Confronting the Female Gaze: Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and the 2022 Sight and Sound Poll
By Film and TV Editor Mia Tobin Power
In December 2022, Sight and Sound (S&S) - the film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI) - released the latest version of its decennial “Top 100 Greatest Films of All-Time” list, compiled from a poll taken by over 1,600 critics. To the surprise of many people interested in the poll, Chantal Akerman's 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles had reached the number 1 spot. This marked the first time a female filmmaker was at the top of the list. In 2012, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was at number 1, preceded by Orson Welles's Citizen Kane from 1962 to 2002 and Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves in 1952.
Jeanne Dielman is, to put it lightly, an unusual number 1 film. It is a 201-minute film composed of extremely long takes that follows a widowed mother as she goes about her daily routine: cooking, cleaning, running errands in town, and engaging in sex work. The film's success in the S&S poll was praised by many - The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw described the film as “brilliant and radical” and Akerman as “deserv[ing]” of the top spot. But, as often happens when women breakthrough in a field hitherto dominated by men, the film's ascension was also the subject of backlash. Notably, writer-director Paul Schrader (of Taxi Driver and First Reformed fame) wrote that the film's “unexpected number one rating does it no favors. Jeanne Dielman will from this time forward be remembered not only as an important film in cinema history but also as a landmark of distorted woke reappraisal.” I find the tension in Schrader's last statement fascinating - the juxtaposition between this confirmation of Jeanne Dielman’s place within the cinematic canon and, as Bradshaw writes, the “challenge” it poses to that canon. But more than the controversy and celebration that surrounds it, I find Jeanne Dielman itself fascinating.
To challenge Schrader's belief that Jeanne Dielman's position in the 2022 S&S poll “reflects not a historical continuum but a politically correct rejiggering”, it is worth considering how the film earned its place atop the list. To compile the official S&S list, each critic involved creates their own top 10 list of the “greatest films of all-time”, and the films in the resulting overall list are ranked by the frequency with which they appeared on individual lists. Thus, Jeanne Dielman ended up at number 1 because it was the most common film on critics' lists; it appeared on 215 out of 1,600 lists, which is a high proportion when you remember that each list takes into consideration basically every film ever made, from the 19th century until 2022. It is difficult to imagine how the poll would have been rigged in Jeanne Dielman's favour - how would all 215 critics from across the globe have conspired together to choose it, and why this film? I do not subscribe to the theory that Jeanne Dielman ended up at number 1 because of a grand conspiracy born out of the #MeToo movement.
Instead, I see its success as the deserved recognition of a disruptive and impressive film directed by a woman, about a woman, and made by a crew of mostly women.
I believe that the mission of the S&S poll is to introduce its audience to excellent films that are worthy of their time and that they may not have previously been familiar with. Or, as S&S editor-in-chief Mike Williams puts it, “Jeanne Dielman’s success reminds us that there is a world of under-seen and under-appreciated gems out there to be discovered”. In that case, Jeanne Dielman's position in the poll is a miracle. Prior to the poll, I had heard of the film, but I did not consider it a top viewing priority. When the 2022 S&S list was published, I decided it was time to sit down (for 3 hours and 21 minutes) and see what all the fuss was about. And I learned that Jeanne Dielman is, quite simply, a masterpiece - a true achievement in experimental cinema and the female gaze.
It is difficult to summarise Jeanne Dielman because, as pretentious as it sounds, it really is a cinematic experience. It has no plot to speak of; the few events that do occur mostly unfold so slowly and so naturally that you may not even notice their significance. The film plays out in real-time, with the camera staying on Jeanne as she performs a task in one room, and then following her to the next. As Catherine Fowler writes in her monograph about the film for BFI Film Classics, “the manner of filming, using long takes and action that is carried out until its end, serves to concentrate our gaze on Jeanne, and we are subject to her occupation of space and time.” Akerman forces the viewer to stay present and to perceive space and time as Jeanne does. We spend so much time in each small room of Jeanne's cramped apartment that it feels claustrophobic, as it must for the character herself. It can be boring to watch Jeanne peel potatoes or make meat loaf for minutes at a time, but it must be even more boring for her to repeat these tasks day after day. Jeanne Dielman is an exercise in empathy, for the viewer in committing to watch it and for Akerman in making it. And you have to commit to it. To fully understand and appreciate Jeanne Dielman, you have to give yourself over to it and let it wash over you.
Jeanne Dielman, on its surface, might appear as just an experimental piece of art depicting a woman performing her daily routine, but it is thematically rich and daringly feminist. It is a crucial “female gaze” text. The female gaze is the inverse of the “male gaze”, a concept explored by film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” The female gaze is less easily defined than the male gaze, but it centres on women's subjectivity in film. Jeanne Dielman can be considered an example of the female gaze because of how it makes visible that which is usually invisible - the unseen, but necessary, work of the housewife, and the figure of the housewife herself. By depicting Jeanne's domestic tasks, by dedicating so much time and imagery to them, Akerman grants them importance. Throughout the film, she forces us to truly see Jeanne. There is no possibility of looking away from her. We must confront the mundanity of her life and we must accept that housework is indeed a form of work. We come face to face with her loneliness and with the seeming impossibility of her escape.
One of my favourite aspects of the film is its suggestion of the wider world outside Jeanne, of the many other women like her. One day, Jeanne arrives at the café she frequents and finds another woman sitting in her usual seat. Akerman encourages us to wonder, for a brief moment, who this other woman is and what her life is like. In another scene, a neighbour of Jeanne's calls to her door and in the midst of their conversation, asks what Jeanne will cook for dinner that evening, and then goes on a tangent about the constant difficulty of deciding what to cook for dinner for her own family. I love this moment because it gives us a glimpse into the wider feminist struggle of which Jeanne's story is a microcosm.
I am reluctant to give away the film's ending, but I will say that it is challenging - in that it challenges our perception of all that we have witnessed up to this point, and that it is a challenge to interpret it and reconcile it with the rest of the film. But I could also describe the entirety of Jeanne Dielman as challenging, in the best way possible. The film challenges the viewer to truly reckon with the experience of watching it, with their expectations of what a film should be, and with the female gaze in action. Jeanne Dielman is a confrontation, and so it is no wonder that some people were rattled by its prominence in the S&S poll. Its occupation of the number 1 spot is a reminder of the misogynistic world we still live in, of the continued lack of recognition for women's work in the household. But, it is exciting that Akerman's unique and uncompromising film has been recognised in this way, and has finally been granted the place in the mainstream cinematic canon that it deserves.
