Table of Contents

Foreword by Miguel Abreu; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Filmmakers at Work by Sally Shafto; List of Films; TEXTS:1950s: 1. The 15th Venice Film Festival Began Brilliantly with the Americans; 2. Grisbi, the Japanese, and Bunuel's Genius; 3. Does Rossellini's Work Have a Christian Meaning?; 4. Five New Films by Rossellini; 5. Clouzot Smears the Viewer; Hitchcock Exalts the Public; 6. Who Is Nicholas Ray?; 7. Status of the New Filmmaker; 1960s: 8. Once Upon a Time There Was a Little Filmmaker; 9. Portrait and Character; 10. M= M; 11. The Second Oberhausen Manifesto; 12. Not "Performing," Reciting; 13. Frustration of Violence; 14. Encounter with the New German Cinema; 15. The Bach Film; 16. Questionnaire on Film and Narrative; 17. Straub Autobiography; 18. Presentation of Not Reconciled; 19. I Have Always Been Horrified ...; 20. Peter Nestler, a Documentarian Not Reconciled; 21. On Ernst Lubitsch; 22. Protest; 23. The Bridegroom, the Actress, and the Pimp; 24. Introduction to Nestler; 25. Ferocious; 26. Mao's Last Judgment; 27. Eliminate the System and the State; 1970s: 28. Introduction to Othon; 29. Dubbing Is Murder; 30. Othon: Presentation for Its Broadcast on German Television; 31. Filmcritica, Eisenstein, Brecht; 32. "Not Reconciled" with Television Censorship; 33. Filmmaking Must Retain Teamwork ...; 34. Filmography of Jean-Marie Straub; 35. On The Business Affairs of Mr. Julius Caesar; 36. Interview on Direct Sound; 37. Small Historical Excursus; 38. Letter to the Export Union of German Cinema; 39. David Wark Griffith, Flower of the American Bourgeoisie; 40. Huillet Autobiography; 41. To Kluge; 1980s: 42. Letter to Jean Narboni; 43. Witches (The Chimera?); 44. How to "Correct" Nostalgia; 45. Letter to Fred Camper; 46. Reagan at Bitburg; 47. Fire: Alfred Edel; 48. Letter to Wim Wenders; 49. An Attack on the Reproducibility of a Work of Art; 50. Holderlin, That Is Utopia; 51. Cezanne/Empedocles/Holderlin/von Arnim; 52. Conference: Conception of a Film; 53. Filmcritica Is the Only Italian Review ...; 1990s: 54. S.D.; 55. Quite a Lot of Pent-Up Anger ...; 56. Interview on Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach; 57. Debate on Images and Virtual Reality; 58. Interview on Images and Magic; 59. To the Inhabitants Alive and Dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; 60. Interview: No Appeasement; 61. Autofilmography; 2000s: 62. Letter About La Vallee close; 63. Questionnaire on Globalization; 64. Frans van de Staak Has Died ...; 65. My Key Dates; 66. Questionnaire on May 1968; 67. Action Directe; 68. The Oil Spill; 69. Three Messages to the 63rd Venice International Film Festival; Work Journal for Moses and Aaron, by Gregory Woods with Annotations by Daniele Huillet; ATELIER: Letter to Renato Berta for Fortini/Cani; Itinerary for Too Early, Too Late; Letter to Willy Lubtchansky and Caroline Champetier for Too Early,Too Late; Diagrams for The Death of Empedocles; Shooting Schedule for Cezanne; Lab Notes for Cezanne; Negative Cutting Notes for Cezanne; Sound Mix Notes for Cezanne; Homage to Louis Hochet; Shooting Notes for From Today until Tomorrow; Letter to Willy Lubtchansky and Itinerary for Sicilia!; Location Notes for Sicilia!; Letter to Willy Lubtchansky About Sicilia!; Press Kit for Antigone; Annotated Script for Antigone; Press Kit for Workers, Peasants; Annotated Script for Workers, Peasants; Press Kit for A Visit to the Louvre; Annotated Script for A Visit to the Louvre Letter to Julie Koltai for Her Birthday; Press Kit for These Encounters of Theirs;Annotated Script for These Encounters of Theirs; PORTFOLIO by Renato Berta: Filmography; Compendium of the Writings; Selected Bibliography; Index of Names; Credits

About the Author

Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933) and Danièle Huillet (1936–2006) together formed a collaboration that produced some of the most innovative, rigorous, and profoundly moving films in the history of cinema. They are renowned for their meticulous adaptations of works by giants of Western art and literature: Sophocles, Corneille, Bach, Hölderlin, Cézanne, Brecht, Schoenberg, Kafka, Pavese, et al. Straub continues to renew his commitment to subverting cinematic conventions, and maintains the spirit of his exacting partnership with Huillet, broadening a body of work that now includes over fifty films with his most recent, Gens du Lac, released in 2018. Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933) and Danièle Huillet (1936–2006) together formed a collaboration that produced some of the most innovative, rigorous, and profoundly moving films in the history of cinema. They are renowned for their meticulous adaptations of works by giants of Western art and literature: Sophocles, Corneille, Bach, Hölderlin, Cézanne, Brecht, Schoenberg, Kafka, Pavese, et al. Straub continues to renew his commitment to subverting cinematic conventions, and maintains the spirit of his exacting partnership with Huillet, broadening a body of work that now includes over fifty films with his most recent, Gens du Lac, released in 2018.

Reviews

Editor and translator Sally Shafto has selected texts and images with shrewdness and insight, and designer Scott Ponik has assembled them into a book that is not merely easy to read, but is a pleasure to hold. People who've never heard of Straub-Huillet will want to be seen with it … Indeed, this one book informs not only the films Straub-Huillet derived from it, but all of their work. Conflict and struggle are inevitable, resolution is perpetually deferred, but nature, poetry, and music refresh and inspire.—Kevin McMahon, Los Angeles Review of Books