Chantal Akerman R.I.P. (1950 – 2015)

Belgian director Chantal Akerman poses at a photocall for her movie ‘La Folie Almayer’ during the 68th Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 03 September 2011. The movie is presented out of competition at the festival that runs from 31 August to 10 September. EPA/CLAUDIO ONORATI

I was lucky to attend a mini-retrospective of Chantal Akerman’s work at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 1997. It marked the first time that I saw her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a film that recently topped my list of the 40 best films from the year I was born. Incredibly, at this screening of a four-hour movie in which “nothing happens” until the climax, the final two reels were projected in the wrong order. The climax of the retrospective itself was Akerman’s memorable personal appearance following a screening of her 1996 documentary Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman. Among the highlights of the Q&A:

– I asked her if it was easier for her to make films in Europe or America (this was not long after she had directed A Couch in New York with William Hurt and Juliette Binoche). Her response was that it was easier for her to make films in Europe but that it was getting harder all the time because the European film industry was increasingly trying to imitate the American one.

– She said that she was so concerned about Jean-Luc Godard after watching his 1994 film JLG/JLG that she visited him at his home in Switzerland to make sure he wasn’t too depressed.

– Someone asked her who her favorite directors were. Her withering reply: “This is the kind of question for a magazine.” (She could be just as irascible on Facebook in recent years — at one point telling Monte Hellman that he needed to stop posting so much about the Academy Awards.)

I was delighted when I later heard it through the grapevine that Akerman had “partied hard” during her stay in Chicago. Rest in peace, Chantal. The world will not see your like again.