Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub Film Retrospective  

I don’t know anyone else who did this: Straub-Huillet used to edit and release multiple versions of the same film, with different flavours and durations. When he released his last film, Straub put both versions side by side, a lunar and a solar one. And when you watch History Lessons you see the streets of Rome in the morning, at noon and in the evening. (Rastko Novaković)

History Lessons

Directors: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Screenplay: Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, Bertolt Brecht
Cinematography: Renato Berta, Emilio Bestetti
Editing: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Sound: Jeti Grigioni
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Producers: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Production: Janus Film
Germany, Italy, 1972, 85 min.

In History Lessons, which is based on an unfinished novel by Bertolt Brecht, a young man from our time meets various people who witnessed Caesar’s rise to power. The camera which accompanies the young man driving around Rome records a vast panorama of the city, inviting us to confront the remnants and ruins of the Empire. In this dialogue between the past and the present “the film tells the original relations between commerce, democracy, capitalism and imperialism.” (Straub)

France Against the Robots

Director: Jean-Marie Straub
Screenplay: Georges Bernanos
Cinematography: Renato Berta, Patrick Tresch
Editing: Christophe Clavert
Sound: Dimitri Haulet, Renaud Musy
Producer: Barbara Ulrich
Production: Belva Film
Switzerland, 2020, 10 min.

Straub’s final film France Against the Robots confronts the powers of the state, technology and capital through the words of George Bernanos. The monologue is staged in two versions, one shot in the evening and one shot in the morning on the shores of Lake Geneva.