| |
|
|
|
|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
The Week in Germany: Culture February 19, 2007 TWIG Interview: "The Jürgen Klinsmann of Film" - Donnersmarck Brings a bit of Hollywood to D.C. When Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck visited Washington D.C. for a screening of “The Lives of Others” in November 2005, the fanfare was audible, but muted. Diplomatic types, academics, local Germanophiles, and a few stray journalists (read the TWIG interview here) almost filled the American Film Institute’s splendid theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. Those connoisseurs who made it out to the screenings during the EU Film Festival could certainly feel satisfied that their cultural radar had picked up on something hip and promising, but they also likely had a free seat to stow their jackets. That was before the Oscar nomination. At the Goethe Institut in Washington, which the film’s distributor (Sony Picture Classics) had rented on Monday for a sneak preview, all the bodies crammed into the packed 120-seat theater transformed it into a sort of celluloid sauna, despite the paralyzing cold outdoors. “We ran out of seats very quickly, and we could easily have had 200 more,” said Teresa Jahn an intern at the Goethe Institut. Or perhaps it was the lights that were heating things up? Camera teams from German television stations were busy extending their tripods to unusual heights to accommodate the 6’9” director. A town where glamour is usually disguised in a navy blue suit and a beige trench coat suddenly felt as though it had been catapulted into Hollywood’s orbit, or at least the same galaxy. Another Conversation with the Director Donnersmarck has claimed that his interest in literature, and even his success as a director, is rooted in a lack of coolness. “You will never find a good director who was leader of the in-crowd,” he claims. While an uncool Oscar nominee may seem like an improbable proposition, it begins to make sense when he talks about books and movies. Surely, someone so intense about classic Russian literature has had to sacrifice some in the coolness department. Of course, that makes him an interesting person to talk to, so TWIG couldn’t resist the chance to ask him a few more questions about “The Lives of Others”, Hollywood escapism, and, of course, his Oscar picks: TWIG: It seemed that many evaluations of “The Lives of Others” in Germany hinged on whether or not you had accurately and credibly depicted the GDR. One of the most memorable headlines in response to it was Joachim Gauck’s story in Stern “Ja, so war es!” (Yes, that’s how it was!). People placed a high expectation of credibility on the movie. That is an awful lot to ask of a medium that tries to represent days or years in a three dimensional world on a flat screen for two hours. Why do you think that your German audience felt such a need to see their own lives reflected in this film? I think there is a German idea that if you’re dealing with a real setting, it’s a matter of honor to be authentic. Maybe I’m all too German, because I also believe it should be that way. If you are presenting a highly stylized reality, then it should be recognizable as such or will be recognizable as such. It will betray its maker’s view on the world, but that’s all it will do. Take Dr. Zhivago, for instance. If I was told that none of those things had actually happened in the Russian revolution, I think I would be a little troubled by that. That’s the problem you have when you take on a historical subject. I’m always a little annoyed when I see a historical film and I somehow sense that what I’m seeing is not authentic. Wouldn’t you describe the GDR of your film as stylized? Not at all. There is nothing that appears in the film, down to the minutest detail, that did not exist in the GDR at that time. That is true for everything from the interrogation methods depicted to the props. With the exception of one light switch, actually, but I’m not going to tell you where that is [laughs]. But still, those real elements of the GDR are distilled into a kind of hyper-reality that communicates a very powerful mood, but can’t really reflect the complexity of the actual time and place. Or can it? Distilled is a good word in that context. The German word for fiction and poetry “Dichtung”, is the same word. It also means “density”. That is probably what you mean by distilled – something that is pure in essence. And I think that’s the point of fiction – it allows you to get to the essence of something. When you distill something you get to its pure form, you get essence, you get Dichtung, you get something truer than truth. That’s what I’m aiming for. Look at the German films that have been nominated for Oscars in recent years. “Sophie Scholl”, “Der Untergang”, “Nirgendwo in Afrika”. It’s all heavy stuff that deals with the past. Where are the German escapist fantasies? I can tell you where they are – they are "Stargate", "Independence Day", "Air Force One" – films by German directors made in Hollywood. The people who want to be escapist escape. I think the authentic German approach is just more serious. Another aspect is that if you really wanted to make an escapist fantasy, something really big, then you can’t make it on a German budget. So there are practical reasons as well. Perhaps that is a good thing for us moviegoers. We get diversity: fantastic escapism from Hollywood and more serious fare from abroad. One can only watch so many iterations of “Pirates of the Caribbean” before you need a sobering depiction of life in a dictatorship, right? I’m not sure, "Pirates of the Caribbean" was a pretty good one! I was thinking about this issue [of the impact of financing on German films] the other day. I’m still on German time, so I get up at 3 am at the latest, and at the hotels I’ve been staying at, you get these TV programs that show films that are currently in the theaters. This morning, from three to five, I watched The Prestige from Christopher Nolan. It’s an incredible film, absolutely fantastic. It is so spectacular, in every aspect, but especially in its scope. I couldn’t help thinking that that kind of film wouldn’t be possible in Germany. You would always be limited by the shooting time, by the production design budget, etc. My film was pretty cheap, but still, you can’t go that much more expensive on a German production. Even if you had two or three times the budget, you couldn’t get that much more done. I just had people working for a lot less money. [More money would have gone toward paying them what they are worth and would not have bought that much more time.] You have said that winning the Oscar would be like winning an Olympic medal for Germany, and that you would feel like the Jürgen Klinsmann of German film. What would you wish for German film? I wish the German film industry would allow more opulent films – like the French do it. Every year France has some huge productions. I wish that were possible in Germany. If you put more into an individual film, it buys more time to get everything just right. I also want the German audience to love their actors more. Take an actor like Sebastian Koch (who plays the poet Georg Dreyman). German girls should be fainting when someone like that enters the room. But people don’t go as crazy over Sebastian Koch as they do for Brad Pitt in the United States. That bothers me, because I almost faint when I’m around people like that! I think people should admire actors for the great artists that they are, and I don’t see enough of that in Germany. I’d like to see that change. How about your Oscar picks? You know, there are actually Vegas betting sites for the Oscars. Unfortunately, based on their odds, you would make a lot more money if I win than if Guillermo del Toro wins. So, it’s looking better for “Pan’s Labyrinth” now than for my film, but that may change. What about the American films? I hope it’s going to be "Little Miss Sunshine." I think
it was the best film of the year, easily. I would have chosen “The
Prestige”, having seen that this morning, but that wasn’t
on the list. |
|
More from Germany.info  Newsletters
 Printer-Friendly
Page
Email This Article |
||
|
|||||
|
|||||
