Marcel Croës was a senior correspondent; he was a close friend of Jonas Mekas – the leading figure of the Lithuanian avant-garde – and of Derek Jarman; Marcel worked as a presenter on Radio Pékin, then – taking advantage of a ‘markato’ – moved to RTBF, where he was mainly interviewed about cinema, a subject he taught at La Cambre.
How did Chantal Akerman train in filmmaking?
Chantal Akerman followed an unorthodox path. She began her studies at INSAS, one of our film schools, but very quickly — and this was very much in keeping with her temperament — she rebelled. She felt that this course, which I have no doubt was of a high standard, did not suit her. So she set up her own film school.
Like many young film enthusiasts of that era, she would wander at random through Brussels’ cinemas, which were far more numerous and better programmed back then. There she discovered the latest releases. She often spoke of the shock that Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou had on her at the age of fifteen. She then had a sudden realisation: ‘I was born for this; I was born to make films. ’ That film was the catalyst.
She naturally continued to watch a great many films of all kinds: that is how one develops one’s cinematic education, without too many criteria at the outset, because one must first watch everything. She then left INSAS and, with the courage as well as the recklessness of a beginner, set about making an entirely personal film.
What does her first film, Saute ma ville, already reveal?
At the age of eighteen, she wrote, directed and starred in Saute ma ville. This short film marks the true starting point of her filmmaking career. She cast herself in the lead role and, at the end of the film, her character takes her own life in a sort of climactic moment, by setting off an explosion in her kitchen. In hindsight, some have sought to see this as a premonition, given that she took her own life in 2015.
But Saute ma ville demonstrates, above all, her passion for independence right from the start. Chantal wanted neither a formal, academic education nor a framework that would have dictated how she should make films. It was in this spirit that she decided to set off for New York.
What did New York offer her?
New York in the early 1970s was experiencing a pivotal moment in the history of independent and personal cinema. There, Chantal met filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Michael Snow, discovered Andy Warhol’s films, read Film Culture and familiarised herself with the thinking of critics such as Annette Michelson. An extraordinary buzz reigned in the city at that time. These encounters inspired her and strengthened her desire to develop a wholly independent body of work.
New York would reappear in her filmography with News from Home, an iconic film in her autobiographical vein: in it, Chantal sets her mother’s letters to music against images of the city. Throughout her filmography, she would speak at length about herself, her family and, above all, her mother.
How has she made her mark on the European film scene?
After those formative years in New York, she returned to Belgium and, with the same boldness, set about making her first feature film: Je tu il elle. She plays one of the leading roles in the film, alongside Niels Arestrup and Claire Wauthion. It is an extremely personal film, in which she speaks of herself in an oblique yet nonetheless explicit manner: of her passions, her desires, and her relationships with others. The physical love scene with Claire Wauthion, which might seem rather tame by today’s standards, caused quite a stir at the time. Je tu il elle marked her first major statement as a filmmaker.
Then came, in 1975, the decisive turning point: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels. The term ‘career’ is ill-suited to such an independent artist; yet this film establishes its own aesthetic, style and worldview.
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Dielman runs for over three hours and depicts the daily life of a widow living with her young son. Her existence is governed by repetitive domestic chores; in the afternoons, she receives clients at home for brief moments of physical intimacy. The film thus focuses on a life that is seemingly mundane, even mind-numbing, and turns this everyday existence into the very substance of cinema.
Why Jeanne Dielman was it so unsettling?
The film rejects the classical grammar of narrative, the division into shots of varying close-up levels, and the rapid editing that links scenes together according to the conventions of narrative cinema. Chantal deliberately goes against the grain: she rejects spectacular movement and constructs her film using long, static shots. One sequence, in particular, shows Jeanne peeling potatoes. This domestic task, usually dismissed as insignificant, is here observed in its entirety.
This approach does not, however, make Jeanne Dielman merely a realistic film. Chantal borrows certain elements from realism, but she reworks reality. Under her gaze, this woman’s seemingly uninteresting existence is transformed. A growing tension arises from the duration of the shots, the repetition and the minute disruptions to the daily ritual. It leads to a dramatic climax without ever resorting to the devices of traditional dramaturgy.
The film was therefore unsettling in every respect. Upon its release, reactions ranged from bewilderment to irritation, and even mockery: both its length and its aesthetic were derided. Yet there was a kind of oblique and cruel celebration of banality, but also, implicitly, a condemnation of the servitude of a woman reduced to housework and prostitution. Gradually, astonishment gave way to interest. It became clear that this film marked a decisive moment in Chantal Akerman’s creative life. Not all her subsequent works would remain strictly faithful to this form — some would be faster-paced, lighter — but a particular way of filming and viewing the world had definitively established itself.
How can Chantal Akerman’s international influence be explained?
One might cite Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch and many others. A sort of school has formed around her cinema — not a structured or organised school, but a community of affinities, sympathies and desires. Chantal has thus become a point of reference throughout the world.
I often experienced this during my travels. Whenever I met filmmakers and film enthusiasts in Hong Kong, Australia or New Zealand, they would learn that I was Belgian and from Brussels, and would immediately ask me: ‘You’re no doubt familiar with Chantal Akerman. How is she? ’ They were eager for news. It was the same in New York, where I would meet up with her circle of friends, notably Michael Snow and Jonas Mekas, who was very close to her. Chantal stayed in touch with them, but worked mainly in Belgium.
People of all generations shared this curiosity and admiration, from young directors to legendary figures of independent cinema. From Vladivostok to Sydney, via Helsinki, I met people who knew her films, wanted to meet her and were eagerly awaiting her new works. Few Belgian filmmakers have enjoyed such widespread and spontaneous acclaim.
What role did she play within the various feminist movements?
It is important to remember that in 1975, when Jeanne Dielman was released, female directors were still relatively rare in the Western world. Many women were inspired and encouraged by Chantal’s example. She refused, however, to be pigeonholed into a single definition. Feminist movements, some of them highly militant, claimed her work as their own; she would reply that she did not wish to be reduced to the category of ‘female filmmaker’.
Female characters obviously occupy a central place in her fiction, and her perspective is the polar opposite of what is today known as the male gaze. It is never a gaze of appropriation that would reduce women to the status of objects. Her work has thus inspired a vast network: young filmmakers encouraged by her example, women who found in her a new possibility, and feminists drawn to her way of defying norms. She embodied the desire to make independent cinema, free from the criteria imposed by the Hollywood industry as well as those long defined by a predominantly male world.
Did she allow herself to be confined by the aesthetic of Jeanne Dielman?
No more than she allowed herself to be confined by any particular identity or school of thought. She directed several very different feature films and, to the surprise of some of her admirers, a musical: Golden Eighties, set in Brussels, in the Gallery of the Golden Fleece.
She also directed Les Rendez-vous d’Anna in 1978, starring Aurore Clément. It is one of her seminal films and, once again, a work in which she speaks of herself. The central character is a filmmaker who travels from capital to capital, from festival to film archive, to present her films. One can naturally see this as a projection of Chantal Akerman herself, even though the work fully retains its fictional dimension.
What memories do you have of the Belgian film week organised in Hong Kong?
This event was conceived in the 1980s by a Belgian banker based in Hong Kong who was passionate about cinema. He had raised the necessary funds and found a venue to organise a week dedicated to recent Belgian films. He asked me to put together a selection, without any cliquishness or desire to represent a particular school of thought. André Delvaux, who was already a leading figure in our cinema, Marion Hänsel and Chantal Akerman were all part of the trip.
For nearly a week, Belgian filmmakers and Hong Kong film enthusiasts gathered for the screenings. I had known Chantal for a long time, but this shared daily life allowed me to better appreciate the complexity of her personality: she could shift very quickly from joy, a sense of connection with others and a kind of elation to silence and withdrawal.
One evening, after the screening of her film, we had stayed out late with a few friends. Chantal was cheerful, joking and fully engaged in the conversation. The next morning, I rang her to suggest we meet for a coffee, but there was no answer from her room. At reception, I was told that upon returning to the hotel, she had asked for a flight to Europe at the earliest opportunity. They’d found her one at around three or four in the morning; she’d grabbed her suitcase and headed for the airport.
We’d thus seen her mood take a turn for the worse in the space of a few hours, without knowing what to attribute this sudden despondency to. This episode revealed to me, more profoundly than I’d realised until then, the fragility that coexisted within her alongside her creative energy and freedom.
How did her filmmaking evolve from there?
She turned more towards documentary — though one must immediately put that word in inverted commas, as she never adopted its conventional formulas. D’Est, inspired by a journey through the former communist countries following the fall of the Eastern bloc regimes, is undoubtedly the best-known example of this. These societies were then going through a period of upheaval: they were emerging from long years of subjugation and, amidst the confusion, were seeking a new way of life.
Chantal conducts no interviews and uses no sensational editing. She crafts a slow, meandering journey through these countries, filming people she encounters along the way – characters, silhouettes. With her characteristic sensitivity, she captures in them a sense of abandonment, loneliness, and at times despair, as well as the profound disarray of those leaving one society without yet knowing which other they will come to live in. Without heavy-handed didacticism or grandstanding, the film conveys this sense of powerlessness with extraordinary intensity.
She also expanded her creative practice to include installation art. With D’Est, au bord de la fiction, she redistributed the images from D’Est across twenty-four screens, transforming the viewer’s relationship with the film and its duration. The Marian Goodman Gallery, first in New York and later in Paris, took a particular interest in this aspect of her work and hosted her screenings and installations on several occasions. This serves as a reminder that Chantal Akerman was not merely a filmmaker: her aesthetic could unfold in other spaces, taking on other forms.
What is your view of her later works?
Her presence endures, as does the aesthetic she embodied. Among her later works, La Captive, inspired by a fragment of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, is, in my view, one of her finest films. It is a fascinating work on romantic jealousy, of extraordinary emotional intensity.
She then went on to make La Folie Almayer, based on Joseph Conrad. The film, it seems to me, faced major production and distribution difficulties. I have a feeling that these problems may have weighed heavily on her. But it was above all the death of her mother — a central figure in both her life and her cinema — that affected her deeply. Chantal Akerman took her own life in 2015.
The end of her life must not, however, overshadow her body of work. It remains extraordinarily vibrant, not only through her films, but through the freedom it continues to offer other filmmakers: the possibility of inventing one’s own grammar, of rejecting categories, and of transforming time, everyday life and the intimate into a cinematic experience.
