ENCHANTING AND ALOOF: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman

Note: this piece on Chantal Akerman is informed by only the films that I was able to find at the time, made available by New Yorker Video. Although today her signature film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai De Commerce 1080 Bruxelles is now available from Criterion, it was very hard to find when this was published, and therefore was discussed only in its unavailability. I decided to leave that as is, to give an idea of how hard it was to find films for research in those days. The absence of it haunts this piece, rather fittingly, much as absences seem to haunt many of her films.

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In today’s watershed of visual overload, it is becoming increasingly harder to find anything more in cinema that is diverting. After you’ve seen a few thousand films you get de-sensitized by the image. Few things end up surprising you, and more things end up disappointing you. Only in rare instances in the past few years can I say I have seen anyone’s work that makes me believe in cinema again: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Ernie Gehr… and now, the work of this truly unique filmmaker, Chantal Akerman.

Chantal Akerman was born in 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. It is a well-documented fact that her interest in cinema began once she saw Godard’s Pierrot Le Feu in 1965. Although she enrolled in film school, she quickly left, considering she could be spending time instead making her own works. In the 1970s, she immigrated to New York, where she became interested in structural film and associated with its movers such as Michael Snow. One could quickly associate these biographical fragments into her work, and while it would not be incorrect to do so, it would be limiting her field of vision to such a narrow frame. One could say how Godardian her films are, or “Oh yes, I can see the influence of Snow here”, but her biggest link to Godard would be that film she first saw. Godard’s film is at once a film noir, musical and Vietnam allegory. Pierrot Le Feu is Akerman in life: her chameleon-like, eclectic approaches to film form and language. 

After 30-plus years of filmmaking, Akerman continues to be prolific. A dozen of her titles are available on video, and with the glaring omission of Jeanne Dielman, there is a good presentation of her career highlights. Her first film, Saute ma ville (collected in Akermania Volume One on the World Artists video label), was a student short made at the age of eighteen. It is unique for being the sole film that feels improvised. Basically, the camera follows Akerman herself, making pasta, duct taping herself inside her apartment, shoe polishing her leg and squirting toothpaste on herself. It is the vintage student film, filled with post-sync sound effects and her humming, spontaneous in nature, playful and innocent. As much as Akerman would resent the feminist implications that people would attach to her work, I don’t know what else to make of this film but to read it as a metaphor for the uncomfortable crossing of the bridge from childhood to womanhood. It is a possible conclusion, considering the film ends with a bang (without giving too much away). Little of the future director is in evidence, save for a notion of minimalism with a long stretch of black leader leaving the visuals to the imagination. Also, in foreshadowing The Eighties, the final credits are spoken (presumably by Akerman)- giving the work a personal touch.

Akerman would soon to immigrate to New York, and would begin one of the several interesting stages in her career. Hotel Monterey (1972), also collected on Akermania Volume One began her non-narrative phase.  It is an exploration of the hotel, with long passages down hallways, unbroken sequences going up and down the elevator, interspersed with tenants posing for the camera. As in her future work, you are constantly reminded you are watching a film. People look at the camera repeatedly, especially during the elevator sequence. A slow dolly down a hallway suddenly turns into an exploration of the zoom lens. Like the works of Michael Snow and his kin, Akerman has taken a structuralist approach- it becomes less an exploration of an environment than an exploration of the camera’s intrusion in that environment. Structuralist films invariably become studies of a particular property of the filmmaking process.

Her first feature, Je Tu Il Elle (1974), is also her first film to play with narrative structure. (I do not include Saute ma ville because it is more spontaneously driven.) It is a film in three spare sequences. The first features Akerman (as the “je”), in an empty apartment, spending days writing and re-writing a letter (“tu”). The narration is diary-like, chronicling the number of days, and the monotonous routines that occur even in this minimal environment (her writing, moving a mattress around, her sugar diet). “I wrote six pages to say the same thing” is representative dialogue.

Suddenly, the scene shifts to an extreme long shot of Akerman at the side of the highway during a hazy overcast. This begins the second movement, as a trucker (“il”) picks her up. He is a ruddy, blue-collar man who drinks beer in one big gulp (she in little sips). There is no onscreen dialogue until when he gives her instructions on masturbating him. After that, there is one long take where the driver talks about his wife and his kids. The “il” sequence ends on an ambiguous scene with him shaving in a bathroom. Suddenly, this driver appears to be rather dashing!

The final third begins with her buzzing an apartment (“it’s me”). A woman (“elle”) answers the door. “I don’t want you to say”, she says. They embrace. “I’m hungry,” Akerman replies. Then there is a long take of her eating, and a long take of the two women making love. In the morning, Akerman gets up to leave. The end.

There are several styles that are indicative of her work in this debut effort. Her calling card is perhaps the use of real time in single takes. This would make many viewers restless (especially those who would discount her three-hour, real-time follow-up, Jeanne Dielman, which chronicles three hours in the live of a woman, culminating in a shocking resolution), but I find this form highly addicting. The use of a single take is not necessarily an improvisatory notion, where one leaves the frame wide to study what the character will do unscripted (I am convinced this film was meticulously written). Rather, Akerman’s use of this device is to force viewers to study the relationships on the screen. As one looks longer at the frame, one begins to understand its properties, and how this device relates to the central character. In the long take in the restaurant, where she and the trucker are in a booth watching TV, or even in a bar sequence where he is among acquaintances, she always seems to be pushed off to the frame edge. During unbroken sequences inside the truck, she is offscreen entirely. Once one realizes what is happening in the plot, this artistic choice begins to make sense. It is evident that her character does not feel comfortable in this situation. We realize this sequence is just a ploy for her to get to her lover.  When she nonchalantly masturbates the trucker- the screen is also devoid of passion, in that she is offscreen.

Another use of the single take is Akerman’s way of clinically observing the situation onscreen. With her “narrative” films, her use of the camera as an intruder has ceased. Instead, her linear films become seemingly candid. Also, there exists a common Akerman-esque property where scenes are separated with overlong stretches of black leader. This is not merely a budget-conscious editing device, rather it is a way of putting the temporal logic of film at bay. With sequences being broken up, and for that matter being highlighted when they are bracketed with black, we are uncertain of the time that passes from one sequence to another, and we are purposely frustrated in understanding their connection to each other.

Perhaps another facet she learned from Godard is what he refers to as “the moments between the plot”. In Godard, the story soon becomes frustrated, even forgotten- just a springboard for him to run with his ideas. In Akerman, what we presume to be the main story is quickly explained away, often in narration, so she can then spend the duration of the film studying the implicit characterizations and their routines.

A trend in her characters is that they tend to operate on their basest of instincts- the spare dialogue in her films often correlate to their hierarchy of needs: “I’m hungry”, “I’m cold” (is it any wonder a later film was entitled just that?). Akerman has adapted a near-Bressonian minimalist use of dialogue in her work. The speech is condensed to the marrow- telling one very little, but everything.

Sadly, her next film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai De Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1975), is unavailable for home video. But it was this film that consolidated her reputation (or her notoriety, depending on one’s viewing sensibilities).  It was popular in Europe, but did little business in North America. Hopefully, this piece will be made more accessible in the near future. It certainly seems to be a strong indication of her style.

After the cool reception of that film, Akerman returned to non-narrative cinema with News from Home (1976), which may be her masterpiece. This piece belongs on a short list of films like Joyce Wieland’s Reason over Passion or Ernie Gehr’s Signal- Germany on the Air, which are travelogues on the surface, yet reveal other properties which distance one from its onscreen location.  Akerman’s film is merely a collection of scenes from New York, while on the soundtrack, she reads letters from her mother in Brussels. The narration of family happenings gets lost in the wild sound of the onscreen activity. For this film, Akerman seems to have chosen the loneliest possible places in the city. These spare visuals, with the muted soundtrack seem to create a film that is rootless. This is a virtue she shares with Gehr, whose soundtracks have nothing whatever to do with what is onscreen, thereby suspending all feeling of time and space. This suits New From Home, as this odd combination of voice (her Belgian background) and image (her new York emigration) creates an essay of alienation; they blur together- neither is concrete, neither is home. Like Wieland’s film, the exterior landscape comments on the interior landscape: identity. The feeling of alienation increases with the blatant positioning of the camera in crowded environments- as footage of people staring quizzically at the camera (in subways, on streets) make the viewer (the camera, the filmmaker) feel uneasy, like an intruder. The film ends with a gorgeous long take- a rear view of a ferry leaving the island of Manhattan. Slowly, we see the city disappear into uncertain grey. The filmmaker is going home.

Albeit, not right away and not in the title role. In Les rendezvous d’Anna, Aurore Clement plays a filmmaker who is travelling across Europe to promote her film. As could be expected, not once do we see her discuss her work. Instead, this piece is merely a chronicle of the transient strangers who pass in and out of her lonely life on the road. The film is filled with long track shots inside railroads. Anna is always on the move.

This film actually is the first to have more than just a one-sided conversation; people talk about personal things, albeit on different terms. When we see people onscreen talking of their divorce, their past loves, we are sometimes unaware Anna is even in the same location, until eventually she does enter the frame. Heartfelt conversations are often made during images seen from windows, greetings are composed in long shots, and even very personal confessions are framed in two-shots, where neither person faces the other (this one would be a much used device). Everyone in this film reaches out for love, yet are too swept up in his or her lives to acquire it. The sole moments of intimacy occur when Anna strips and tries to make love to Daniel (but he is too tired and frustrated), and during a scene with her mother (again in a two-shot where neither looks at the other), she confesses of an encounter with a woman.  

Akerman has developed her mastery of the single take. We always feel like we’ve casually walked into someone else’s lives. This is due to where she discreetly places the non-obtrusive camera, but also in her writing. She deliberately does not explain the relationship between the characters in the traditional Hollywood way of early giveaway dialogue. We begin to understand it in a more meaningful way, as they slowly progress in their relationship- just like life. For instance, in that great scene in the hotel with Anna and Daniel, much of it is done in a single shot of their reflections on the balcony glass door. We are casually experiencing these people, probing to understand them. The final shot is of Anna in bed listening to a plethora of phone messages; many of them instructing her of her next appearances in her lonely life. “The moments between the plot…”

Perhaps no other of her films contains so many images that are geometrically perfect. There are many shots (inside train stations, for instance) in which the frame is symmetrically designed. It adds to the pervasive loneliness that is of these characters that populate her frame.

With this handful of films, it is understandable (yet unfair) that Akerman has been considered a cold filmmaker. If anything, her work is very feeling; they are very moving studies of loneliness and identity. But the 1980s proved a decade in which this director “lightened up” a bit.

In 1984, she made a short film entitled I’m Hungry I’m Cold (collected on Akermania Volume One), in which two young women from Brussels come to France for a life experience. As the title indicates, their impulses are constrained to their basic needs. However, they go through the film talking in similarly mechanical dialogue, said quickly and without emotion. This is almost Bressonian, but nonetheless the girls play the roles rather buoyantly, as thought they were in a revue, and the dialogue is a seeming chorus. In fact, when Pascale loses her virginity at the end of the film you hear a sudden yell once the hymen has been broken, but nothing more- certainly no sounds of pleasure. This movie seems to be about two women who want to speed through life, acquiring as many experiences as they can, almost as rhythmically as a relay race. “Okay that’s done- onto the next”.

In the 1980s Chantal Akerman made a pair of films: The Eighties and Window Shopping. (The latter’s actual translation is The Golden Eighties, thus further illustrating that these films go together.) The Eighties is basically a feature-length casting tape; something that every video jockey in the world has witnessed more than once. It is fun to see these pieces back to back, as Window Shopping is broken down into fragments in the prior film. Actresses are being directed from offscreen how to enunciate dialogue (“Robert, I’d rather die than lose him”). We see a gallery of faces, of various heritage, walking down a representative hallway to music, different voices trying out the songs, bit players being coached on looking offscreen (“she doesn’t see you”), being told to look happy, sing to camera, different feet walking across the floor, silently letting a phone ring, “You’re fed up; exasperated”, being conducted in a sound booth. This is filmmaking at the ground level. One could say that Akerman is being structuralist with commercial product- where she deconstructs a commercial film and studies how even the smallest pieces fit into its making. Also, she is actually showing the magic of the movies.  These casting sequences are shot in pale blues, a drab contrast to the sparkling colour of the next sequence.

Akerman’s mastery of the long take graduates to the next level, with her impeccable choreography for the camera. In a candy-coloured diner, a woman sings behind a counter, people in the wall-length mirror enter the shop, another woman enters the foreground and another man enters the frame in a mirror reflection. In a second shot, she gives sodas and drinks to new people pouring in , and then she confronts the camera.

Cut to Part 2, “Projet”.  This becomes a balletic sequence, with a long take inside the salon, men hopping into chairs to an 80’s synth beat while the lead singer muses: “Lily you took him from me!” The next sequence, “The 80’s”, is set in a clothing store, where we see a close-up of shoes in the dressing room.  “Is that you?” another woman asks, and sees two people get friendly in the dressing room.  She then walks from the store to the food court and everyone dances.  Then they stop and look at the camera. Suddenly, we are back into the real world, with a long pan of the blue hazy city, as Akerman reads us the credits and acknowledgements.  “See you next year”, she says.

Window Shopping is a 1980s version of an old fashioned musical, opening on feet crossing a floor just as The Eighties did. As we progress, we are delighted to see these odd fragments come to life. It is very entertaining, but Akerman the experimentalist does rear her head if we consider the films as one. She is once again reminding you that this is a movie not always easy to lose oneself in, because we have seen the mechanical process that leads up to the magic.

Window Shopping has more plot than any Akerman film: Robert, the young son of boutique owners M. and Mme. Schwartz, loves Lili, and is oblivious to Mado’s love for him. Lili meanwhile is kept by the gangster M. Jean, and Eli comes to the hop and discovers that Mme. Schwartz, Jeanne, is his old flame from the war. (In a sly reference to Jeanne Dielman, Akerman has cast that film’s star, Delphine Seyrig, as Jeanne.) In between the busy moments of the plot, there is modern version of a Greek quartet, as men at the soda stand sing, barbershop-style. This movie is a lot of fun- one almost thinks that this is the film Akerman had been working up to. All of her devices are still at work here: the long take (of course), the camera as character (people sing right into it), and even though the story is busy, one enters it as though it was chanced upon. The rhythmic dialogue of I’m Hungry seems a dry run for this film. But it is a perfect musical for the 80s: despite the love triangle formula, people still squabble over interest rates.

The final film in this piece, Night and Day (1991), finds Akerman in mainstream filmmaking. Yet despite its commercial appeal (beautifully shot, conventional plot- Julie betrays Jack for Joseph), it still is prime Akerman in theory: these people have but one basic instinct- sex; the dialogue is also spare and sometimes constrained to basic needs; and this film is once again about the moments between the plot. All the story one needs is explained away in the narration: even pivotal points such as her betrayal and the final decision. It starts off excitingly, with its playful energy, but it soon becomes a sour film. Prior films by the director are about people reaching for love- this one is about the ugly things people do once they have it. On its own that is a point worth exploring, but it becomes a disappointingly dull piece.

In the 1990s, Akerman did another commercial film, A Couch in New York, featuring William Hurt and Juliette Binoche, which followed Night and Day’s mainstream sensibilities and flopped. In 1999, Akerman returned to documentary with Sud. Perhaps this is an indication that she will always be evolving. One anticipates continuing to be challenged, mesmerized, surprised and delighted by her work to come.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #3. In 2000, Chantal Akerman made the Marcel Proust adaptation La Captive. After several other features and documentaries, Ms. Akerman sadly passed away in 2015. New Yorker Films declared bankruptcy in 2009. As a result, much of their former catalogue remains hard to find. I’ve long meant to do a “sequel” to this article, including, you guessed it, Jeanne Dielman.