"Blut und Boden". A video-montage out of 40 minutes film-cutouts in four compositions.

1. A Corner in Wheat von David W. Griffith (1909)
2. Moses und Aron (1974)
Ende erster Akt von «Nein, ihr irrt euch nicht, was ihr jetzt
seht ist Blut» bis «Frei, frei, frei»
3. Fortini/Cani (1976)
Apuane-Sequenz von «Die Gemeinderäte von den Apuanen»
(«Es gab eine sehr reale Art und Weise, diese Toten zu vergessen, die Art, die von den herrschenden Klassen in den zehn ersten Jahren der Nachkriegszeit gebraucht wurde.»)
bis «Ihr habt nicht, ihr seid nicht»
4. Dalla nube alla resistenza (1978)  » read more

As the camera shows us some of the masterpieces held in the Louvre, Julie Kotaï speaks the comments made about the paintings by Cézanne which were put into writing by the poet Joachim Gasquet.

Une Visite au Louvre allows us to appreciate, through their regard and understanding of art, the rigorous filmmaking of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet.

‘It could be said that Straub is to cinema what Cézanne was to painting.‘
Hervé Gauville, Libération  » read more

Die Antigone des Sophokles nach der hölderlinschen Übertragung für die Bühne bearbeitet von Brecht 1948 (Suhrkamp Verlag) (Antigone)

In Antigone, violence is explained as inadequacy. The war against Argos is the result of mismanagement in Thebes. The robbed ones are obliged to become robbers themselves. The undertaking is beyond their strength. Instead of holding their strength together, violence breaks it down. Basic human elements explode when they are suppressed too much. This throws everything apart and towards destruction.
(Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub)

  » read more

Just as they previously did with Cesare Pavese in "From the Clouds to the Resistance", the Straubs bring to the screen Elio Vittorini, a great Italian writer to whom they remain true over a number of films. "Workers, Peasants" tells the story of a practical, political utopia: the attempt to create a new, different society among the Greeks immediately after the war. The subject is very dear to the Straubs. In their films, they repeatedly preoccupy themselves with questions on how we define a people and nature and what a people and nature really are.  » read more

Nine men and women are sitting on a grassy hill in front of the walls encircling the Paris Pére Lachaise cemetery. They recite a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. Bouncing back and forth between the people, a region of words comes into being, a light sculpture of texts, scanned and pounded out on the verge of silence. The film is dedicated to friends of the Straubs, as well as to the dead of the Paris Commune of May 1871.

This film is a selection of the backstage filming during the breaks in filming of Quei Loro Incontri, using a small digital camera. It highlights three particular instants: the listening of the sound, the actors’ rehearsals, the choice of the specific shots. But it is the moment following these which becomes the central element, J’écoute!, (Listen!) which breaks the silence of men and nature. That which happened forces me to painfully concentrate on the joyous memory of Peccato nero (1989), the first film by Straub I ever saw in the cinema.  » read more

The source of History Lessons is Brecht's Die Geschafte des Herrn Julius Caesar. Straub and Huillet only present a fragment of the incompleted novel. They left out all the anecdotal material and concentrated on the discussions of economics. Straub said of the film while it was still in the planning stages: "It will be presented to be judged as a reflection on Marx."
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/hfilm/MADSEN.html