← Part of the Collection: Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub

From Today Until Tomorrow (1997, 62 min.)

(1) Von heute auf morgen (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, 1997)

What does it mean to be modern? For Huillet and Straub, the danger of becoming modern – or more generally “modernization” – means to despise all that has gone before and to “chase after shadows,” where everything becomes “privatized, plundered, and destroyed by… (the idea) of growth and development.”1 Schoenberg’s defense for a modern music is given form in his opera Von Heute auf Morgen (1929) based on a libretto by his wife Gertrude under the pseudonym Max Blonda. It is the first opera to make use of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique in which no tone recurs until all remaining tones have been used, thereby destabilizing any sense of harmonic center. Yet this wholly modern technique is used in the service of a libretto that relegates the modern, suggested by sexual liberation through open marriage, to simply fashion and a threat to the idea of fidelity. As Max Blonda writes in the libretto, “Fashion is your director but for us, (it is) …dare I say it: love.” Yet Schoenberg’s integration of the twelve-tone technique to defend the tradition of monogamous marriage as a symbol for fidelity, particularly the fidelity of an artistic work to the rigor of its materialization, whether opera or film, speaks to the dialectical nature of what it means to be a radical artist. As Karl Marx once said in A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, “to be radical is to grasp things by the root” (Radikal sein ist die Sache an der Wurzel fassen.) But the roots for Schoenberg as well as for Huillet and Straub are located precisely in history and tradition, whereby radicality implies some degree of conservation, preservation, and love. As Straub has remarked, “We have something concrete beneath our feet, the earth, and we must have the ability to enjoy the earth, so as to be in a position to protect it.”2 After Schoenberg’s warning in which a new music is only possible if we care for it, composer Helmut Lachenmann’s response almost ninety years later, with his orchestral work Marche fatale (2017), is entirely negative. His response occurs after the West’s immanent collapse from endless wars and neoliberal economic policies. Indeed, what is called new music today has become decontextualized from tradition and history, endlessly grasping at fashionable trends, and is ultimately marching off a cliff. “Once you’ve hammered into people the idea that only what is contemporary and modern exists, be it economic fashions or the supposed political or moral coercions, then it gets to the point where the human being believes he lives better than anyone has ever lived before or ever could live. No movement occurs anymore.”3 For Huillet and Straub, Von heute auf morgen is “a declaration of war” against modernization to reaffirm the possibility for something truly new, indeed a new music of which Schoenberg would have been proud.

  • 1I. Graw, D. Huillet, J.-M. Straub, “Modern Menschen: Ein Interview mit Danièle Huillet und Jean-Marie Straub von Isabelle Graw, “ Texte zur Kunst, Heft Nr. 27 (September 1997 “Form-fragen“), 50.
  • 2M. Lylov, E. Marhöfer, J.-M. Straub, “A Thousand Cliffs,” in Tell it to the Stones: Encounters with the Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub (2021), 389.
  • 3I. Graw, ibid.

Image from Von heute auf morgen (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, 1997)

 

With thanks to Oscar Pedersen, Viktor Retoft and Balthazar.

This article was originally published in Balthazar no. 9, 2023, dedicated to the work of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub.

ARTICLE
25.10.2023
EN
In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.