THE HEART OF THE MATTER: THE FILM POETICS OF ANNE-MARIE MIÉVILLE

Swiss multimedia artist Anne-Marie Miéville (1945–) has had a profound impact on cinema for over half a century, creating an influential and large body of work across diverse roles as director, writer, editor, performer and sound designer. Beginning her career as stills photographer on Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin’s Tout va bien (1972), and becoming a close collaborator with the former – with whom she shared an artistic and life partnership from the 1970s until his death in 2022 – Miéville’s significant contribution is too often overshadowed by her partner’s legendary body of work. Her collaborations with Godard traverse new terrains of audiovisual composition and filmic contemplation, the contribution of both artists central to the intellectual journey charted by their work together and apart. Miéville’s collaborative and solo work experiments with developing modes of technology and communication, suggesting their potential while remaining critical of their often-devastating impact. This season revises a dominant historical account and critical focus that discounts Miéville’s undeniable importance to the history of cinema, joining a swathe of recent programs around the world that highlight her solo work, her essential contributions to the collaborations with Godard, and draw attention to her distinctive artistic practice. As Fabrice Aragno has said of recent retrospectives, “It’s important for her cinema to exist for its own sake.” This season includes all four of Miéville’s features, a selection of short works including Le livre de Marie (1985), her counterweight companion piece to Godard’s controversial Hail Mary (1985), and Ici et ailleurs (1976), a key film she made with Godard about the Palestinian struggle.

Wednesday 4 November

7:00pm MON CHER SUJET

Anne-Marie Miéville (1988) 96 mins – Unclassified 15+

Miéville’s debut solo feature refines the formal explorations of her earlier work into a melancholy depiction of a 20-year-old opera singer (Gaële Le Roi) and the effect her unexpected pregnancy has on herself, her mother (Anny Romand) and grandmother (Hélène Roussel). Featuring a bracingly discursive soundtrack contrasting Mozart, Mahler, Gluck and others with various jazz and pop tracks. Preceded by Le livre de Marie Anne-Marie Miéville (1985) 26 mins – R 18+. Miéville’s deeply affecting portrait of the “end” of childhood was originally designed to screen in combination with Godard’s Hail Mary. With Aurore Clément. 35mm print.

35mm print of Mon cher sujet courtesy of the Cinémathèque québécoise.

9:20pm NOUS SOMMES TOUS ENCORE ICI

Anne-Marie Miéville (1997) 80 mins – Unclassified 15+

Emerging out of Miéville’s decades-spanning collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard and structured like a concerto, in three interrelated movements, scenes of daily life are transformed into a lyrical contemplation of time through the recital of texts, first by Plato and then Hannah Arendt. In the film’s final act, elements of these texts combine in the form of a dialogue between a couple played by Godard and Aurore Clément. With Bernadette Lafont. Preceded by Faire la fête Anne-Marie Miéville (1986) 13 mins – Unclassified 15+, in which a couple attempt an intimate conversation against a noisy crowd.

Wednesday 11 November

7:00pm LOU N’A PAS DIT NON

Anne-Marie Miéville (1994) 78 mins – Unclassified 15+

Inspired by the correspondences between Russian-born psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé and German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, this romantic drama follows a pair of former lovers (Marie Bunel and Manuel Blanc) across a period of stagnation and flux. Featuring Miéville’s characteristically “stunning cinematic choreography” (Albertine Fox), this is a passionate yet tender and reserved portrait of a couple’s troubled relationship and its aftermath. A cerebral exploration of love and art, accompanied by footage shot at the Louvre and an exquisite classical music score.

8:30pm ICI ET AILLEURS

Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville (1976) 55 mins – Unclassified 15+

Godard’s concern for the Palestinian struggle led to the Dziga Vertov Group’s unfinished “Until Victory”, shot in 1970 with fedayeen militants exiled in Jordan. After the film’s subjects were killed by Jordanian armed forces, Godard entered a rare period of inactivity, eventually working with Miéville to refashion the footage into a reflection of its own creation, juxtaposing the immediacy of the Arab world’s “elsewhere” with the “here” of a French family captive to mainstream media. Preceded by Sang titre Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville (2020) 10 mins – Unclassified 15+. A special version of the pair’s 2002 Dans le noir du temps re-edited for audiences living under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.

9:45pm APRÈS LA RÉCONCILIATION

Anne-Marie Miéville (2000) 74 mins – Unclassified 15+

In Miéville’s fourth and, so far, last feature as director – also co-writing and editing – she appears alongside Jean-Luc Godard, forming one half of a four-person conversation between two men and two women concerning love, happiness, the limits of language and the longevity of relationships. Replete with literary and philosophical allusions to Joseph Conrad, Martin Heidegger, Victor Hugo and Leo Tolstoy, this minimalist theatrical drama reflects, with equal parts warmth, gravitas and humour, upon aspects of Miéville’s autobiography and intellectual life.