guessing this is the case - from a manufacturing or economics standpoint, it would be the most sensible and cost-effective.

Still, I'm glad this is happening. I mentioned this back in 2015, but her friend at the Royal Belgian Film Archive announced at MoMA's annual restoration festival that they were already in the process of restoring all of her films before her unexpected passing. Many of those restorations were screened at various locations that year and in 2016, so I was hoping a home release was imminent. A bit slow, but eight years is better than never at all.

[Saturnome]

I'm hoping for "Chantal Akerman other masterpieces 1980-1994" and "Chantal Akerman we're not so sure about the rom-com one 1996-2015". Having the Eclipse and the Jeanne Dielman blu-ray doesn't make me anxious to get this for the rare shorts or the resolution upgrade, but I sure want Toute une nuit or Golden Eighties or D'est or...
The set is so complete for a specific period I'd be surprised if there are no follow ups. It isn't like the Essential Fellini or the "Here's two unrelated films together i dunno dont ask us for more" Duras release.

[furbicide]

Hope you’re right! And I think those chronological breakdowns make sense (getting everything up to Portrait of a Young Girl in Brussels and Le déménagement is the dream).

Having said that … I think there’s logic to pulling D’est out and releasing it with the other three docs it’s been packaged with in the past. Though once you do that there’s slim pickings from 1996 onwards (essentially only four fiction features plus No Home Movie). So if there were three sets and they were trying to be as complete as possible, it might make even more sense to cut off the second one after Night and Day.

I know it’s unlikely, but I kind of wish we could just get everything!