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Fragments from 'Cinéma de notre temps'
Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman

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l think our admiration...

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...for people like Chaplin, Griffith,
Von Stroheim...

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Chantal Akerman
by Chantal Akerman

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Recently l met Janine Bazin
and André Labarthe.

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They asked me to do portrait
on a contemporary film maker.

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I said: 'Why not? '
And I came up with a number of names.

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They said they'd already been done.

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So, as a joke, I said I'd make
a documentary about myself.

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And they were fine with that.

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I told myself...

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...that if I were to portray myself
as a contemporary film maker...

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...it would be like making a self-portrait.

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The best way to make
such a self-portrait...

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...is to let my old films
do the talking.

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As if they are unedited versions.

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I would show those
as if they were a new film...

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...which would really form
a portrait of myself.

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When I suggested it, they said:
You'd have to be in it.

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You have to talk about yourself.

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That's where the trouble started.

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I wrote it all down,
because l can't explain it just like that.

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I'll read it to you.

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I wrote the following: Judging
your own work leads to questions...

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...about acting, documentary, fiction,
time, truth and thus film.

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Someone else
would have had it easier.

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As if it's true what a film maker
says about his own work.

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As if that shows you why he started
filming and why he continues.

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As if the face, silence, body and smile
of a director...

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...say more about his work.

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I can't do that.

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I did try something else,
which was a lot of work.

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I'm simply going to read you
several fragments.

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When l'm done
with what l'm about to read you...

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I finally returned to my first idea,
after having made a giant detour...

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...and came to the conclusion
that my first plan had been the right one.

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First attempt at a self-portrait.

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I appeal to your willingness...

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...to accept
that I'm an unreliable story teller.

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I also come to the discouraging
realization that honesty is artificial.

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You're always afraid
before starting something.

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It gives you butterflies.
And this only gets worse over time.

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I'm not afraid of making this film,
but my mind is completely blank.

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It's worse than being
between two films...

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...and wondering how I was able
to make my previous films.

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"They were made by someone else,
I can't do it."

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"I don't know what I want. Leave me be."
And they leave me be.

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When they ask about my next project,
they do so out of interest.

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I have certain habits and you can't
shake them, especially the bad ones.

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But I have to keep making films.
Keep going and don't look back.

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Or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.

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Plus I have signed a contract.
It has a starting date and a deadline...

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...and financial clauses

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It's a trade-off. A film about Chantal
Akerman in exchange for money.

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I always serve out a contract.

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I wonder what I want to show
and what would interest other people.

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And who are those other people?

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I don't know what l want them to see...

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...and I don't want them to see me
as I am.

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Which is what I used to do in my films.
On the contrary.

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It's probably because of my age.

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Why did I mention myself when Janine
and André first made their proposal...

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...for Cinéma de Notre Temps?

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A joke, a provocation, a front,
I felt good or bad.

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I wanted to challenge the whole world,
but the world doesn't care.

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In school, I challenged the teachers,
which lead to problems.

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No matter how I feel,
l don't want to challenge anyone.

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I don't want anything
and I can't decide anything.

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Every day, I get up early to think about
how I'm going to do this.

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I need a shape, a concept.
Then I can easily fill in the rest.

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Then I can appeal to my subconscious.
That's easy too.

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I make sure there's no distractions.

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From my computer,
I look across the street.

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A women is doing Tai Chi
on her balcony.

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If I did that too, I'd be less tense and
I'd have thought of something by now.

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The tension is a problem.
It must go.

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It's only a film
and it always starts out this way.

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I just start with the middle.

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Then I write the beginning.
The end simply flows from the middle.

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At least it's a nice day.
Why do I say that?

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Maybe that's the middle.
She does Tai Chi in the rain too.

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My next film can be about someone
who does Tai Chi all the time.

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I have a character
and the weather doesn't matter.

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It has to be a funny film
that is just as wholesome as Tai Chi.

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After walking the dog, I feel relaxed.

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I go to my computer and say:
Now or never.

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I leave out the word 'never',
otherwise I'll never start.

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So I repeat: 'Now' and add 'maybe'.
Thank goodness.

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I gave myself a chance,
but nothing happened.

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Yesterday, I spoke to someone
about what I had to do. She said:

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Its about how you see the world
and film.

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I was amazed and said:
That's right, she is so right.

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Suddenly I understood and said:

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One more time.

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I said to myself:
That's it, she is so right.

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At that moment I suddenly understood
how it all worked.

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It had become clear to me.

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I, contemporary film maker...
That would be the beginning.

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I, contemporary film maker.

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This time, lost time.
It ends with 'the time that's ours'. No.

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That's not the end. What was it
that l briefly understood yesterday?

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What was it?
Why am I so forgetful?

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I'd seen a film someone else made
about himself and it scared me.

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I must think of something, so that later I
can say that it was good and interesting.

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How do I take an interest in me?

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There is a Jewish joke about someone
who is penniless...

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...and has to go and sell his last cow
on the market.

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He goes to the market
and tries to sell his skinny cow.

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He says, very softly: Look here,
my cow is a cow, is a cow, is a cow.

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Everyone else praises their cows loudly.

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All cows are sold, except for his.
He stays behind with his cow.

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The salesmen next to him asks:
Ankle, why didn't you sell your cow?

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Ankle say: I guess she's too skinny.
The other guy says: You don't get it.

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He shouts:
Look, this cow makes beautiful films.

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She's not afraid of anything.

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He shouts good and bad things
to seduce the crowd.

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Ankle says: If she's is that good,
why would I sell her?

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Fortunately she's sold by then
or we'd be back where we started.

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I love it when someone else
talks about my films.

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They know my cow is too skinny, but
because of them I love her anyway.

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I love her in spite of it,
even because of it.

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I don't mind if he's not honest.
It's what l want to hear.

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The others were bought sooner.

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The other person made me love my cow.
Now I can love myself.

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I can love him too
and my cow inside him.

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What did he say
to make me love my cow? The following:

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She started at 18
and wasn't ashamed of anything.

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She didn't realize it would be hard
for a girl in Brussels...

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...where nobody cared one bit.

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But Chantal thought
they were interesting.

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If they wanted to forget the past,
because they had nothing to say...

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...Chantal would talk about this nothing.

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When her friend wouldn't play in her film
she did it her self.

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She did that because she was tough.

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She doesn't want to buy that cow.
On the contrary.

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She's not happy she started so young.
She's not proud.

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She notices that she wasn't ashamed.
She compares it to how it is now.

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Am I shameless enough?
The answer is obvious. Much less.

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Now she's no longer the teenager
that doesn't think. Not thinking is easy.

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For years she didn't.
Few people watched her films...

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...she didn't ask for money. The films
were cheap and no one watched them.

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It was simple.

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Afte Jeanne Dielman it became
complicated. And yet she continued.

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That's not what the cow trader will say.

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He talks of language, documentary,
Jews and the second commandment.

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He says: She was born in Belgium,
from Polish Jews...

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...and this shows in her films.
She talked about it.

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About the second commandment,
which made her film from the front.

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Of course, she would love to
escape this image.

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She resists it and herself.
She fights against repetition.

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The repetition of 'woman',
'second generation Jew'...

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...the repetition of 'woman',
'burlesque music' and 'comedy'.

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He remembers what she said.

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I make films because writing
was too big a challenge.

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He doesn't believe it. She makes films
because she makes films.

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And up to a point that is true.

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The other person seems well informed.
And he is.

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But he senses things too.
I will explain.

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Someone says: So you can simply start
making films?

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Without knowing anything about it
or loving film?

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The other person thinks
and suddenly says enthusiastically:

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There was a maternal grandmother.

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IL confirm that. I interrupt him and say:
Yes, she was a painter.

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I'd love to find her works,
but they disappeared in the storm.

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I think she painted when she was
in hiding, but l'm probably wrong.

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Still, like to think that. In hiding.

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In a religious environment
you can't make images.

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She wrote a diary when she was
not yet eighteen years old.

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She wrote in Polish that she could only
put her intimate thoughts in a diary.

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Because she was a woman.

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So I tell myself, and I like to think this,
even if it isn't true:

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Because she wrote that,
I didn't have think at all.

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I never told myself:
I'm a woman, therefore...

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Whatever.

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One day I asked my mother
what was in the paintings.

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The first thing she said
was that they were big canvasses.

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I liked it when she said
that they were big canvasses.

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She was calm and forceful.

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I repeated it in the same way:
Very big canvasses.

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Almost nothing else needed to be said.
I didn't ask anything else that day.

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Another day I did ask
what was on those big canvasses.

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I don't remember much,
because I was young.

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I do remember that there were women
on those canvasses.

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Faces. Faces that were looking at me,
my mother said.

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And that was it.

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Self-portrait
in order of appearance