To an air by Bach

For their first – and best known – feature film, the film directors evoke the life of the composer Johan Sebastian Bach, reconstructed from period documents with comments by his second wife. Placing the music "at the centre" of the film, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet filmed the sequences in direct sound using invisible microphones. "It's the opposite of a clip; it's asceticism. The best way to listen to Bach," according to film director Bruno Dumont.

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1967, 93’) by Straub and Huillet.