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Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa

Thursday, March 6, 2008
6:00 p.m. Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?
Pedro Costa (France/Portugal, 2001)

Pedro Costa in Person


(Où gît votre sourire enfoui?). One could imagine that a documentary portrait of a legendary, famously austere European filmmaking team might indeed be “the best film about filmmaking ever made” (Jonathan Rosenbaum), but can it also be one of the funniest? Such is the case with Costa’s insightful treatise on the editing sessions of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, the husband-and-wife directorial team named by Serge Daney “the last great filmmakers of the history of modern cinema, perhaps of cinema, period.” Lodged inside the editing room while the two discuss and bicker over the re-editing of their film Sicilia, Costa’s camera captures not only intense, illuminating conversations about filmmaking, but also Straub and Huillet’s touching, hilarious, and ultimately romantic relationship. If this had one of those Frederick Wiseman institutional titles, it would be not only Film, but Marriage.

—Jason Sanders

• Photographed by Costa. With Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub. (104 mins, In French with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From ICA)