Every ten years, the world’s foremost film critics and directors are allowed to reevaluate the greatest motion pictures of all time for Sight & Sound magazine. The 2022 survey represented quite the shakeup with a lot of longtime favorites (1974’s “The Godfather II”) completely disappearing from the list and new cinema taking hold like never before. However, the biggest surprise was the rise of Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” to #5 on the Director’s List and #1 overall (it was #35 in 2012 and unranked among directors).
Films are often said to be “ahead of their time” when they are perhaps unable to be digested in their time. Originally released to mixed reviews in 1975, Akerman’s film was not even seen Stateside until 1983. Years of evaluation and re-evaluation have clearly led us here.
At three hours and 21 minutes, Akerman’s minimalism can wear you wafer thin at times. However, this is Jeanne’s life in all of its immediacy and soul-crushing order. Films about the mundanity of life have long been a go-to joke (Mitchell & Webb’s filmmakers refuse to edit anything out including meals, silences, and other occurrences to fully capture life as a whole). However, seeing it on the screen captured in the beauty of one unbroken shot after another is both the ultimate intrusion and chance to explore the near balletic series of tasks, reactions, and Jeanne's cauldron of suppressed emotion.
“Jeanne Dielman” is truly a story of simmering sadness but it is a unique “bulletproof” one. Delphine Seyrig plays Jeanne by radiating doubt, uncertainty, and waves of unhappiness without facial expressions or any hint to the camera of what she is feeling. The nearest comparison is Renee Falconetti in the classic 1928 silent “The Passion of the Joan of Arc.” Jeanne’s role in life is both such a known and an unknown that Seyrig finds every nuance and rarely repeats the same essence twice.
Method acting depends mostly on communicating to the audience how you are feeling/reacting without words or even too much expression. As Jeanne’s life unravels before our eyes, the tension builds without acknowledgment, and Seyrig’s dangerous exposure of herself through Jeanne makes it burn intensely real. The scenes and the backgrounds begin to feel claustrophobic. Akerman has staged everything to look real framing many of the shots through doorways. However, this glimpse into the life of a modern woman is unflinching at times. There are whole scenes that as you are watching them make you question just what you are seeing. However, after it is “traded” for another scene. The feeling Akerman aroused in you seems to come into play in the portion that follows.
“Jeanne Dielman” is not for the weak. This is a film you may have to start and stop a few times to find your place to digest. (My personal point-of-no-return is a speech she gives her son Sylvain before bed. There enveloped in darkness, Seyrig races through a story releasing hidden details through her coping with annoyance). However, it is also a film that simply does not feel the same as you rewatch scenes. “Dielman” was deemed “slow cinema” by the original viewers in 1975. Since that speed of film has caught up with us now (as well as the subject matter), “Dielman” remains miles above any hype.
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New This Week
NOAH CYRUS - The Hardest Part
[LP](Columbia)
It must be hard to be a Cyrus in the music industry. Living in the shadow of the parents, the sister, and the name itself automatically means your advantage is translated into little appreciation or expectations. The younger sister of Miley (who let's face it, beat it all to become her own inimitable and (sometimes) powerful performer), works well with subtlety and a hazy Laurel Canyon-meets-modern Pop writing style. Noah is a better close-miked singer than most. "I Burned LA Down" in other hands would sting when they reached the chorus. Instead, producer Mike Crossey and Cyrus trust the impact of the song itself. Working with Crossey (The 1975, Arctic Monkeys) agrees with the acoustic textures here where Noah uncorks a few devastating tracks. The title track uses her breathy-voiced backgrounds to triumph over simplistic lyrics. (The chord change on "over" and the dramatic gated beginning and end are real lump-in-the-throat moments) While the Fleetwood Mac-ish sway of "I Just Want A Lover" makes a sparkling single.
REISSUE ROUNDUP: SPEED ROUND
What a way to kick the year off - freshly pressed classics of wax.
ZZ TOP - Eliminator [LP](Warner)
If you saw them here on that glorious Fall night, you know how well their commercial breakthrough from the Eighties has aged. Hearing "Legs" zoom out across the lawn at Lake Terrace was just as thrilling at it was blaring out of MTV the first go-round.
RAMONES - Subterranean Jungle
[LP](Sire/Rhino)
The beginning of the Ramones' "adolescence." After their punk-to-Pop dreams cooled with production by Phil Spector (1980's "End of the Century") and 10cc's Graham Gouldman (1982's "Pleasant Dreams," the Ramones squared up their Sixties influences (opening with "Little Bit O'Soul") and drilled one out that showed the personality strife (the menacing "Psycho Therapy" and "Outsider") as the band tried to keep it together ("Time Has Come Today").
YES - Fragile [LP](Atlantic/Rhino)
At their most effortless, Yes matured tremendously around their first classic lineup. Outside of the eight minutes of "Roundabout," side one fits together perfectly. "Heart of the Sunrise" is one of their most thrilling album closers ever.
GENESIS - Selling England By The Pound
[LP](Atlantic/Rhino)
Things were not effortless for Genesis who were coming to terms with their newfound Rock success by digging into their past. Still, "Selling England" is the beginning of their balanced attack approach where they push a single ("I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)") and the epics that kept them on Prog's crowded map.
VELVET UNDERGROUND - Loaded
[LP](Atlantic/Rhino)
"Loaded" was the Velvets' hello to a new label and goodbye to all of us. In pursuit of AM radio hits in the glory days of freeform and AOR FM seems counterproductive, until you absorb all of their swan song. "Loaded with hits" may have been the joke at the time, but kicking it off with "Who Loves The Sun," "Rock N'Roll" and "Sweet Jane" is one of the best 1-2-3 opening salvos of any album ever.
JOHN COLTRANE - Ole [LP](Atlantic/Rhino)
On his departure from Atlantic, John Coltrane went out with a bang (eighteen minutes of the title track make this worth it). His band of veterans could handle anything he proposed, but it was Coltrane's action with future stars Freddie Hubbard and an uncredited Eric Dolphy that make this 1961 session one to own.
GERRY RAFFERTY - City To City
(Atlantic/Rhino)
We know what you are saying. What is HE doing here? Side one contains four of his best tracks ever including the essential "Baker Street," the classic "Right Down The Line" and the underrated title cut. "Home and Dry" on side two also remains a favored deep cut from an artist too many are quick to dismiss.
