Jean-Claude Rousseau

In the solitude of his apartment, Rousseau reads shorts excerpts from Racine’s Bérénice, images of separation; he films in a café, musicians in the street, a dance, domestic intimacy, in a self-portrait that reflects the contradiction between desires and time. “For a long time I have wanted to try and see if I could create a drama with the simplicity of action which the Ancients so favoured. There are those who believe that this very simplicity is a sign of a lack of inventiveness. They do not consider that, on the contrary, all invention is to create something out of nothing.” (Racine, preface to Bérénice, 1670.)Read More »

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Jean-Claude Rousseau is a filmmaker who believes in the natural power of images. The rigid compositions create something like a pure state, which constantly changes during the period of its viewing – like an empty and simultaneously detail-packed field. During this period the viewer is challenged to find and occupy his own position, to find his perspective in a similar way the filmmaker has found his in several places. Festival combines places the artist has visited during the last few years. Jean-Claude Rousseau’s films not only make beautiful discoveries, they are beautiful discoveries.Read More »

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“He came to read. He opened two or three books; by historians and poets. But he read for barely ten minutes, and then gave up.” C. Cavafy

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A postcard, a souvenir from Athens: sitting on a comfortable rock, a young man is bent over in his thoughts, then straightens up a little to project them on to the landscape; in the background, a ruin; between the two, a few tiny passers-by, two or three stray dogs that break into the frame; and in the air, a record with worn-out grooves, a popular Greek song in which we make out the words: “postcard”, “souvenir from Athens”. Are the films of Jean-Claude Rousseau postcards? Yes, basically: a certain eternity in the stark present of an image, brought back from a place the eye has visited. Read More »

PROPOSITIONS
Selected examples of a New Cinema

The continuing demand for high standards is what sets Rouseau’s work apart. What makes this film distinctive is the way Rousseau explicitly returns to the source of his creative inspiration. So here he is at home reciting «Bérénice» to himself, whilst going about his household chores. It verges on the comical: There are repeated shots of him obstinately trying to turn off a dripping tap, or the jubilant close up of bare feet carried away in performing a dance step or two. Combining art with life in such a way, that nothing is compartmentalised, nothing lost – that is the goal. (Jean-Pierre Rehm)Read More »

Un Monde Flottant (2020)

Between rain and clearer spells, in the footsteps of Ozu in today’s Japan, people met, wordless encounters… Also some seismic events, a trembling of the ground which does not interrupt the course of the film. And just for the sake of a story: a forgotten umbrella in a hotel room.Read More »

Jeune femme à sa fenêtre lisant une lettre
1983, 45 min, super-8

“Through the window, we cannot distinguish the scene: a street, a canal, a view of Delft, perhaps a port. We are on the inside, with the light pouring in. The maps on the wall are bigger than the paintings, yet we do not know where we are. The woman stands at the window reading a letter. She loses track of location as she reads. She could be anywhere, at any random point on the map. Outside. Through the window, we cannot distinguish the scene: a street, a canal, a view of Delft, perhaps a port. We are on the inside…”(Jean-Claude Rousseau)Read More »

Rousseau’s first full-length feature, and one of the best documentaries/experimental films of the past few decades, sprung equally from Robert Bresson, Michael Snow, and Jean-Marie Straub (who has called Rousseau one of the three best working artists in modern Europe). Again hard places played against drifting sounds from unseen sites beyond the image; the images and sounds, repeated, become inflections of each other. But this time there are historical inflections; Rousseau’s film, like Straub’s, takes place in a sort of meta-history as characters and ancient sites each become products of outside light and shadow.Read More »

Short film commissioned by the Cinemathèque Suisse to celebrate Jean-Marie Straub’s 85th birthday. Directed by Jean-Claude Rousseau.

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Jean-Claude Rousseau is a filmmaker who believes in the natural power of images. The rigid compositions create something like a pure state, which constantly changes during the period of its viewing – like an empty and simultaneously detail-packed field. During this period the viewer is challenged to find and occupy his own position, to find his perspective in a similar way the filmmaker has found his in several places. Festival combines places the artist has visited during the last few years. Jean-Claude Rousseau’s films not only make beautiful discoveries, they are beautiful discoveries.Read More »