Chantal Akerman, 1975
Akerman doesn't overload her images, indeed her still camera (with a few exceptions) demands attention in as much as their is, in a flashing lights way, not a huge amount to see. That means that, what there is, one must truly consider. Her straight-on shots are full of verticals and horizontals, holding relations to the figure(s), often by imitating that images angle, though also on occassion opposing it. These verticals and horizontals mark the degrees of shade in Akerman's wonderfully photographed black and white; on a straightforward level, she has a spectacular eye for the image and lighting conditions.
The fade-outs turn out not to be fade-outs, and this picture really takes you into its time-frame; it is rythmic in a way where nothing outside of the change and stillness of the images really exists. The dialogue comes across as extremely 'pure' here, perhaps due to the lack of interference. Their is a strange autonomy to the sound, even out of character's mouths, enhanced in the earlier sections where actions follow their exact description in voiceover.
Akermnan's long takes seem more about the 'integrity' (if that is the right word) of the locale than of the image per se. For all the individual and challenging formal elements, this isn't the work of a formalist; it's all content, and beautiful at that.
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