Tosh's Journal: July 21, 2023
The Mother & The Whore, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Empire, and In Search of Lost Time
As of this year, 2023, I have become a Maximumist in my taste for the arts. I have been reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and seeing only films over three hours long. I even want to change a script I’m writing with another writer and make that too at least three-to-four hours long. He wants to keep the length to two hours, but I feel that is a cop-out. And also, keep in mind that I’m not showing this script to anyone due to the ongoing strike. If the strike demands are not met, I may even burn the existing copy in front of the public or post that act on my Substack page.
The two films I have seen this year that have captured my obsessional love are Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantel Ackerman, and The Mother and The Whore, a film by Jean Eustache. Both are three hours and 30 minutes long and are excellent. If I have to admit under torture, I would say that Jeanne Dielman… is the masterpiece among the two. My wife and I went to the Glendale Laemmle to see The Mother and the Whore. My other favorite film of almost all time is Andy Warhol’s eight-hour film Empire, another epic where it seems nothing happens. Still, the Empire State Building has a movie star aura, which is quite dramatic for that time. The Mother and The Whore is a meditation on love and the politics of having a relationship between lovers and friends. Jeanne Dielman… is a fixation on a woman focused on her daily duties. All three films are entertaining but also a moving experience for me. Once I have seen these films, I feel my life has changed or made me aware of my feelings in times when I feel alienated.
I have a strong work ethic at my writing desk and work from 10:00 AM to 4 PM. So, seeing a long film is challenging and puts a wrench in my schedule, especially if I see a movie with my wife, who has a strict work schedule. Going out to see a film is almost revolutionary, throwing one’s agenda out of the speeding car to the movie theater. And doing so, I feel this spiritual peace within myself after seeing a film of significant length. This, including the time it takes to read the Proust masterpiece, is a way for me to fight against schedule and do something impractical. If you read the previous post, we went to see Sparks at the Hollywood Bowl, which also kept us away from our creative work.
The beauty of going into a theater to see a film, especially where it’s a long haul, is to lose the sense of time. I never look at my phone to see what time it is because I’m part of a tradition or procedure where you give yourself up to the filmmaker and their work on the big screen. Watching great films at home through a streaming service is very good, but it’s a different medium. We watched Jeanne… on the Criterion Channel, which was great, but if we saw it on a big screen, among strangers, it would undoubtedly have a more profound impact on us. Still, I did watch the Ackerman film, but as I watched it, I imagined myself in a theater and had to pretend I was in another location.
When at home, my wife makes the dinner, and I do the clean-up, and then we watch a film together. It’s a time set apart not for the movie itself but in a manner that we share an experience together. Even a lousy shitty cinema can have a special meaning, but when one comes upon Jeanne… a masterpiece, it physically changes our landscape.
Like the films we mentioned above, the first thing one hears is how long these movies are - which, in theory, becomes an athletic practice to see how long we can hold on to our piss. The bullshit of focusing on how long a film is, how much money it made at the box office, or who didn’t like it is shit. The relationship between the viewer and the filmmaker is pure and shouldn’t be tainted with prejudice or fear of the unknown. Everyone will die in the end, so one has to choose what they want to do while alive. For me, it is to read a very long novel and see films that take forever to end. And if I die while watching a movie of great length, it will be an extraordinary death.
My favorite maximalist film maker is Jacques Rivette. His longest picture is Out One, 12 hours (he edited a shorter version called Out One: Spectre at 4 hours.) His Joan of Arc movie Jeanne la pucelle is 6 hours (as a side note, its one of 4 Joan of Arc cinema masterpieces, the others being The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dryer,) Joan of Arc at the Stake (Roberto Rossellini,) and The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson.) But my favorite Rivette picture is Celine and Julie Go Boating at just over 3 hours.