The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)

Recommended
West Germany/Italy
Feature Film
Original Title: Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach
Directors: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Writers: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, Anna Magdalena Bach
Cinematographer: Ugo Piccone
Cast: Gustav Leonhardt, Christiane Lang

Huillet and Straub’s excellent Johann Sebastian Bach biopic, based on the diaries of his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach, captures – in a series of static, extended musical sequences – the power and wonder of his compositions, whilst also gently putting his works into the context of a time when even the lives of the wealthiest of people were painfully fragile. Iain.Stott