Le jour où… (The Day When). 1997. Switzerland. Written and directed by Chantal Akerman. 2K restoration by the Royal Film Archive of Belgium — CINEMATEK and Fondation Chantal Akerman; courtesy Waka Films. In French; English subtitles. 7 min.
Chantal Akerman, in a comical interlude, makes herself dizzy with the sound of her own voice and the circular movement of her camera: “The day I decided to think about the future of cinema, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed….”
Tombée de nuit sur Shanghai (Nightfall in Shanghai). 2007. Portugal. Written and directed by Chantal Akerman. No dialogue. 15 min.
A twilight shot of boats cutting across the Shanghai skyline may call to mind the stirring beginning of Histoires d’Amerique or the shimmering conclusion of News from Home, but Chantal Akerman’s focus in this single-projection installation is instead on the globalization of popular culture, the inescapable abundance of gaudy LED billboards and trashy Europop covers of “I Will Survive,” “Nights in White Satin,” and Chopin’s immortal Nocturne in E-flat Major. Akerman observes, “What a strange story when you see that all these wars of liberation often lead to places that…will only see the flourishing of Starbucks, McDonald’s, Cartier, etc., like in China, Shanghai, and Beijing, where all the world’s culture is projected haphazardly and on video onto two towers, from the Mona Lisa to Donald Duck. From a bawling Chopin to a ‘This Is the World’ worse than muzak.”
Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman (Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman). 1997. France. Written and directed by Chantal Akerman. DCP courtesy Icarus Films. In French; English subtitles. 63 min.
Most episodes of Janine Bazin and André Labarthe’s Cinema, of Our Time television series are insightful yet hagiographic portraits of international filmmakers. Chantal Akerman chose to do something entirely different: She would make a self-portrait by collaging together scenes from her own films. “[T]reating them as if they were rushes,” she resolved to “edit them together to make a new film.” Wracked with self-doubt and indecision (“I saw Godard’s JLG par JLG. I panicked”), wrestling with questions “about acting, documentary, fiction, about time, truth and cinema,” she takes the plunge.
Program 85 min.