Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet at Work on a Film Based on Franz Kafka’s Amerika

Arta3.5

Between this and Alain Bergala's account of the technical aspects of the production, one gains a whole new level of appreciation for S-H and the excruciation precision and meticulousness of their craft. An essential document

Jeth112

"Ich möchte einen Doppelpunkt spüren, obwohl da bei Kafka ein Komma steht.""Gut, aber der Akkusativ verschwindet schon wieder."Regieanweisung: "Bedrohlich, ironisch und verspielt, ohne faschistisch zu werden."

Ewan Munro3.0

The German release of Class Relations has a 65 minute version of this entitled Arbeiten zu »Klassenverhältnisse« von Danièle Huillet und Jean-Marie Straub, and it's an interesting document of their working practice. Pedro Costa made a documentary almost 20 years later about the couple, but that was very much more about the editing. Here we see them exhaustively rehearse and then film the actors, only a handful of scenes to get a sense of it. And of course there's no detail Straub overlooks as we come to understand that maybe all those moments when laughter seems the only response to the programmatic actions and blankness of the characters were all carefully orchestrated and that, indeed, sometimes humour was the intention. It's also good to see the way the couple work together, with Huillet sometimes amusingly exasperated as Straub continues to explain some effect he wants the actor to achieve even after she's clapped to signal the start of the scene. It's dry stuff to be sure (like their films after a fashion) but great for seeing these singular filmmakers at work.