Chantal Akerman in the Seventies [Criterion Collection] [3 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinemas most distinctive bodies of workformally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made in the 1970s in the United States and Europe and strongly influenced by the New York experimental film scene. Bold and iconoclastic, these five films pushed boundaries in their day and continue to have a profound influence on filmmakers all over the world. La Chambre (1972, Silent, 11min): In this early short film, we see the furniture and clutter of one small room in an apartment become the subject of a moving still lifewith Akerman herself staring back at us. This breakthrough formal experiment is the first film the director made in New York. Hotel Monterey (1972, Silent, 62 min): Under Akermans watchful eye, a cheap New York hotel glows with mystery and unexpected beauty, its corridors, elevators, rooms, windows, and occasional tenants framed as though part of an Edward Hopper tableau. News From Home (1976, French w/ English Subs, 89 mins): Letters from Akermans mother are read over a series of elegantly composed shots of 1976 New York, where our (unseen) filmmaker and protagonist has relocated. Akermans unforgettable time capsule of the city is also a gorgeous meditation on urban alienation and personal and familial disconnection. Je Tu Il Elle (1974, B/W, French w/ English Subs, 86 min): In her sexually provocative first feature, Akerman stars as a nameless, rootless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend. With its famous real-time sexual encounter and its daring minimalist plot, Je Tu Il Elle is Akermans most audaciously erotic film. Les ezdez-Vous DAnna (1978, French w/ English Subs, 127 min): In one of Akermans most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (played by Aurore Clment), makes her way through a series of anonymous European cities to promote her latest movie. Through a succession of eerie, exquisitely shot brief encounterswith men and women, family and strangerswe come to see her emotional and physical detachment from the world.

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 3
• Subtitle: Eng
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Aurore Clement - Anna
       Jean - Pierre Cassel - Daniel
       Lea Massari - Mother
       Helmut Griem - Heinrich
       Chantal Akerman

• Director:

  Chantal Akerman

• Producer:

  Alain Dahan

• Screenwriter:

  Chantal Akerman

• Cinematographer:

  Babette Mangolte, Jean Penzer

• Editor:

  Francine Sandberg

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Samy Szlingerbaum, Dominique Dalmasso