Fragments from 'Cinéma de notre temps' Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman
l think our admiration...
...for people like Chaplin, Griffith, Von Stroheim...
Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman
Recently l met Janine Bazin and André Labarthe.
They asked me to do portrait on a contemporary film maker.
I said: 'Why not? ' And I came up with a number of names.
They said they'd already been done.
So, as a joke, I said I'd make a documentary about myself.
And they were fine with that.
I told myself...
...that if I were to portray myself as a contemporary film maker...
...it would be like making a self-portrait.
The best way to make such a self-portrait...
...is to let my old films do the talking.
As if they are unedited versions.
I would show those as if they were a new film...
...which would really form a portrait of myself.
When I suggested it, they said: You'd have to be in it.
You have to talk about yourself.
That's where the trouble started.
I wrote it all down, because l can't explain it just like that.
I'll read it to you.
I wrote the following: Judging your own work leads to questions...
...about acting, documentary, fiction, time, truth and thus film.
Someone else would have had it easier.
As if it's true what a film maker says about his own work.
As if that shows you why he started filming and why he continues.
As if the face, silence, body and smile of a director...
...say more about his work.
I can't do that.
I did try something else, which was a lot of work.
I'm simply going to read you several fragments.
When l'm done with what l'm about to read you...
I finally returned to my first idea, after having made a giant detour...
...and came to the conclusion that my first plan had been the right one.
First attempt at a self-portrait.
I appeal to your willingness...
...to accept that I'm an unreliable story teller.
I also come to the discouraging realization that honesty is artificial.
You're always afraid before starting something.
It gives you butterflies. And this only gets worse over time.
I'm not afraid of making this film, but my mind is completely blank.
It's worse than being between two films...
...and wondering how I was able to make my previous films.
"They were made by someone else, I can't do it."
"I don't know what I want. Leave me be." And they leave me be.
When they ask about my next project, they do so out of interest.
I have certain habits and you can't shake them, especially the bad ones.
But I have to keep making films. Keep going and don't look back.
Or you'll turn into a pillar of salt.
Plus I have signed a contract. It has a starting date and a deadline...
...and financial clauses
It's a trade-off. A film about Chantal Akerman in exchange for money.
I always serve out a contract.
I wonder what I want to show and what would interest other people.
And who are those other people?
I don't know what l want them to see...
...and I don't want them to see me as I am.
Which is what I used to do in my films. On the contrary.
It's probably because of my age.
Why did I mention myself when Janine and André first made their proposal...
...for Cinéma de Notre Temps?
A joke, a provocation, a front, I felt good or bad.
I wanted to challenge the whole world, but the world doesn't care.
In school, I challenged the teachers, which lead to problems.
No matter how I feel, l don't want to challenge anyone.
I don't want anything and I can't decide anything.
Every day, I get up early to think about how I'm going to do this.
I need a shape, a concept. Then I can easily fill in the rest.
Then I can appeal to my subconscious. That's easy too.
I make sure there's no distractions.
From my computer, I look across the street.
A women is doing Tai Chi on her balcony.
If I did that too, I'd be less tense and I'd have thought of something by now.
The tension is a problem. It must go.
It's only a film and it always starts out this way.
I just start with the middle.
Then I write the beginning. The end simply flows from the middle.
At least it's a nice day. Why do I say that?
Maybe that's the middle. She does Tai Chi in the rain too.
My next film can be about someone who does Tai Chi all the time.
I have a character and the weather doesn't matter.
It has to be a funny film that is just as wholesome as Tai Chi.
After walking the dog, I feel relaxed.
I go to my computer and say: Now or never.
I leave out the word 'never', otherwise I'll never start.
So I repeat: 'Now' and add 'maybe'. Thank goodness.
I gave myself a chance, but nothing happened.
Yesterday, I spoke to someone about what I had to do. She said:
Its about how you see the world and film.
I was amazed and said: That's right, she is so right.
Suddenly I understood and said:
One more time.
I said to myself: That's it, she is so right.
At that moment I suddenly understood how it all worked.
It had become clear to me.
I, contemporary film maker... That would be the beginning.
I, contemporary film maker.
This time, lost time. It ends with 'the time that's ours'. No.
That's not the end. What was it that l briefly understood yesterday?
What was it? Why am I so forgetful?
I'd seen a film someone else made about himself and it scared me.
I must think of something, so that later I can say that it was good and interesting.
How do I take an interest in me?
There is a Jewish joke about someone who is penniless...
...and has to go and sell his last cow on the market.
He goes to the market and tries to sell his skinny cow.
He says, very softly: Look here, my cow is a cow, is a cow, is a cow.
Everyone else praises their cows loudly.
All cows are sold, except for his. He stays behind with his cow.
The salesmen next to him asks: Ankle, why didn't you sell your cow?
Ankle say: I guess she's too skinny. The other guy says: You don't get it.
He shouts: Look, this cow makes beautiful films.
She's not afraid of anything.
He shouts good and bad things to seduce the crowd.
Ankle says: If she's is that good, why would I sell her?
Fortunately she's sold by then or we'd be back where we started.
I love it when someone else talks about my films.
They know my cow is too skinny, but because of them I love her anyway.
I love her in spite of it, even because of it.
I don't mind if he's not honest. It's what l want to hear.
The others were bought sooner.
The other person made me love my cow. Now I can love myself.
I can love him too and my cow inside him.
What did he say to make me love my cow? The following:
She started at 18 and wasn't ashamed of anything.
She didn't realize it would be hard for a girl in Brussels...
...where nobody cared one bit.
But Chantal thought they were interesting.
If they wanted to forget the past, because they had nothing to say...
...Chantal would talk about this nothing.
When her friend wouldn't play in her film she did it her self.
She did that because she was tough.
She doesn't want to buy that cow. On the contrary.
She's not happy she started so young. She's not proud.
She notices that she wasn't ashamed. She compares it to how it is now.
Am I shameless enough? The answer is obvious. Much less.
Now she's no longer the teenager that doesn't think. Not thinking is easy.
For years she didn't. Few people watched her films...
...she didn't ask for money. The films were cheap and no one watched them.
It was simple.
Afte Jeanne Dielman it became complicated. And yet she continued.
That's not what the cow trader will say.
He talks of language, documentary, Jews and the second commandment.
He says: She was born in Belgium, from Polish Jews...
...and this shows in her films. She talked about it.
About the second commandment, which made her film from the front.
Of course, she would love to escape this image.
She resists it and herself. She fights against repetition.
The repetition of 'woman', 'second generation Jew'...
...the repetition of 'woman', 'burlesque music' and 'comedy'.
He remembers what she said.
I make films because writing was too big a challenge.
He doesn't believe it. She makes films because she makes films.
And up to a point that is true.
The other person seems well informed. And he is.
But he senses things too. I will explain.
Someone says: So you can simply start making films?
Without knowing anything about it or loving film?
The other person thinks and suddenly says enthusiastically:
There was a maternal grandmother.
IL confirm that. I interrupt him and say: Yes, she was a painter.
I'd love to find her works, but they disappeared in the storm.
I think she painted when she was in hiding, but l'm probably wrong.
Still, like to think that. In hiding.
In a religious environment you can't make images.
She wrote a diary when she was not yet eighteen years old.
She wrote in Polish that she could only put her intimate thoughts in a diary.
Because she was a woman.
So I tell myself, and I like to think this, even if it isn't true:
Because she wrote that, I didn't have think at all.
I never told myself: I'm a woman, therefore...
Whatever.
One day I asked my mother what was in the paintings.
The first thing she said was that they were big canvasses.
I liked it when she said that they were big canvasses.
She was calm and forceful.
I repeated it in the same way: Very big canvasses.
Almost nothing else needed to be said. I didn't ask anything else that day.
Another day I did ask what was on those big canvasses.
I don't remember much, because I was young.
I do remember that there were women on those canvasses.
Faces. Faces that were looking at me, my mother said.
And that was it.
Self-portrait in order of appearance