Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach · reception & legacy
1968 · Jean-Marie Straub
How Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
In 1968 it split audiences down the middle — many found its long, static takes of musicians simply playing Bach unwatchably austere, while a devoted critical camp hailed it as radical. Today it's securely canonised as a landmark of modernist cinema and the most-cited entry point into Straub-Huillet.
What's debated
The perennial fight it starts: is watching period musicians perform Bach in real time a transcendent act of cinematic honesty, or the most beautiful film ever made that's still a chore to sit through?
Its footprint
Its image of a bewigged Gustav Leonhardt at the harpsichord, filmed in unbroken takes with live direct sound, became the touchstone for how cinema can present music performance without cutting it to pieces — a reference point for slow cinema and concert filming ever since.
Where it stands
A cinephile rite of passage: the Straub-Huillet film everyone tells you to start with, beloved on Letterboxd as 'difficult European cinema' that's secretly just gorgeous music.