50th Anniversary
THE CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH
Tuesday, August 14 at 7 pm | Members $11 | Public $16
Unfortunately the quest speaker for this evening has cancelled.
The movie will still be shown. Sorry for the inconvenience.
A musical biopic and brilliant portrait of composer Johann Sebastian Bach, considered a monument to structural cinema.
A galvanizing classic of arthouse cinema, this debut from Straub-Huillet made their reputation as rigorous observers of transcendent aesthetic experience, in a musical film as rewarding as it is precise. Featuring ensemble performances recorded live in front of the camera — often in the very spaces where the works originally premiered — and biographical excerpts from the diary of Bach’s second wife, the film defiantly eschews editorializing to emphasize the pleasures (and idiosyncrasies) of the music, and of a life in art. (West Germany/Italy, 1971, 94 min., German with English subtitles, NR, Dir. Jean-Marie Straub & Daniele Huillet)