| Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Chantal Akerman |
| Produced by | Corinne Jénart Evelyne Paul |
| Written by | Chantal Akerman |
| Starring | Delphine Seyrig Jan Decorte Jacques Doniol-Valcroze |
| Cinematography | Babette Mangolte |
| Editing by | Patricia Canino |
| Distributed by | The Criterion Collection (USA DVD) Janus Films (USA) |
| Release date(s) | 14 May 1975 |
| Running time | 201 min |
| Country | Belgium France |
| Language | French |
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.
Upon its release, The New York Times called Jeanne Dielman the "first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema." Chantal Akerman scholar Ivone Margulies asserts the picture is a filmic paradigm for uniting feminism and anti-illusionism. The film was named the 19th-greatest film of the 20th Century by The Village Voice.[1]
Jeanne Dielman's static framing, long takes, and eschewal of reverse shots force the viewer to objectively experience its protagonist and the oppressive female labor that is her daily routine. Akerman's attention to images between the images requires the same attention of the film's viewers—an attention appropriate to its content. Though the filmmaker's static frame and extended-duration shots stem from structural cinema, Akerman's application of these techniques to women's domestic work is unique. The picture inverts normal filmic expectations by removing drama from emotional intensity and attaching it to long takes that would only be implied and elided in more standard cinematic presentation. Jeanne Dielman's temporal dilation equalizes its exposition and drama to transform knowledge of an object—Jeanne's oppression—into a vision of it.
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Jeanne Dielman examines a single mother's regimented schedule of cooking, cleaning and mothering over three days. The mother, Jeanne Dielman (whose name is only derived from the title and from a letter she reads to her son), also prostitutes herself to a male client daily for her and her son's subsistence. Like her other activities, Jeanne's prostitution is part of the routine she performs every day by rote and is uneventful. But on the second day, Jeanne's routine begins to unravel subtly, as when she drops a newly washed spoon and overcooks the potatoes that she's preparing for dinner. These alterations to Jeanne's existence climax on the third day, when she unexpectedly has an orgasm with the day's client, after which she stabs him fatally with a pair of scissors.[2]