Tell It to the Stones: Encounters with the Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub (Web Exclusive)
Edited by Annett Busch and Tobias Hering, Sternberg Press, 2021. 512pp., illus. Paperback: $32.95.

Reviewed by Christoph Huber

Few filmmakers have been as polarizing as the couple Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, who has been soldiering on with a series of mostly short but no less uncompromising solo works after Huillet passed away in 2006. Huillet/Straub’s unmistakable approach is characterized by a strictly materialist aesthetic, combined with a radical communist political stance and a rigorous style that is notable for trying to purge everything from the films that to the artists seems unnecessary. This distillation enables a heightened sensual appreciation, however, and the supporters of Straub/Huillet can make reasonable claims that their method achieves a clarity and occasionally a carnality that remains unrivaled, even as it runs counter to the notions of what constitutes conventional cinema, let alone commercial entertainment—which always has been a bête noire for a filmmaking duo that strives for a constant intellectual and emotional engagement that may be hard-won at times, rejecting common notions of identification by following a Brechtian model of distancing effects. Their detractors commonly refer to their notoriously unmoving camera (although throughout their filmography there are many exceptions to prove the rule) and the performance style they endorse, notably a monotonous diction for all recitals so that no false, “actorly” impulses distract from the texts. 

After all, their films are always adaptations of texts (and sometimes musical works, with three films inspired by Arnold Schoenberg, and their first full-length feature dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach; this underlines the fact that they treat the words of writers as a form of music as well, bringing out different cadences of speech from authors as diverse as Franz Kafka, Elio Vittorini, Marguerite Duras, or the two Friedrichs—Hölderlin and Engels). Straub has famously declared that their films are inspired by texts that they feel resist them, which makes worthwhile years of work in exhaustive preparation, with meticulous attention paid to the tiniest details each step of the way, giving a unique personal stamp to these low-budget works, whose only luxury, in the words of the filmmakers themselves, is the film stock (as long as they worked on expensive film material): Huillet/Straub were famous for shooting many takes, and not because technical or other glitches demanded a repeat performance, but because each shot is different in myriads of tiny ways, from the change in light and natural sound(s) to unexpected little details—like a butterfly fluttering into the frame—giving them a wealth of opportunities to choose from in the montage.

One can easily intuit that, from the beginning of their career, Huillet/Straub’s aims and achievements have been so far from the norm that they would obviously meet with resistance. Their first major work Not Reconciled (1965), a resolutely present-tense and contentious examination of recent German history drawn from a (radically reworked) novel by Heinrich Böll, met with vituperative attacks by most critics upon its premiere in a Berlinale sidebar, although there were a few exceptions (in Cahiers du cinéma, Michel Delahaye declared it “the greatest [German] film since Lang and Murnau”). And while the duo’s work found its way to partial acceptance in highbrow film circles over the decades, its potential to antagonize remained intact. I vividly remember the hateful reactions and subsequent offended walkouts of many critics when their Cesare Pavese adaptation These Encounters of Theirs (2006) premiered in Venice competition (it even won a special award), since they could not fathom being subjected to something so resolutely opposed to both easy consumption and the conventional notions of festival prestige. And yet, there is something very simple at the core of Huillet/Straub’s works, which have explicitly been made not to speak to an elite but are intended to be seen by many (if they can do for once without ingratiating accessories).

That doesn’t mean that all of Straub/Huillet is accessible to everyone. Coming from a small country that has a small, but steadfast and influential base of diehard “Straubians” (some of their films even got regular art-house releases in Austria up into this millennium), I’ve appreciated the opportunity to keep track of their filmic output and cherished their principled approach, but while I admire and even love a lot of their work, other parts just don’t speak to me at all. Which I guess would be fine with the filmmakers themselves, but for a long time they’ve been at the center of such a heated debate that one had the impression one could only be categorically for or against them. That Straub (the vocal provocateur of the two) liked to pour oil in the flames of controversies probably didn’t help. When the long, unbroken tracking shots taken from a car driving through Rome street traffic that punctuate their Brecht adaptation History Lessons (1972)—which I personally find mesmerizing—were condemned as “interminable” by Variety, he promptly noted that the trade paper was the “organ of the pimps of American and international cinema.”

Which is just one of the discoveries to be made (in a footnote) in the recent book Tell It to the Stones, edited by Annett Busch and Tobias Hering, the curators of the eponymous Huillet/Straub project for the Akademie der Künste in Berlin that took place during several months near the end of 2017 and which combined a film retrospective of their work (spread over various cinemas) with a huge exhibition, conferences, concerts, and other artistic endeavors. A manifestation of the belated art world appreciation for these radical filmmakers, as well as a more inclusive interest in their work beyond the endorsements of their sometimes somewhat sectarian supporters that has led to a range of interesting and more widely visible publications over the last decade, “Tell It to the Stones” has itself yielded two books. The first one was a German-language edition of the collected writings by Straub and Huillet, edited by Tobias Hering, Volko Kamensky, Markus Nechleba and Antonia Weiße, which managed to add a few texts not yet included in the commendable English-language equivalent Writings, edited by Sally Shafto in 2016. The first volume was not directly indebted to the Berlin project, whereas this new book is, presenting a beautifully illustrated selection of texts that relate directly to (or have even been written for) the “Tell It to the Stones” project. 

The result is a very diverse array of—per the book’s subtitle—encounters with the work of the duo, ranging from a personal recollection by longtime friend (and fellow filmmaker) Peter Nestler that starts with their first meetings in the 1960s to an account of their diligent work with actors for the Sophocles-via-Hölderlin-via-Brecht adaptation Antigone (1992) by academic Patrick Primaversi. Describing the rehearsals at the Schaubühne Berlin for the eventual film shoot at the ancient Teatro in Segesta, Sicily, Primaversi also unravels the genesis of the phrase that served as the project’s title. Discussing veteran Schaubühne actor Werner Rehm’s interpretation of the role of King Kreon, the directing duo suggested he should look down at the floor in a scene when the character is lying to his men, whereas Rehm wanted to gaze directly at them. Finally, Huillet found a solution by simply making this proposal to the actor: “Tell it to the stones!”. In it, Primaversi sees encapsulated “a profound formula” concerning several levels crucial to Antigone (and the Straub/Huillet project in general)—the search for credible gestures, the violence of a speech act, and its performance, which should release “the various layers of violence inscribed in the text itself.” 

In between these two texts there are many different items orbiting the work of Straub/Huillet: from a photo essay (with a short annotation) by Jan Lemitz to long conversations about and with Straub. Some artists describe how Huillet/Straub has inspired their work in general and in particular their contributions to the “Tell it to the Stones” project, from musician Ming Tsao (whose explanations went way over my head) to visual artist Luisa Greenfield, who tried to drive through Rome with a camera along the routes taken in History Lessons decades later, then presented both views side by side (the footnote I cited above is from her text). Some pieces are put together to form longer blocks, highlighting a particular aspect of the duo’s work, such as those that delve into the repeated Huillet/Straub work with certain authors: Barbara Ulrich (Straub’s collaborator since Huillet’s death) analyzes the relation to Hölderlin and his theories, then Manfred Bauschulte studies the influence of Vittorini and Pavese, after which Primaversi discusses parallels in the works of Straub/Huillet and Heiner Müller with Peter Kammerer.

Elsewhere, the print version of a rewarding, old-school cinephile film introduction by stalwart Filmkritik contributor, repeated Huillet/Straub collaborator, and filmmaker in his own right Manfred Blank is followed by a discussion between two artist-researchers and Straub in which they seem to talk past each other—with the failure of communication nevertheless revealing about something in the reception of Straub. In the end (as did the German book Schriften with the collected writings), editors Busch and Hering have managed to compile another book that on the one hand shows why the intransigent art of Straub/Huillet is often deemed inaccessible, difficult, and even impenetrable, but on the other hand manages to explicate beautifully why not only the two filmmakers themselves see it as open, inviting, and even popular, I guess. The result offers a springboard for newcomers, but also insights for longtime followers of Straubiana, and not only the self-declared “Straubians.” In particular, Barton Byg’s study of their 1990 film about Cezanne and the particular importance it held for Huillet, which he identifies as the driving force behind this project, is full of revelations. As with my aforementioned response to the work of the filmmakers themselves, some of the book’s pieces fascinated me, while others didn’t speak to me at all. Since this encapsulates the ambivalence inherent in their radical project, I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. 

Christoph Huber is the curator at the Austrian Film Museum.

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