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$25.99 DVD
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ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
Les Stances a Sophie
(Soul Jazz)
Wow -- here's one I NEVER thought would see release, and which I'm overjoyed to be able to tell you about! Soul Jazz does it again with their issue on DVD of Moshé Mizrahi's impossibly rare 1970 post-nouvelle vague film Les Stances à Sophie. It's often regarded as the first true piece of feminist filmmaking and most known for its masterpiece score (also reissued by Soul Jazz) by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The film, based upon Christiane Rochefort's 1963 novel of the same name, Les Stances à Sophie suffered from bankruptcy of its financiers and the receivership of its negatives even before completion, and saw a very limited release in its homeland before languishing in obscurity for nearly 40 years until Soul Jazz got hold of the one remaining (but damaged) print of the film when it first reissued the AEOC's soundtrack back in the early 2000s. They've spent the past eight years untangling the various legal troubles and carefully restoring the print, and the rewards are aplenty.
The breathtaking Bernadette Lafont (one of my all-time crushes of the Nouvelle Vague era) stars as Céline, a free-spirited woman very much of the post-1968 revolutionary times the film embodies -- here displayed in somewhat hyperbolic fashion by hippie free-love parties and jam sessions complete with spliffs the size of small animals. She meets -- or rather, gets hit by -- Philippe, an average, strait-laced Michel Duchaussoy forever content to languish in middle-class middle-management; they have an affair, they get married, and Céline spends most of the rest of the film lashing out, trying to escape (and later, adapt to) the trap she feels she has let herself fall into. As the film progresses, we witness Céline, once a painter, creatively wither away as the necrophilia of married life begins to set in; she reaches a turning point later on, and spends the rest of the film reasserting her strength via a series of evolving creative pursuits, culminating in the creation of a treatise on the reevaluation of sexual education and its need to address the needs of female pleasure, long ignored by dominant, ignorant alpha-male society.
If some of this sounds a bit heavy-handed, it should be stated that the film mostly does a fine job in handling subject matter so easy to ridicule in incapable hands; thankfully, Mizrahi and Rochefort's script juggles sharp wit and emotional heft with ease, relishing the contradictory statements and behaviors of its protagonist and ably displaying the treacherous waters she throws herself toward with almost wreckless devotion. The Art Ensemble's score is also used magnificently here, adding emotional weight, humor, and gravity to every scene it accompanies. My one complaint is Soul Jazz's somewhat dubious selling point regarding the AEOC's real involvement in the the film itself -- while they are featured on the cover rather than the stars of the film, it should be noted that the group only appears for about one and a half minutes in a performance scene; AEOC member Joseph Jarman is also featured in a brief scene in which he interacts with a few of the main characters. With that being said, this DVD is a rare treat and is recommended viewing for fans of French nouvelle vague filmmakers like Truffaut, late-'60s Godard (think Pierrot Le Fou and Weekend), and Chabrol. The film is subtitled, and also included on the disc is a 30-minute interview with Joseph Jarman in which he speaks about the history of the AEOC, and their involvement in the film. Francophiles rejoice!! Highest recommendation!! (DVD is all-region, capable of playing in nearly any DVD player or on any computer.) [IQ] |
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Hauschka
The Death Set
