Films byTexts by 1978
Conversation EN
7.04.2021
“It’s up to women to lift the veil”

Interview with Jocelyne Saab

“Each time I made a film, it was in a given political period; each time I had a political objective, my films couldn’t just be without orientation. That’s not sentimentality. Through a form of sensibility, a political problem emerges. The destruction of Beirut, the children fighting, it means something. I figured this way of showing things could touch people and have a real political impact. People are fed up with the talking. On television, for example, one day they show a representative of the left, the next a representative of the right. Every day, they agree with someone else, and they end up forgetting who’s right or wrong!”

Article EN
31.03.2021
A First Look

So your film is more a film about space than about women?

Yes, because saying that my film is a film about women doesn’t mean anything. I’ll always make these films... Female bodies, women are my subject. Like a sculptor somehow, who uses a certain material, while another sculptor will use another material. That should mean something, shouldn’t it? I think that’s what the Cinémathèque audience couldn’t stand; I’ve removed men from my film. But what can I say, except that I’ve just shown what exists in reality. I intentionally separated the sexes in the image, as in reality. The intention is feminist, and why not? I wanted to show the number one problem of Algerian women, which is the right to space. Because I was able to verify that the more space the women had, the firmer they stood.

FILM
Ai no bôrei
Empire of Passion
Nagisa Ôshima, 1978, 105’

A married woman murders her husband together with her lover and dumps his body in a well. Gradually, their downfall begins when, after a while, the husband’s spirit returns.

 

Conversation FR
1.07.2020
Andrei Tarkovski sur Le miroir

Dans Le miroir, je traite pour la première fois un sujet qui raconte littéralement une histoire vécue. Or, ça fait peur d’évoquer des sensations personnelles qui seront ensuite jugées au tribunal du spectateur. Cela correspond au moment où l'onse force à parler. A-t-on raison en faisant du spectateur le voyeur de ses problèmes personnels ? Est-il certain qu'une histoire de ce type puisse exprimer quelque chose de plus général ?

FILM
My Way Home
Bill Douglas, 1978, 71’

Jamie leaves the children’s home to live with his paternal grandmother. After working in a mine and in a tailor’s shop, he is conscripted into the RAF, and goes to Egypt, where he is befriended by Robert, whose undemanding companionship releases Jamie from self-pity.

 

FILM
Les mains négatives
Marguerite Duras, 1978, 14’

From the end of a night to dawn. An uninterrupted traveling shot. From Bastille to the Champs-Elysees, by way of the Boulevard des Italiens, Avenue de l'Opera, and Rue de Rivoli, a depopulated Paris offers itself to Marguerite Duras' mysterious and profound voice.

 

FILM
Hedda Gabler
Jan Decorte, 1978, 90’

Jan Decorte’s second feature is a film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. At the centre of the play by the Norwegian playwright are the Tesmans, who have just returned from a long honeymoon.

FILM
Passe ton bac d’abord
Maurice Pialat, 1978, 86’

Maurice Pialat: This isn’t cinéma-vérité. That doesn’t exist. Everything is always reconstituted. The only truth of the cinema is what’s filmed with sincerity; there’s authenticity there.

FILM
Les rendez-vous d’Anna
Chantal Akerman, 1978, 127’

“Why/how are the images so gorgeously luminous and cadaverously creepy at the same time, a form of possession and dispossession that seems to match perfectly Akerman’s relation to her movie, which she uses like a mirror? Is that the way that we use it, too?

Article NL FR EN
16.11.2016
Negative Hands

Marguerite Duras’ Les mains négatives premiered in 1978. Images of a ride through Paris apace with the phrases of Amy Flammers’ violin, entwined with Duras’ own voice. Transcribed, the voice-over reads like a poem.

Article NL FR EN
29.09.2016
De negatieve handen

In 1978 ging Les mains négatives van Marguerite Duras in première. Over de beelden van een autorit door Parijs klinken muzikale frases van Amy Flammers viool, vervlochten met de stem van Duras. De transcriptie van de voice-over laat zich lezen als een gedicht.

Article NL FR EN
29.09.2016
Les mains négatives

Les mains négatives, un court-métrage de Marguerite Duras, sort en 1978. Un long travelling à travers Paris au petit matin se double d’une bande son où s’enchevêtrent les phrases musicales du violon d’Amy Flammers et la voix de Marguerite Duras récitant un texte dont la transcription se lit comme un poème.

Conversation NL FR
28.10.2013
Entretien avec Johan van der Keuken dans Cahiers du Cinéma

« Mais je dis aussi : « Chaque chose dans un film est une forme ». Par là, je voulais m’en prendre aux malentendus habituels sur le documentaire. Ce n’est pas du documentaire, ce n’est pas du vrai non plus: c’est une forme, de la matière formée et transportée, de la fiction. Et puis, je reprends et je dis : « quand même, c’est quelqu’un avec qui j’ai vécu : au revoir ! ». »