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Following the Kafka text with some fidelity, Class Relations is about the adventures of a young European immigrant named Karl Rossmann who, even before he gets off the boat in New York Harbor, discovers a land where everyone… is presumed guilty until proved innocent… However, unlike Joseph K. in The Trial, Karl is neither destroyed by his presumed guilt nor liberated by his ultimate acceptance of it. He is infinitely practical and resilient as he moves with steadfast serenity from one unearned put-down to the next. – Vincent Canby

Shot by William Lubtchansky, Class Relations is visually compelling. For Straub-Huillet, questions of mise en scène and lighting are questions of morality, and, for each scene, they endeavor to find the right spot from which to shoot. When the angle is reversed, the “strategic point” remains the same, and so will the lighting (which forces them to put all the light spots on the ceiling). This method is used to draw “lines of force” between the people within a real space… to confront the materiality of a text to the materiality of a space… As they said in a recent interview, “In most movies space has disappeared. Today the viewers are shown a space which does not exist. It is necessary to raise the question of what is a three-dimensional space”. – Fuse The utopian force to be found in countering the "patriarchal orchestration of the look" can be found in Class Relations based on the novel fragment Amerika (1912) by Franz Kafka. It was widely admired by the critics, who called it “perhaps [Straub-Huillet]’s best film” and "probably . . . the only Kafka film that can stand the test of time…" It was also the last of their films to be seen by sizable U.S. audiences (only The Death of Empedocles has been distributed in the United States since), as it was the last of their films to be shown at the New York Film Festival… – Barton Byg, Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

About the filmmaker

Born May 1, 1936 (a date marking the beginning of the “Front Populaire” in France) in Paris, Danièle Huillet met Jean-Marie Straub when they were students in 1954. During his military duty, Jean-Marie deserted in protest against the Algerian war, and fled to Germany in 1958, where Danièle joined him. They made their first short, Machorka-Muff, based on a story by Heinrich Böll, in 1962. Their next film, the 55-minute Not Reconciled (1965) was also a Böll adaptation. Their first feature, Chronicles of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), was an instant critical success. They settled in Rome in 1969. Jean-Marie had to wait for a general amnesty in 1971 before being able to return to France – after this, they kept two apartments, one in Paris and one in Rome, and continued making movies between three countries.

“On the set, [Danièle Huillet] will have been, not exclusively, but more than Straub, the one who directed with sound — he assuming more what we will call for convenience the direction of actors. The sound of voices, that of the wind if there is wind, that of cars if there are any, in that place and at that moment which are those of the filming, are the firmest imprint of the real world as it is, there where cinema is made. Near to and far from this labor of sound: the work, this time entirely assumed by Danièle Huillet, of the dialogues in their diverse languages. The Straubs filmed in German, in French, in Italian: Danièle Huillet knew all the nuances and requirements of these three languages. She will also have, well beyond "translation for subtitles," worked to approach as well as possible the presence of words of another language inscribed at the bottom of images in which a certain language is spoken. And who else, in the history of world cinema, has done such a work, which is first respect for the languages that humans speak, respect for the voices of actors, for the meanings of words, and for the identify of spectators? The answer is simple: no one. A clear line links this relation to words, to their arrangement and their enunciation, to the "operational" role played by Danièle Huillet at the editing table. Its process is known, at least as Pedro Costa recorded it in Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001), on the editing of Sicilia! (1998) — neither she nor he ever made it known that what was seen of it was different from their practice before or after. Straub, his voice ample, his body heavy, digresses widely, even reduced to an editing room; immobile at the table, Danièle H. cuts, measures, specifies. And argues there, holding her own. Of course the result is theirs, the division of labor also is theirs, and in the service of no one, it's not economic or even intellectual; it's a matter of sensibility. For at the end of what it will have been possible to say, with prudence, of what la Huillet did in the cinema Straub-Huillet, it's necessary to return, and with what sadness, to the ineffable unity of what, on the screens, was born from this companionship…. What could be seen of the Straubs' life — the films, the affirmed choices of existence, in the Roman suburbs or in the 18th arrondissement in Paris — will have been its translation, uncompromising. Let's add one more adjective: generous, immensely generous. With her time, with her work, with her energy, with her listening, with her knowledge. What Jean-Luc Godard called one day an art of living, and that made films.” – Editors, Cahiers du cinema

Filmography
Machorka-Muff (1962, 18 min.)
- Nicht versöhnt oder Es hilft nur Gewalt, wo Gewalt herrscht (Not Reconciled) (1964-65, 52 min.)
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1967, 94 min.)
- Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhalter (The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp) (1968, 23 min.)
Les yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer ou Peut-être qu’un jour Rome se permettra de choisir à son tour (Othon) ( 1969, 88 min.)
Einleitung zur Arnold Schönbergs "Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene" (1972, 16 min.)
Geschichtsunterricht (History Lessons) (1972, 88 min.)
Moses und Aron (1974, 107 min.)
Fortini/Cani (1976, 83 min.)
Toute révolution est un coup de dés (1977, 10 min.)
Dalla nube alla resistenza (From the Clouds to the Resistance) (1978, 105 min.)
Trop tôt, trop tard (Too early, too late) (1981, 105 min.)
En rachâchant (1982, 7 min.)
Klassenverhältnisse (Class Relations) (1983, 127 min.)
Der Tod des Empedokles (The Death of Empedocles) (1986, 132 min.)
Schwarze Sünde (Black Sin) (1988, 40 min.)
Cézanne (1989, 63 min.)
Antigone (1992, 99 min.)
Lothringen! (1994, 21 min.)
Von Heute auf Morgen (From one Day to the Next) (1996, 62 min.)
Sicilia! (1998, 66 min.)
Operai, Contadini (2000, 123 min.)
Il ritorno del filio prodiglio – Umiliati (The Return of the Prodigal Son) (2001-3, 64 min.)
Une Visite au Louvre (2004, 47 min.)
Que loro incontri (2005, 68 min.)
Europa 2007 – 27 octobre (TV)