Committed Cinema: The Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: Essays and Interviews

✍ Scribed by Bert Cardullo

• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 234
• Edition: New edition
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Jean-Pierre Dardenne trained as an actor and his younger brother, Luc, studied philosophy; but they have dedicated themselves to filmmaking since the 1970s. After earning a reputation in their native Belgium for directing socially and politically conscious documentaries, they directed their first fiction feature, Falsch, in 1986. They have also been active as producers and in 1975 founded Derives, a company with more than sixty documentaries to its credit. A second company, Les Films du Fleuve, was formed in 1994. The brothers hail from Wallonia, the southern, French-speaking region of Belgium that provides the gritty, postindustrial landscape so omnipresent in their films. In the decade since their third fiction feature, "La Promesse" (1996), became an international success, the unassuming but highly determined Dardennes have ascended to the forefront of a newly revived socially-conscious European cinema. At a time when filmmaking in Europe, however distinguished, seemed largely unmoored from the social changes wrought by the end of the Soviet empire, 'La Promesse' offered a modest but profound view of illegal immigration and worker exploitation, anchored in the moral complexities of the relationship between a Belgian contractor and his teenaged son. Two prizes at Cannes for 'Rosetta' (1999) - which conveys the obsessive extent to which a teenaged girl demands a job, a home, and a normal life - consecrated the Dardenne brothers as leading international cineastes. "Rosetta" was followed by three similarly socially realistic films that are at the same time intimate character portraits: 'The Son' (2002), 'L'Enfant' (2005), and 'The Silence of Lorna' (2008). In each of their five feature films since 1996, the Dardennes' rigorous, handheld camerawork and highly selective framing merge with physically intense acting to evoke a realistic tradition infused with philosophical and spiritual depth - one that hearkens back to both Rossellini's "Germany Year Zero" (1948) and Bresson's 'Pickpocket' (1959). 'Committed Cinema: The Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne' is the first book in English to treat the work of the Dardennes, and features the best essays and interviews (supplemented by a chronology, a filmography, film credits, and a bibliography) published to date on the two brothers' memorable films.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
......Page 1
Table of Contents
......Page 6
Preface
......Page 10
Chronology
......Page 14
ESSAYS......Page 18
Buried Clues, True Grit: On La Promesse and Rosetta,
Jonathan Rosenbaum......Page 19
Troubling Questions: The Dardennes,
Mike Bartlett......Page 27
The Art and Politics of the Dardenne Brothers, Emilie Bickerton......Page 32
Life on Earth: The Films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Robin Wood......Page 41
Lower Depths, Higher Planes: On the Dardennes’ La Promesse,
Rosetta, The Son, and L’Enfant
Bert Cardullo
......Page 47
The Brothers Dardenne: Responding to the Face of the Other, Doug Cummings......Page 72
The Dardenne Brothers: An Argument for a Far More Critical Appraisal,
or, What about the “Extenuating Circumstances”? David Walsh
......Page 86
ARTICLES......Page 98
Soldiers’ Stories: A New Kind of War Film, or Work as a Matter of Life and Death, Leslie Camhi
......Page 99
Two Belgian Brothers’ Working-Class Heroes, J
oan Dupont......Page 102
Timber!: Carpentry and Le Fils, Geoffrey Macnab
......Page 106
Auteurist Brothers Who Work Like Cops, Manohla Dargis......Page 109
We’re the Same: One Person, Four Eyes, Xan Brooks
......Page 111
Tending L’Enfant: The Dardenne Brothers Return with Another Palme d’Or Winner, Richard Porton
......Page 115
The Brothers Believe in Tough Love,
Philippa Hawker......Page 128
Silence Not Quite Golden,
Stephanie Bunbury......Page 131
The Dardenne Brothers and The Silence of Lorna, Dave Calhoun......Page 133
Reality Bites, Jim Wolfreys
......Page 136
INTERVIEWS......Page 140
Taking the Measure of Human Relationships: An Interview with the Dardenne Brothers, Joan and Dennis West......Page 141
Big Brother, Little Brother, Matthieu Reynaert......Page 151
The Dardenne Brothers at Cannes: “We Want to Make It Live”,
Karin Badt......Page 156
Talking to Palme d’Or Winners Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne Geoff Andrew
......Page 164
The Terrible Lightness of Social Marginality: An Interview with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Robert Sklar
......Page 176
Talking to Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jonathan Romney......Page 182
Interview: The Dardenne Brothers’ Child, Margaret Pomeranz
......Page 188
Interview with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Directors of The Silence of Lorna, David Walsh
......Page 193
Interview: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Philip Concannon......Page 198
The Cinema of Resistance: An Interview with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Bert Cardullo......Page 205
Filmography......Page 222
Major Feature Film Credits......Page 223
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 226
Index
......Page 230