Jean-Marie Straub
Encyclopedia
Jean-Marie StraubJean-Marie Straub (born 8 January 1933, Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) and Danièle Huillet (1 May 1936, Paris – 9 October 2006, Cholet
Cholet
Cholet is a commune of western France in the Maine-et-Loire department. It was the capital of military Vendée.-Geography:Cholet stands on an eminence on the right bank of the Moine, which used to be crossed by a bridge from the fifteenth century...

) were a duo of filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006. Their films are noted for their rigorous, intellectually stimulating style.

Though both were French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, they worked mostly in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Biography

Jean-Marie Straub met Danièle Huillet as a student in 1954. Straub was involved in the Parisian cinephile
Cinephile
Kenny Inglis and Susan Wallace are the duo behind Cinephile, a trip-hop band from Glasgow famous for the song "What Becomes of Us ?" which was played during an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation....

 community of the time, and was a friend of François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...

. Between 1954 and 1958, Straub worked as an assistant to the film directors Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...

, Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...

, Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...

, and Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....

. Straub and Huillet made their first film together, an 18-minute short called Machorka-Muff in 1963; it was based on a story by Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...

. Their next film, the 55-minute Not Reconciled, was also a Böll adaptation. They did not make a full-length feature until 1968's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, after which they made films at a fairly even rate, completing a feature every 2–3 years. In 1968, they also made a short film starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...

 and his theatre troupe called The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp. During their career, they adapted two Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

 operas, as well as Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

's first novel, Amerika
Amerika (Kafka novel)
Amerika, also known as Der Verschollene or The Man Who Disappeared, is the incomplete first novel of author Franz Kafka, published posthumously in 1927...

.

They married in 1959, and the two lived together for most of their lives. They had no children.

Huillet died of cancer in Cholet on October 9, 2006. Straub currently resides in Rome and Paris.

Style and Content

All of the films of Straub and Huillet are based on other works: novels, opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s, plays and less conventional source materials, such as political writings. Many of their films, such as Klassenverhältnisse
Klassenverhältnisse
Klassenverhältnisse, known in English as Class Relations, in French as Amerika, rapports de classe, is a 1984 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet...

, stress the relationship between the original text and the film. Their movies also have a strong Marxist political overtone, with certain works.

Aesthetically, their films are often described as being 'austere'. They utilize long, immobile takes, often framed in an unconventional but seemingly primitive way. Key actions or objects are often not shown, leaving the audience instead to imagine them or have them described by the characters. Straub and Huillet also make heavy use of direct sound
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

 and non-professional actors.

Collaboration

Due to his more extroverted nature, Jean-Marie Straub served as the public face of the couple and it was therefore assumed that Huillet's role in their filmmaking process was secondary. In reality, the two split their work equally, with Straub responsible for the shooting and production, Huillet controlling most of the editing
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

 and post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...

 duties and the two being equally responsible for the pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...

, texts and rehearsal
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...

s. This method can be seen in Pedro Costa
Pedro Costa
Pedro Costa is a Portuguese film director.He is acclaimed for using his ascetic style to depict the marginalised people in desperate living situations...

's documentary Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?, filmed during the editing of Sicilia!
Sicilia!
Sicilia! is a 1999 Italian black-and-white film directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Sicilia! follows a man returning to visit his homeland of Sicily, after living in New York City for many years...

, one of their last features.

Filmography

  • Machorka-Muff (1963)
  • Nicht versöhnt oder Es hilft nur Gewalt wo Gewalt herrscht (1965)
  • Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)
  • Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhälter (1968)
  • Les Yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer, ou Peut-être qu'un jour Rome se permettra de choisir à son tour (1970)
  • Geschichtsunterricht (1972)
  • Einleitung zu Arnold Schoenbergs Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene (1973)
  • Moses und Aron
    Moses und Aron (film)
    Moses und Aron, known in English as Moses and Aaron, is a 1973 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet based on the unfinished opera of the same title by Arnold Schoenberg...

    (1975)
  • Fortini/Cani (1976)
  • Toute révolution est un coup de dés (1977)
  • Dalla nube alla resistenza (1979)
  • En rachâchant
    En rachâchant
    En rachâchant is a 1982 short French film directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub.-Cast:* Olivier Straub - Ernesto* Nadette Thinus - The Mom* Bernard Thinus - The Dad* Raymond Gérard - The Teacher...

    (1982)
  • Trop tot, trop tard (1982)
  • Klassenverhältnisse
    Klassenverhältnisse
    Klassenverhältnisse, known in English as Class Relations, in French as Amerika, rapports de classe, is a 1984 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet...

    (also released as Class Relations) (1984)
  • Der Tod des Empedokles
    The Death of Empedocles
    The Death of Empedocles is a 1987 German drama film directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. It was entered into the 37th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Martina Baratta* Vladimir Baratta* William Berger...

    (1987)
  • Schwarze Sünde
    Black Sin
    Black Sin is a 1989 German-French short drama film directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Andreas von Rauch as Empédocle...

    (1989)
  • Paul Cézanne im Gespräch mit Joachim Gasquet (1989)
  • Die Antigone des Sophokles nach der Hölderlinschen Übertragung für die Bühne bearbeitet von Brecht 1948 (Suhrkamp Verlag) (1992)
  • Lothringen! (1994)
  • Von heute auf morgen
    Von heute auf morgen
    Von heute auf morgen is a one act opera composed by Arnold Schoenberg, to a German libretto by "Max Blonda," the pseudonym of Gertrud Schoenberg, the composer's wife...

    (1997)
  • Sicilia!
    Sicilia!
    Sicilia! is a 1999 Italian black-and-white film directed by Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Sicilia! follows a man returning to visit his homeland of Sicily, after living in New York City for many years...

    (1999)
  • Operai, contadini (2001)
  • Il Ritorno del figlio prodigo - Umiliati (2003)
  • Une visite au Louvre (2004)
  • Quei loro incontri (2006)
  • Europa 2005 - 27 octobre (2006) (TV) (uncredited)

Further reading

  • Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub (1995) by Barton Byg
  • The Art of Seeing, the Art of Listening: The Politics of Representation in the Work of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet (2004) by Ursula Boser
  • The Invention of Place: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub's Moses and Aaron. (2006) by Jacques Aumont In: M.Lefebvre (Ed.): Landscape and Film, London & New York: Routledge
  • Danièle Huillet et Jean-Marie Straub « objectivistes » en cinéma (2009), by Benoît Tuquety, Lausanne, L’Âge d’homme.

External links


*VidéoPortrait de groupe avec Straub (Jean-Marie Straub, 2009.3.9, Cinematheque française, Paris. 57')
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