Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

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solent · #1 Post by **solent** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:02 pm

DVD Empire have Straub's 1967 film listed for a Sept. 9 release. It would be good if the short COMEDIAN & THE PIMP will be added as an extra. This is good news for "New" German cinema fans. it will be on the New Yorker Video label

backstreetsbackalright · Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:24 pm

I'm also very excited about this release. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if that Bridegroom wish comes true - both were released in 1968 and, because of the Fassbinder angle (he acts in it), the short would likely draw a bigger audience than the feature itself.

This is something unfamiliar Criterionforum members should definitely add to their rental lists. Let's keep fingers crossed for more of the Straub-Huillet catalog! (New Yorkers, by the way, can check out a number of their films in the Public Library's 16mm collection.)

#3 Post by **zedz** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:40 am

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach is bracingly ascetic (it makes Bresson look like Fellini), but it's one of Straub / Huillet's more accessible films, particularly if you enjoy Bach. I hope it's a good transfer and is successful enough to pave the way for further releases.

GringoTex · #4 Post by **GringoTex** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:34 am

Will this be the first Straub/Huillet feature available on region 1?

The Fanciful Norwegian · Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:55 am

Yes. And AFAIK it's the first to be made available in the U.S. on any home video format (correct me if I'm wrong).

backstreetsbackalright · Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:55 am

Langlois68 wrote:Will this be the first Straub/Huillet feature available on region 1?

Yeah, it is. There are bootlegs of poor quality to be had on ebay, but otherwise this is it. I don't even think there are import DVDs out there. Or VHS for that matter.

....and yes, ascetic is the key word here.

DDillaman · #7 Post by **DDillaman** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:21 pm

If it wasn't for the fact that it's New Yorker ("Kwality is Job oen!"), I'd be completely ecstatic about this. Straub-Huillet films are amongst my holy grails of cinema that I haven't been able to see (Naruse is another one high up there) and I'm really curious to see what they're all about.

solent · #8 Post by **solent** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:33 pm

Date now changed to November 22 - typical of new Yorker [re: WEEKEND].

backstreetsbackalright · Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:48 am

solent wrote:It would be good if the short COMEDIAN & THE PIMP will be added as an extra.

Speaking of, it just came to my attention that this short is available on Raro's Fassbinder 3-DVD set.

http://www.rarovideo.com/schede/cof_fassbinder.htm

And with English subs!

Jean-Luc Garbo · #10 Post by **Jean-Luc Garbo** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:02 pm

I just heard about this DVD release today and I'm excited. As a Bach lover I was intrigued when I first heard about it three years ago, but now I may get to see it. Any word on the extras?

solent · #11 Post by **solent** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:47 pm

"Above all, THE CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH is a celebration of Bach's music, which is played throughout the film live and on original instruments..." John Sandford, THE NEW GERMAN CINEMA (1980).

Straub wanted to film this as his first feature in 1954 but had to wait. This reminds me of Fassbinder's delay in filming his EFFI BRIEST which he too wanted to be his first project.

solent · #12 Post by **solent** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:59 pm

New Yorker have done it again!
Yet another date change for this film (the third).
It is now set for December 20.

#13 Post by **zedz** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:43 pm

Well, it's out, and according to the NYTimes it's good!

NYTimes wrote:The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet revolutionized the musical biography with their solemn, rigorous "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach," released in 1968 and featuring the Dutch harpsichordist and organist Gustav Leonhardt as Johann Sebastian Bach, cast for his performance technique rather than his acting skills. Dramatic action is held to a minimum in the 94-minute film, which consists largely of pieces performed in a single shot, with occasional slight camera movements, as the voice of Bach's second wife (played by another musician, Christiane Lang) recounts his daily domestic and professional struggles.

Recording with direct sound and period instruments at a time when musical films were routinely post-synched, Mr. Straub and Ms. Huillet grounded the music in specific physical and historical contexts, treating a subject usually treated as grandly transcendent - the miracle of artistic creation - as a material process anchored in a cramped real world. Freed from romantic clichés (which Bach himself would certainly not have recognized), the music moves closer to the pure mathematical expression that Bach, at least in Mr. Straub's view, seemed to regard as the most pious approach to his austere Lutheran God. The excellent presentation from New Yorker Films features a "window box" format to preserve the original 1.66 aspect ratio and includes a fascinating documentary on the filmmaking, produced for Dutch television in 1968. $29.95; not rated.

[. . .]

After a shaky start that yielded some botched, hasty transfers (can we please have a do-over on Robert Bresson's essential film "A Man Escaped"?), New Yorker has lately found its footing, as "Chronicle" and another recent release, Mai Zetterling's overlooked 1964 Swedish film, "Loving Couples," spectacularly attest.

Gordon · #14 Post by **Gordon** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:43 pm

Nice spy, zedz!

So when the heck is this being released?

#15 Post by **zedz** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 8:42 pm

Gordon McMurphy wrote:So when the heck is this being released?

It's out now, apparently, but a lot of online stores don't seem to be carrying it - a New Yorker issue, I believe. It's available now from Amazon, though.

solent · #16 Post by **solent** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:10 pm

Mine shipped from CD Universe 2 days ago. I'm glad of the extra doco but the short film from 1968 by Straub calledTHE BRIDEGROOM, THE COMMEDIENNE & THE PIMP would have been a logical inclusion as well. If Criterion put this out it certainly would have been there.

I noticed another New Yorker release recently issued on DVD of Mai Zetterlin's LOVING COUPLES (1964), a rare Swedish film of the 60s. Has anyone mentioned this film on this forum before?

#17 Post by **zedz** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:41 pm

solent wrote:I noticed another New Yorker release recently issued on DVD of Mai Zetterlin's LOVING COUPLES (1964), a rare Swedish film of the 60s. Has anyone mentioned this film on this forum before?

I haven't seen the film, but it's well-regarded, and Zetterling is an important, overlooked director. Her provocative The Girls from a few years later is excellent, and well worth tracking down for any Bergman enthusiasts as an alternative take on his stock company. According to the NYTimes, the transfer of Loving Couples is excellent as well.

Edit: Here's the Times piece:

After a shaky start that yielded some botched, hasty transfers (can we please have a do-over on Robert Bresson's essential film "A Man Escaped"?), New Yorker has lately found its footing, as "Chronicle" and another recent release, Mai Zetterling's overlooked 1964 Swedish film, "Loving Couples," spectacularly attest.

Ms. Zetterling began as an actress, starring in two early films by Ingmar Bergman ("Torment" and "Night Is My Future") before moving on to London and Hollywood, where she supported the likes of Danny Kaye ("Knock on Wood") and Tyrone Power ("Abandon Ship!"). But in 1962 Ms. Zetterling directed "The War Game" (which won for best short film in Venice and is included as a bonus on the New Yorker DVD), and subsequently returned to Sweden to make her first feature, adapted from "The Misses von Pahlen," an early feminist novel by Agnes von Krusenstjerna.

Ms. Zetterling raided Mr. Bergman's stock company for her cast, borrowing Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Bjornstrand as well as Mr. Bergman's brilliant cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. But the style of this tonally complex piece, in which three women in a maternity hospital await the moment of childbirth with very different feelings, has nothing to do with Mr. Bergman's often static theatricality: the film is a fluid, continually surprising blend of subjective flashbacks and shared experience, culminating in a Midsummer's Night celebration that rivals Mr. Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" in its lyrical presentation of the social and sexual dynamics of a country estate. A very welcome rediscovery. $29.95, not rated.

spencerw · #18 Post by **spencerw** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:33 am

solent wrote:the short film from 1968 by Straub called THE BRIDEGROOM, THE COMMEDIENNE & THE PIMP would have been a logical inclusion as well

This short is included in an Italian Fassbinder box set (for details, go to http://www.rarovideo.com/eng/index.asp and scroll down). Has anyone seen this release?

There's a thread on Raro, the company behind the box set, over at http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... light=raro

Gordon · #19 Post by **Gordon** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:21 pm

zedz wrote:
Gordon McMurphy wrote:So when the heck is this being released?
It's out now, apparently, but a lot of online stores don't seem to be carrying it - a New Yorker issue, I believe. It's available now from Amazon, though.

D'oh! I keep forgetting that few e-tailers stock New Yorker titles now. It's surprising that even DVD Pacific have stopped, asthey stock just every in-print title - and at low prices, too. CD Universe are an excellent company, though.

spencerw · #20 Post by **spencerw** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:28 pm

zedz wrote:Well, it's out, and according to the NYTimes it's good!

That's not the DVDBeaver view: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... review.htm

ando · #21 Post by **ando** » Sun May 16, 2010 2:52 am

Ah, so who here has watched it? Completely? A friend let me borrow his copy and I do confess that I nodded off at the second or third long-held close up on a piece of sheet music (it was 3 am). The scene brought to mind a scene from Into Great Silence, a film of seeming rigor and spiritual meditation, where a monk, alone in a cell, blithely flips through pages of scripture, at which point I felt the film to be going through the motions of a "meditation". Chronicle, on the other hand, has the rigor I admire in a film and the participants are actually involved in their activities, but it doesn't seen terribly dynamic. But it may be a premature assessment; I'm completing my viewing tonight and just wondered if anyone was able to get through it.

Peacock · #22 Post by **Peacock** » Sun May 16, 2010 2:56 am

I enjoyed it, it neither excited nor bored me. A strange experience, especially with the sudden dialogue scenes later in the film. I'll need to try and work our how it related to the Vietnam War though...

And for the record, I thought the transfer on the New Wave Films DVD looked good! Not sure what all the complaining was about..
Here's a comparison with the New Yorker I saw on The Auteurs
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/1699?from_theauteurs=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ando · #23 Post by **ando** » Sun May 16, 2010 3:02 am

Great. Thanks for that - had no idea there was another version.

Lemmy Caution · #24 Post by **Lemmy Caution** » Sun May 16, 2010 4:23 am

Any thoughts on Sicilia! (1999) or A Visit to the Louvre (2004)?

Those two films along with Chronicle of AM Bach are soon to touch down in China (apparently all on one disc).

Peacock · #25 Post by **Peacock** » Sun May 16, 2010 1:01 pm

I haven't watched A Visit to the Louvre yet, but Sicilia is good. Completely different from Anna Magdalena however!

The structure takes the form of a man traveling back to his old home to see his mother, on the way he meets various people from different classes and asks them how they feel about their job and position in society. It's really difficult to analyze the film other than agree that it's a very anti-fascist; I've never seen films like these before so feel somewhat lost as to go about it. Anyone else have any thoughts on the film?

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