Chantal Akerman in the Seventies (1972-1978) [The Criterion Collection, Eclipse Series 19]

Director: Chantal Akerman

Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made in the 1970s in the United States and Europe and strongly influenced by the New York experimental film scene. Bold and iconoclastic, these five films pushed boundaries in their day and continue to have a profound influence on filmmakers all over the world.


Chantal Akerman in the Seventies (1972-1978) [The Criterion Collection, Eclipse Series 19]:

La chambre, 1972 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068354/
In Chantal Akerman’s early short film La chambre, we see the furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back at us. This breakthrough formal experiment is the first film the director made in New York.

Hotel Monterey, 1972 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068725/
Under Chantal Akerman’s watchful eye, a cheap Manhattan hotel glows with mystery and unexpected beauty, its corridors, elevators, rooms, windows, and occasional occupants framed like Edward Hopper tableaux.

News from Home, 1976 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076452/
Akerman’s unforgettable time capsule of New York City in the 1970s is also a gorgeous meditation on urban alienation and personal and familial disconnection.

Je tu il elle, 1975 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071690/
In her provocative first feature, Chantal Akerman stars as an aimless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male

Les rendez-vous d'Anna, 1978 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078152/
In one of Akerman’s most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (played by Aurore Clément), makes her way through a series of European cities to promote her latest movie.




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