Proposal in Four Parts (Proposta in Quattro Parti) is a montage in four movements, originally commissioned for Italian public television in 1985. The film begins with D. W. Griffith’s 1909 biograph short, A Corner in Wheat, which deals with the capitalist exploitation of land and its effects on the poor. This is followed by excerpts from Straub and Huillet’s Moses and Aaron (1975), Fortini/Cani (1976) and From the Cloud to the Resistance (1979).

 

In These Encounters of Theirs (Quei loro incontri) (2006), Straub and Huillet return to Cesare Pavese’s 1947 Dialogues with Leucò twenty-seven years after their first adaptation of the novel, From the Cloud to the Resistance. Pavese reimagines ancient Greek myths through dialogues between classical figures about mortality, love and destiny. Every detail in these carefully composed sequences requires our attention, as the film creates its tension from the elements at play: the sounds of nature and the forceful recitation of the non-professional actors – thus reinvesting Pavese’s words with a new and urgent meaning.

 

These Encounters of Theirs will be screened in its original 35mm format.

 

Programme:

 

Proposal in Four Parts (Proposta in Quattro Parti), Dirs. Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Italy, 1985, 40 min., Italian, French and German with English subtitles.

 

These Encounters of Theirs (Quei loro incontri), Dirs. Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Italy/France, 2006, 68 min., Italian with English subtitles.