ah! sun-flower

Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman

2014

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Chantal Akerman

General ideas (not from direct watching notes)

I don’t want to read too much into it. No mansplaining. Akerman lavishes attention on some things and darts over others.

Estrangement - she is different from her son; her sister is differetnfrom her Canadian children

She takes care of needs. What is she left with?

Title

Official record. name and address. Her husband’s name [1], deceased 6 yrs. She is French speaking with a Flemish name and her son in a Flemish school.

Quai - a wharf. Place of commerce. History of a place preserved by the name. TS Eliot’s “in a an old house there is always listening…” Haunted place. [2]

Vesta - goddess of the hearth. Thérèse of Lisieux. Martha (sister of Lazarus)[3].

What happens in the film? Order, ritual is disturbed and the whole thing becomes unravelled.

Faust - what happens at the door to allow Mephistopholes to enter? [4]

Objects have emotional content. Soup tureen that holds the money. Malevolence.

Duration. The camera stays through long cuts of simple actions. bathing, Washing dishes. Camera does nto move. Finds the frame for the action and stays past the action’s completion. Light turning on and off functions as a transition may times.

Tension. Exhaustion. Her eyes are heavy, tired. SHe seems focussed internally and does nto make eye contact with others.

Pattern of action with her son and clients. Takes coat. Waits. Serves. Puts money in tureen and takes out.

Light. “There is a certain slant of light” [5] Emily Dickinson Heavy light. He client goes in the room when it is light and comes out to darkness. Also, garish blue light of neon sign reflected in the breakfront.

rewatching first day (in film)

Time frame is the first day -

Opening sequence - what is the white noise? Intentional? SOunds like stove gas.

lighting

Pattern of light (neon light) reflected in breakfront - kind of madness. An advertising which goes up and then comes down in 3 steps (verify this)

The camera has a still shot on a location, character walks into room and tuns light on, animates a dead space

rituals

Focus on rituals - bathing, cooking, airing out // Fire- Water - Air

She takes the coat of client and son in same way

Her post client bathing scene is long. repetitive. more information than you need. Abulution (sp?) The camera stays still. At her level.

eyes

She does nto make eye contact. She looks at a middle distance down

objects

Soup tureen (where she puts money) has a malevolence. Key Object.

speaking

Through the first 15 minutes there are 2 sentences.

“I will see you next week”

” Don’t read while you eat” ~ 19:00 Listens to woman with baby discuss cooking, Jenne says nothing

~ 21:00

“You don’t eat!”

~ 25:00

reads letter (see below)

Sylvan reads poem L’Enemie by Baudelaire - he stumbles over words. (see below)

reading

Interesting sequence where Jeanne reads a letter and Sylvian reads a poem (and later when Jeanne narrates how she got married)

Jeanne reads “Le Soir”

after dinner

“Fur Eliese” on radio

She knits but quickly and stops.

It is Tuesday and they go out

Return and bed routine

Sylvan asks about sex and her giving birth to him. Very conventional.

“But you are not a woman…”

Sleep.

rewatching second day (in film)

Breakfast and Coffee - routine and ritual

Shoe shining

~ 56:00 She gives her son money out of tureen - inversion of client

rewatching third day (in film)

Footnotes

1 Geneology of ‘Dielman’

Dielman variant of Theilman from Theil from:

Dietrich

German: from the Germanic personal name Tederich (Theudoricus), composed of the elements theud ‘people’, ‘race’ + rīc ‘power(ful)’, ‘rich’. This surname is common throughout central and eastern Europe, particularly in the western Slavic countries. The forename occurs in a wide variety of local forms, especially in northern Germany. It is cognate with Dutch Diederik (see Dederick).

2 from “The Family Reunion” by T.S. Eliot

In an old house there is always listening, and more is
    heard than is spoken.
And what is spoken remains in the room, waiting for
    the future to hear it.
And whatever happens began in the past, and presses
    hard on the future.
The agony in the curtained bedroom, whether of birth
   or of dying,
Gathers in to itself all the voices of the past, and
    projects them into the future.

[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_at_the_home_of_Martha_and_Mary) Mary and Martha

[4] (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesItoIII.htm#Scene_III) Goethe’s “Faust” Mephestopholese enters study

[5] (http://www.dantealighierithedivinecomedy.com/2010/09/poetry-analysis-theres-certain-slant-of.html) “There is a certain Slant of light” By Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons―
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes―

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us―
We can find no scar,
But internal differences,
Where the meanings are―

None may teach it―Any―
Tis the Seal Despair―
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air―

When it comes, the Landscape listens―
Shadows―hold their breath―
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death―

[6] (http://fleursdumal.org/poem/109) Baudelaire “L’Ennemi”

L'Ennemi
Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage,
Traversé çà et là par de brillants soleils;
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage,
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils.

Voilà que j'ai touché l'automne des idées,
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les râteaux
Pour rassembler à neuf les terres inondées,
Où l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux.

Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je rêve
Trouveront dans ce sol lavé comme une grève
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur?

— Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie,
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur
Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!
— Charles Baudelaire


The Enemy

My youth has been nothing but a tenebrous storm,
Pierced now and then by rays of brilliant sunshine;
Thunder and rain have wrought so much havoc
That very few ripe fruits remain in my garden.

I have already reached the autumn of the mind,
And I must set to work with the spade and the rake
To gather back the inundated soil
In which the rain digs holes as big as graves.

And who knows whether the new flowers I dream of
Will find in this earth washed bare like the strand,
The mystic aliment that would give them vigor?

Alas! Alas! Time eats away our lives,
And the hidden Enemy who gnaws at our hearts
Grows by drawing strength from the blood we lose!
— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

All writing

Tags: Film