Comparably in force and originality to Godard or Fassbinder, Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important European director of her generation.
J. Hoberman. The Village Voice.
Akerman’s defiance of cinematic conventions – not just the faster takes but the intrusive soundtracks, the constant visual fidgeting, the tendentious editing – has something liberating about it. Her approach, characterized by extreme restraint, makes you aware of just how manipulative, even bullying these conventions can be, though we rarely give them a second thought.
Sebastian Smee. The Boston Globe.
The films of Chantal Akerman are the single most important and coherent body of work by a woman director in the history of the cinema.
Film Center Gazette. School of the Art Institute.
It was Godard who gave me the desire for making films.
Akerman, Chantal.
I am not interested in real time and also not in the dramatic and codified time of cinema that manipulated duration. Let's say I take ‘my time’.
Akerman,Chantal.
And for all, film profiles the crisis.
Akerman, Chantal.
I will never permit a film of mine to be shown in a gay film festival.
Akerman, Chantal.
Je fais la politique de la terre brûlée ... I follow the policy of scorched earth.
Akerman, Chantal and Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview: Chantal Akerman." in: A.V. Club. January 2010.
It’s also a jail, because what you feel is an implosion instead of an explosion. The whole film is an implosion. You feel as a viewer, when you face the film and you experience the film, you feel an implosion. “When is it going to be the next…” and it is unbearable, but you know for good reason. It’s not sadistic at all.
Akerman, Chantal and Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview: Chantal Akerman." in: A.V. Club. January 2010.
That film was about gesture. And choreography, in order to give you the feeling that it’s real time. It’s not. It’s totally choreographed. It’s a very specific film in those terms.
Akerman, Chantal, Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview." in: A.V. Club. January 28, 2010. (English).
And [Alain] Resnais also was a bit, not experimental, but… She did daring movies. As soon as she started to work, she did daring things. Even though she did not come from that world, she came from a world… Her father was a friend of Picasso; he had many Picassos. They were that type of well-educated people who could recognize a good artist before others, and she was like that. Even if it was against something inside her.
Akerman, Chantal, Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview." in: A.V. Club. January 28, 2010. (English).
That’s because it’s me. I’m speaking about me all the time. I’m my main interest—I’m joking. I’m joking. You have to understand that I’m a child of the second generation, which means my mother was in Auschwitz, and the aunt of my mother was in Auschwitz with her; my grandmother and grandfather died there. So yes. All of those gestures they work for you, or for them, to fill their time or not feel their anxiety. But the child feels everything. It doesn’t make the child secure. You put the child in a jail.
Akerman, Chantal, Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview." in: A.V. Club. January 28, 2010. (English).
The people who buy my films, for example, the people who buy my installations, well, it’s sometimes a foundation or a museum. When it’s a foundation, it’s related to very, very, very rich people—who are your enemies! Your enemies are feeding you. But you’re not meeting them. So it’s a very strange thing.
Akerman, Chantal, Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview." in: A.V. Club. January 28, 2010. (English).
Well, the U.S. is so iconic, you know? And also, you see more things when they are far away.
Akerman, Chantal, Sam Adams (Interviewer). "Interview." in: A.V. Club. January 28, 2010. (English).
If I have a reputation for being difficult, it’s because I love the everyday and want to present it. In general people go to the movies precisely to escape the everyday.
Akerman, Chantal. "Toute une nuit/ All Night Long (1982, Chantal Akerman)." in: Shooting Down Pictures (1000 Greatest Films). December 4, 2009.
I will not attempt to show the disintegration of a system, nor the difficulties of entering into another one, because she who seeks shall find, find all too well, and end up clouding her vision with her own preconceptions.
Akerman, Chantal, David Schwartz (Interviewer). "Bordering on Fiction: Chantal Akerman's journeys through time, space, and history." in: Moving Image Source. July 2, 2008. (English).
In my films I follow an opposite trajectory to that of the makers of political films. They have a skeleton, an idea and then they put on flesh: I have in the first place the flesh, the skeleton appears later.
Akerman, Chantal, David Schwartz (Interviewer). "Bordering on Fiction: Chantal Akerman's journeys through time, space, and history." in: Moving Image Source. July 2, 2008. (English).
But when Godard speaks about himself, it’s sometimes very alarming. You can see him excluding himself from the world in an almost autistic manner. For people like me, who started doing film because of him, it is a terrible fright. And the fact that the long evolution that Godard has been through can lead to this, almost brings me to despair. He was kind of a pioneer, an inventor who didn’t care much about anybody or anything. And that a man at this stage of his life isolates himself, should also be a lesson for us other film makers. Because it’s true, it’s not easy to make films, you have to deal with so many things and people. People who say yes, people who say no. With the processing lab, that sometimes understands, but usually doesn’t. And Godard, what does he do? He is left alone, with his housekeeper. It is tempting of course to be alone with only a housekeeper around you.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
I made my first film Saute Ma Ville when I was eighteen. That was in 1968. At that time succeeding on the market was not an issue. Godard, Rohmer and the others are all older that 60 now. They are physically and mentally tired. I am younger than them, but I am tired already. I Sometimes feel I have reached the end of what I can do and what I can give. That is why it’s so agreeable to work in museums. There is a playful element involved. One thing leads to another, it’s a form of energy. That’s why I like writing and doing other things than making films.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
The excursions that I make are just like children’s games: if you lose, you don’t get punished and if you win, it’s like a party. And even though it makes little or no money, it still doesn’t do any harm. On the contrary, you don’t have to bother with major production costs or poor ticket sales. In the world of cinema money is all that matters.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
I was filming auditions and they looked so interesting that it would be a shame not to use them. I edited them and then something happened. It looks almost magical.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
Anyway, I don’t really believe in the difference between documentary and fiction.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
Apparently Asiatic films didn’t seem to care about those things for a long time. All that has changed of course since the Americanisation or Europeanisation of the Asiatic film. But before that an Asiatic film could start somewhere in the middle. Those film makers didn’t follow a strict line. They could start somewhere or nowhere and end somewhere completely else. This brings me back to a filmic sequence I like to use myself and which looks typical for a documentary at first.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
A certain tension builds up between the beginning and the end of that shot, which immediately looks like fiction. It is indeed difficult to escape from fiction. But in the same way it’s also difficult to escape from the documentary style.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
I want the spectator to have a physical experience, for him or her to feel time. Films are generally made to literally and metaphorically pass the time. But I want you to experience the time of a character. I don’t want you to just go through an emotional experience, but also another kind of experience, like with music, that is unique because it is purely physical.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
These installations in museums and exhibitions don’t immediately have to raise money. I can always do different things. I receive an invitation to do something. I can say yes or no. And we’ll see what happens or when. And of course there is the intense pleasure of ‘the first time’.
Akerman, Chantal, Chris Dercon (Interviewer). "An interview with Chantal Akerman about too much and not enough cinema." in: Contour. 2005. (English).
I grew up reading Proust all my life and he's very dear to me. After my last film, "Sud", was so poorly received, I needed something to rejuvenate me.
Akerman, Chantal, David Wood (Interviwer). "Interview" in: BBC. April 26, 2001. (English).
But I still like to work relatively simply with long takes and medium close-ups.
Akerman, Chantal, David Wood (Interviwer). "Interview" in: BBC. April 26, 2001. (English).
It's like an artist who has to paint ... Sometimes I'm just taken by something. Sometimes I just refuse it.
Akerman, Chantal and Dinitia Smith (Interviewer). "FILM; Chantal Akerman And the Point Of Point of View." in: The New York Times. April 26, 1998.
When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films.
Akerman, Chantal and David Wood (Interviewer). "La Captive (The Captive)." in: BBC Films. October 2003.
A contract's a contract ... the trade-off: some Akerman by Akerman, filmmaker of our time, for some money. I always respect my contracts.
Akerman, Chantal. "Chantal Akerman on Chantal Akerman." in: Bright Lights Film Journal. August 2002.
Last attempt at self-portrait. My name is Chantal Akerman. I was born in Brussels. And that's the truth.
Akerman, Chantal. "Chantal Akerman on Chantal Akerman." in: Bright Lights Film Journal. August 2002.
I wrote a story that I liked. Everybody thought it was political. But it was a normal love story. It's not a feminist movie. I'm not saying it's a gay movie. If I did, then you go to it with preconceived notions.
Akerman, Chantal and Dinitia Smith (Interviewer). "FILM; Chantal Akerman And the Point Of Point of View." in: The New York Times. April 26, 1998.
Source: European Graduate School (EGS)
