le saut dans le vide

exterior shots from
chantal akerman's jeanne dielman,
23 quai du commerce, 1080 bruxelles - 1975

ernie gehr - still - 1971

ernie gehr - signal - germany on the air - 1985

yves klein - le saut dans le vide - 1960

le sang des bêtes

georges franju - judex - 1963
cinematography by marcel fradetal
(le sang des bêtes - 1949)

to nothingness do sink

when i have fears that i may cease to be
before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
before high-piled books, in charactery,
hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
when i behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
and think that i may never live to trace
their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
and when i feel, fair creature of an hour,
that i shall never look upon thee more,
never have relish in the faery power
of unreflecting love; then on the shore
of the wide world i stand alone, and think
till love and fame to nothingness do sink.


found in the sculpture and mural decorations of the exposition: a pictorial survey of the art of the panama-pacific international exposition - san francisco - 1915
photo of st. francis

take no notice of my darkness, because the sun has discoloured me

i lived in thoughts of her. where are you, i thought, where may my lonely spirit find you, sweet maiden? do you gaze before you and reflect? have you laid your work aside and rested your arm on your knee and your head on your little hand and yielded yourself to lovely thoughts?
may nothing disturb my peaceful one when she refreshes her heart with sweet fantasies, may nothing touch this bunch of grapes and graze the invigorating dew from the tender berries!

to comfort him virgil explains how beatrice descended to him in limbo and told him of her concern for dante. it is she, the symbol of divine love, who sends virgil to lead dante from error. she has come into hell itself on this errand, for dante cannot come to divine love unaided.

it is as if my soul were spinning through every nerve. she plays a melody on her clavichord with the touch of an angel, so simple, so ethereal! it is her favourite tune, and i am cured of all pain, confusion and melancholy the moment she strikes the first note.


- friedrich hölderlin - hyperion - 1797/1799 (for diotima)
- dante alighieri - inferno from the divine comedy - 1321
- j.w. von goethe - the sorrows of young werther - 1774/1786
- the letters of abelard and heloise - 12th century

univers du western - wagon master, my darling clementine

don't shoot,
please don't shoot,
my boys,
you killed my boys,
good boys they was too,
jesse, luke, luke was my oldest boy

john ford - wagon master - 1950
(charles kemper)

don't shoot me marshal,
marshal,
my boys,
ike, sam, phin, billy
(they're dead)

john ford - my darling clementine - 1946
(walter brennan)

(number 10 of 500 detailing westerns)
(number 1 of * on john ford)

about alienation

jeanne dielman was considered a feminist film, but that was not my goal when i made it. my goal at the time was to show someone who organizes her life so that there is no hole in her time, because when there is a hole, there is also anxiety. i could have done that same film about a man, except that i was more interested in showing a woman's everyday gestures. i don't think it was feminist in the sense that many people have said - at least, a film about alienation because of gender was not my goal. maybe the film became that, but for me, jeanne dielman... was an act of love for those gestures that you see when you're a child, that you are surrounded by as a child. in a way, the repetition of those gestures is very good for a child.

interview with chantal akerman found in scott macdonald's a critical cinema 4 - university of california press - 2005

the universities have completely imploded. they're places to go if you believe that the media discourse of french philosophy is the only viable approach to film, and that the empirical relationship of the viewer to the work of art is utterly passé. a generation of followers of foucault, lacan, and derrida has made the universities as hermetically sealed against the presence of this art (avant-garde film) as the universities in the fifties were.

interview with p. adams sitney found in scott macdonald's a critical cinema 4 - university of california press - 2005