Straub-Huillet

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Straub and Huillet were a French couple who made films together . It consisted of Jean-Marie Straub (born January 8, 1933 in Metz ) and Danièle Huillet (born  May 1, 1936 in Paris , † October 9, 2006 in Cholet ). Some of the more than twenty films are discussed controversially.

Life

The time of the occupation of France by National Socialist Germany falls in Straub's early childhood . For Straub, this historical situation meant an early and definitely formative contact with the German language, which all pupils had to learn.

From 1954 Straub worked in Paris as an assistant to the film directors Abel Gance , Jean Renoir , Jacques Rivette , Robert Bresson and Alexandre Astruc .

In 1958 he fled to Germany to avoid being called up for military service in the Algerian war .

He spent his first years in Germany traveling - “on the trail of Bach .” He now wanted to realize his first own film project. This film was later to be called Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach . The production of the film was very tedious. The struggle for funding extended to ten years until 1969.

Huillet originally wanted to make ethnological films . After she met Straub and they formed a couple, Huillet took part in the Bach project. Since then, both people have directed the films together. There is no knowledge of a marriage .

In the early 1970s Straub and Huillet moved to Rome. From then on, the couple worked mostly in Italy, but continued to produce films in German or French.

style

Straub and Huillet are included in the New German Film . Your left-critical political films are considered difficult to access.

The style of the films is that they always play with political commitment in different ways (“toute révolution est un coup de dés” - based on Mallarmé's poem about the nature of chance), even in an opera film based on biblical motifs, such as Moses and Aron that they Holger Meins have dedicated.

All of her films are based on literary, musical or visual models that have been processed with varying degrees of rigor. Your film about Böll's billiards at half past six is considered to be the founding document of the “Young German Film”. Or as Frieda Grafe and Enno Patalas wrote: “One should read Böll's book because it has changed through Straub's film. It seems more naked and more serious because now with the last camera movement of the film it always points away from itself to Germany ”.

Straub and Huillet also had an affective relationship with cinema technology. With most films, for example, you can find out exactly which cameras, microphones and which film material they were shot with. In most cases, they have published materials and scripts separately in book form or in movie magazines.

Aesthetically, they were particularly oriented towards the dramaturgical ideas of Bertolt Brecht , for example by saying that the actor should not play his role in an illusionistic way, but that he should mark his activity as what it is: quoting. You have therefore very often worked with amateur actors who put their natural dialects in place of perfectly standardized dialogues. Nonetheless, her films are characterized by an unbelievable aesthetic rigor and formal rigor: every shot is precisely constructed, no cut is a concession to conventions. Straub sees himself as a traditionalist and has often expressed his affinity for classic filmmakers such as Kenji Mizoguchi and John Ford .

reception

Some of the films have received great recognition from (Marxist) critics, but have not become known to a wider audience.

On the part of classic narrative cinema, the films were and are often met with incomprehension. Especially in the first decades of straub-Huillet's filmmaking, the accusation of amateurism was often raised against them. A criticism based on the concept of continuity and the narrative conventions of classical cinema as a set of values ​​finds numerous breaks in the straub-Huillet cinema that it can only assess as violations of the rules.

Another point of criticism is the alleged unemotionality of the films. Lecture as well as gestures and facial expressions of the actors are expressionless, anti-dramatic and intentionally boring.

On the other hand, it can be argued that the special type of lecture is derived from the theory based on Brecht . Thus, the practice of quoting can only be understood if one accepts the theory and its claims. It is basically a rejection of the manipulative, illusionistic potential of cinema in favor of a simple and transparent representation. Straub's commitment to Brecht's alienation effect is also a rejection of professional actor virtuosity.

The actors are not supposed to fake false emotions. If your presentation becomes emotional, however, this emotion does not appear in the film as the author's intention, but rather as a real one - or to put it in cinematic terms: documentary. The emotionality of the viewer should also not be subject to the author's plan. The films do not aim to consciously evoke an emotional reaction from the audience. Rather, the viewer is allowed to react freely and freely. What was said about Bresson's films also applies here : These films are unemotional so that the viewer can be emotional.

The last joint film by Straub and Huillet, Quei loro incontri , was part of the competition at the 63rd Venice Film Festival 2006. At the festival, Straub and Huillet were awarded a special prize “for the invention of cinematic language in their entirety.” This was rated as Late recognition of the film industry in the person of Jury President Catherine Deneuve . But at the award ceremony there was a scandal: Straub and Huillet were not present, instead one of the actors read a statement written by Straub. It said that as long as there was American imperialist capitalism, there could never be enough terrorists in the world. The statement caused protests at the festival and in the Italian press. The jury discussed withdrawing the award. Defenders of the straub-Huilletschen cinema point out that Straub's private, polemical statements should not influence the appreciation of the cinematic work.

Filmography

Publications

  • Jean-Marie Straub: Letter to the Export Union. 1975, as a facsimile in: Hans Helmut Prinzler , Eric Rentschler (Eds.): The old film was dead. 100 texts on West German films 1962–1987. Verlag der Autor , Frankfurt 2001 ISBN 3-88661232-5 , p. 64:
  • Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub: Writings . Edited by Tobias Herold et al., Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-9472-3819-4 .

To individual films

  • Minutes of and photos from The Bridegroom, the Comedian and the Pimp , in: Filmkritik , issue of October 1968.
  • Introduction to the television performance of Othon , in: Filmkritik , issue 169 from January 1971. - In the same issue also excerpts from a conversation with Huillet / Straub.
  • Minutes of the settings and texts from the introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's music accompanying a movie scene , in: Filmkritik , issue 194 from February 1973. - In the same issue also a conversation with Huillet / Straub about history lessons .
  • Script for and numerous illustrations from Moses and Aron , in: Filmkritik , issue from May / June 1975. - In the same issue also several other material on the film, including a work journal by Gregory Woods and a report on the Vienna sound recordings by Michael Gielen .
  • Danièle Huillet: Appunti sul giornale di lavorazione di Gregory , in: Filmkritik , issue of September 1975 (these are additions to the Gregory Woods work journal in the issue of May / June 1975).
  • The German subtitles by Fortini / Cani , in: Filmkritik , issue 241 from January 1977. - In the same issue also a letter from Franco Fortini to Jean-Marie Straub as well as questions / answers from a press conference on the film in Pesaro.
  • Dalla nube alla resistenza - From the cloud to resistance - Description and texts with 86 illustrations, in: Filmkritik , Issue 287 from November 1980. - Editing of the descriptions: Andrea Spingler, Manfred Blank, Helmut Färber. Translation of the texts from Italian by Danièle Huillet and Andrea Spingler.
  • Antigone - Sophocle / Hölderlin / Brecht , arranged in 147 film settings by Jean-Marie Straub (German / French). Éditions Ombres, Toulouse 1992, ISBN 2-905964-68-5 .
  • Screenplay for and numerous images from From Today to Tomorrow , in: Schönberg / Blonda / Huillet / Straub - From Today to Tomorrow - Opera / Music / Film . Vorwerk 8, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-930916-16-9 . - Also contains a conversation between Artem Demenok and Robert Bramkamp with Huillet / Straub.

literature

Overall presentations (in chronological order)

  • Richard Roud: Jean-Marie Straub. Secker & Warburg, London 1971.
  • Peter W. Jansen , Wolfram Schütte (eds.): Herzog, Kluge, Straub. Hanser, Munich 1976.
  • Angela Summereder: The German-language films by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. Dissertation at the University of Vienna, Vienna 1992.
  • Viennale 2004: The fruits of anger and tenderness - retrospective Danièle Huillet / Jean-Marie Straub and selected films by John Ford , director: Hans Hurch , concept and text selection: Astrid Johanna Ofner, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901770-15-1 . In it u. a .:
    • Tag Gallagher: Lacrimae rerum materialized (English),
    • Jacques Bontemps, Mindfulness of the Straubs ,
    • Conversation with Huillet / Straub (2001, English),
    • Texts about the individual films.
  • Ursula Böser: The Art of Seeing, the Art of Listening: The Politics of Representation in the Work of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2004.
  • Ted Fendt (Eds.): Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet , FilmmuseumSynemaPublications Volume 26, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-901644-64-1 .

Mentions in encyclopedias etc. (in chronological order)

To individual films

Othon

  • Marguerite Duras : Reference to the film, originally published in: Politique Hebdo , No. 15/1971, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 68-69 (translated from the French by Johannes Beringer).
  • Hartmut Bitomsky : The near and the far , in: Die Röte des Rots by Technicolor , Luchterhand, Neuwied and Darmstadt 1972, pp. 44–46.

history class

  • Hartmut Bitomsky: History lessons - since its creation / A film and its commercial censorship , in: Filmkritik , Issue No. 209 from May 1974. - In the same issue Straub also selected excerpts from Klaus Völkers Brecht Chronicle .
  • Rainer Rother : Fifty-five settings on the story , originally published in: Filmwärts , No. 9/1987, republished in: The fruits of Zorns und der Zärtlichkeit , pp. 71–74.

Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's music accompanying a film scene

  • Peter Nau : "Threatening danger, fear, catastrophe" , in: Filmkritik , issue from March 1978.

Moses and Aron

  • Wolfram Schütte: Pictures collect music , originally published in: Frankfurter Rundschau of March 28, 1975, as well as excerpts from a conversation between Schütte and Michael Gielen, originally published under the title A film about the presence and the powerlessness of the people in: epd church and Film No. 5/1975, both republished in: The fruits of Zorns und der Zärtlichkeit , pp. 77–80 and pp. 81–83.

Toute révolution is a coup de dés

Dalla nube alla resistenza

  • Film review , issue 288 from December 1980:
    • Franco Fortini: Why a film helps to understand what has happened in the last twenty years. And what should be (translated from Italian by Andrea Spingler),
    • Jérôme Prieur: review of the film (translated from French by Manfred Blank),
    • Mythology and Resistance . Protocol of a doctoral colloquium by Klaus Heinrich at the Institute for Religious Studies at the Free University of Berlin.
  • Frieda Grafe : Zwiesprachen (also on Toute révolution est un coup de dés ), originally in: Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 30, 1979, republished in: Film für Film , Schriften, Volume 9, Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3- 922660-95-9 , pp. 179-182.

Trop tôt, trop tard (Too early / Too late)

  • Serge Daney: Where the Straubs make a country party , originally published in: Liberation of February 20, 1982, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 93-95 (translated from the French by Johannes Beringer).

The death of Empedocles

  • Conversation by Hans Hurch and Stephan Settele with Huillet / Straub, originally published in: Falter , No. 44, 1987, as well as conversation by Harun Farocki with Andreas von Rauch (actor of Empedocles), originally published in: Stadtkino-Programm , No. 121 , 1987, both republished in: Die Frucht des Zorns und der Zärtlichkeit , pp. 104-108.

Paul Cezanne

  • Conversation between Peter Kammerer and Huillet / Straub, originally published in: Frankfurter Rundschau of March 9, 1980, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 112–113.

Antigone

  • Peter Handke : Kinonacht, Kinotiernacht , originally published in: The time of November 13, 1992, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 115–119.

Lorraine!

  • Frieda Grafe: Letter to Huillet / Straub, in: Film für Film , Schriften, Volume 9, Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-922660-95-9 , pp. 298-300.
  • Rainer Rother: Die Germanische Flut ... , originally published in: Filmwärts , No. 32 from December 1994, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 120–121.

Sicilia!

  • Emmanuel Burdeau: Reconciled , originally published in: Cahiers du cinéma , No. 538 of September 1999, republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 126–130.
  • Frieda Grafe: An den Quellen der Mundart , originally in: Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 16, 1999, republished in: Film für Film , Schriften, Volume 9, Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-922660-95-9 , p 255-257.

Une visite au Louvre

  • Jean-Charles Fitoussi: Marble has bled , originally published in: La lettre du cinéma , No. 26, 2004, and Jean Louis Schefer: A wild love for painting , originally published in: Les inrockuptibles , No. 433 of March 17th 2004, both republished in: The fruits of anger and tenderness , pp. 138–142.
  • Rochelle Fack, Cédric Venail: On dirait un Straub , in: TRAFIC , no.51 from autumn 2004 (French).

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ a b Gerhard R. Koch : Thin out what is economical. Passionate asceticism: the filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub for his seventieth. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 6 of January 8, 2003, p. 36.
  2. ↑ In enWP 1959 is named as the year of marriage.