I like to flatter myself by thinking I’m a cinephile. I mean, I’ve seen Shoah! But I have never even heard of Jeanne Dielman, much less seen it. Now I must, if only for the scene you describe at the dinner table. I can relate
Moment by moment we all have these pockets of prejudice and generally counterproductive reaction. There are the usual suspects, racist and sexist, and the more fundamental revulsion from the physically unattractive and sensory disgusting. But my favorite has always been the preferences people have for one thing and another which strikes a psychological chord mostly for unexamined reasons. Aware of the limits of time, we make truly ridiculous choices on how to spend it for peculiar reasons, further rationalized out of prejudices and excuses amounting to "it was only one time" or some similar nonsense. I have surrendered now to the rule of nothing is more or less important or interesting and only my own limits of understanding cause me to choose one thing over any other at any given moment when I can elect to watch or read or listen to whatever comes my way or that I seek out. It hardly matters, the matter I engage with. What matters is what I bring to bear on it and what I take away. With no other choice, watching paint dry offers opportunities overlooked, the way having to wait in a line affords marvelous instances for observing others, random things, and even one's own true self. Exit stage left screaming and laughing simultaneously. Free at last.
I blame sexism not for my not wanting to talk to my mother, but for her not having much interesting to say.
She was an extremely smart person whom a combination of her own desire for normalcy and sexist psychiatric therapy and bad drugs turned into someone who could not discuss ideas because disagreement with her was nothing more than evidence of psychopathy or perversion. Add in every day of her's being exactly like the last, and she just wasn't a good conversational partner. My father, though with some unpleasant limits, treasured disagreement when I could justify it, and had to deal with any number of rich men who refused to pay him on time and generated stories in the process.
See one of my best-loved screeds "Oppressed People Suck", which is an elaboration of my nearly-starved-to-death-and-family-murdered father's 'Persecution doesn‘t make you better, it can make you worse.'.
I only started watching Chantal Akerman films after her death, and I feel a bit guilty about that. The mixture of discipline and generosity in her work is unique. If you haven't seen her other movies, you can try "News From Home," a documentary about 70's New York City, and "Les Rendez-vous d'Anna" which does to film directing what "Jeanne Dielman" does to housework.
Another great career is the one of Delphine Seyrig whose roles include fairy, vampire, the ethereal presence of "Last Year in Marienbad" and the housewife she plays here. You can just feel the character's mind collapse as she kneads dough over and over again.
One more thing -- I once overheard some young-uns in a movie theater sneer at this film as being, oh no, pretentious. I would counter that this movie isn't pretending to be anything except itself.
I'm a little sexist and always have been. My wife's job is to cook and clean, mine is paying the bills walking the dog and taking out the garbage. You can blame my dad, that's the way I was raised.
Just found my way to this from your link in another essay Roy. I *loved* this movie so much. There was I think a BAM retrospective of that auteur when I saw it maybe a 5ish years ago. It was so painfully slow and beautifully slow- so incredibly well observed- it really got the flavor of that life-
I like to flatter myself by thinking I’m a cinephile. I mean, I’ve seen Shoah! But I have never even heard of Jeanne Dielman, much less seen it. Now I must, if only for the scene you describe at the dinner table. I can relate
I get more out of this subscription per week than I did out of 12 months at the f*cking Guardian.
'Mother, I'm sorry'. Whoa.
"So much we miss and might have had." And so much we had but missed.
Moment by moment we all have these pockets of prejudice and generally counterproductive reaction. There are the usual suspects, racist and sexist, and the more fundamental revulsion from the physically unattractive and sensory disgusting. But my favorite has always been the preferences people have for one thing and another which strikes a psychological chord mostly for unexamined reasons. Aware of the limits of time, we make truly ridiculous choices on how to spend it for peculiar reasons, further rationalized out of prejudices and excuses amounting to "it was only one time" or some similar nonsense. I have surrendered now to the rule of nothing is more or less important or interesting and only my own limits of understanding cause me to choose one thing over any other at any given moment when I can elect to watch or read or listen to whatever comes my way or that I seek out. It hardly matters, the matter I engage with. What matters is what I bring to bear on it and what I take away. With no other choice, watching paint dry offers opportunities overlooked, the way having to wait in a line affords marvelous instances for observing others, random things, and even one's own true self. Exit stage left screaming and laughing simultaneously. Free at last.
I blame sexism not for my not wanting to talk to my mother, but for her not having much interesting to say.
She was an extremely smart person whom a combination of her own desire for normalcy and sexist psychiatric therapy and bad drugs turned into someone who could not discuss ideas because disagreement with her was nothing more than evidence of psychopathy or perversion. Add in every day of her's being exactly like the last, and she just wasn't a good conversational partner. My father, though with some unpleasant limits, treasured disagreement when I could justify it, and had to deal with any number of rich men who refused to pay him on time and generated stories in the process.
See one of my best-loved screeds "Oppressed People Suck", which is an elaboration of my nearly-starved-to-death-and-family-murdered father's 'Persecution doesn‘t make you better, it can make you worse.'.
I only started watching Chantal Akerman films after her death, and I feel a bit guilty about that. The mixture of discipline and generosity in her work is unique. If you haven't seen her other movies, you can try "News From Home," a documentary about 70's New York City, and "Les Rendez-vous d'Anna" which does to film directing what "Jeanne Dielman" does to housework.
Another great career is the one of Delphine Seyrig whose roles include fairy, vampire, the ethereal presence of "Last Year in Marienbad" and the housewife she plays here. You can just feel the character's mind collapse as she kneads dough over and over again.
One more thing -- I once overheard some young-uns in a movie theater sneer at this film as being, oh no, pretentious. I would counter that this movie isn't pretending to be anything except itself.
I'm a little sexist and always have been. My wife's job is to cook and clean, mine is paying the bills walking the dog and taking out the garbage. You can blame my dad, that's the way I was raised.
This was quite lovely.
Just found my way to this from your link in another essay Roy. I *loved* this movie so much. There was I think a BAM retrospective of that auteur when I saw it maybe a 5ish years ago. It was so painfully slow and beautifully slow- so incredibly well observed- it really got the flavor of that life-