I thought it would be pertinent to share this clip I stumbled across.
I was unaware until recently that a film was ever made of this magnum opus, and even then, until seeing it I couldn’t have imagined how captivating it would be on film. The version in question is Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet’s 1975 attempt at handling Schoenberg’s unfinished mammoth, Moses und Aron. Watch all the excerpts you can find online, and when you’re ready, begin the search for a copy online. I have no idea where to suggest looking as I am still without success in tracking one down. I did however manage to find a rather interesting 1975 review of the film by Richard Eder from the New York Times, and what a riot it was to partake in his editorializing. Perhaps it’s just his bemusing take on the so-called ‘experimentalism’ of the film that seems so cliche, but it more likely was a result of his bellicose remarks like:
In his latest film—it can’t be called a movie because virtually nothing moves, neither the camera nor what it is photographing — Mr. Straub has come close to purging the screen of anything to see. At the same time, he will come close to purging the movie theater of anybody to watch.1
Enjoy.
- Eder, Richard. “Straub’s Version of ‘Aaron and Moses’ by Schoenberg Is Uncompromising.” The New York Times. 5 October 1975 http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B00E0D71E38E73ABC4D53DFB667838E669EDE. ↩