In 2010, Straub goes to Alsace in France to complete the second film of the Barrès series. At this time, the film is based on the novel, Au service de l’Allemagne, about Mont Saint Odile written in 1903. Jean-Marie Straub from the Colmar region will be wandering around Mont Saint Odile following the route of a young country doctor. –Jeonju Digital Project
Filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet, his wife and co-director, have become leading figures in New German cinema. Their films are not for passive viewers seeking light entertainment; films such as Not Reconciled or Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules (1965) are intellectually demanding, and yet are among the most haunting films of German cinema. Prior to teaming up with Huillet, the French born Straub worked as an assistant to French directors such as Abel Gance, Jean Renoir, and Robert Bresson. He met and teamed up with Huillet in 1954. To avoid the draft, he fled to Munich, Germany in 1958 where they got involved with radical theater groups. By the early sixties he and his wife had become a prominent directors. They made their debut with the short Machorka-Muff in 1963. In 1968, their long-time friend Fassbinder appeared in The Bridegroom, the Comedienne and the Pimp. Straub and Huillet’s most famous film is Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968). By the late ’60s… read more
Also: Girish Shambu on the video essay, Brian Darr on Méliès, Kurt Jensen on Mamoulian and more.
In our annual poll, we pair our favorite new films of 2011 with older films seen in the same year to create fantastic double features.
A report from the film festival’s Jean-Marie Straub retrospective playing alongside new short films by the master.