Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, in addition to being a very young and formidable filmmaker, is a tall, friendly, and eminently approachable guy. Very candid about his work, he expresses much enthusiasm and joy about what he does. In the case of The Lives of Others, he expresses deep gratitude toward his cast members, who were so moved by the script that they worked for pay far below their normal scale.
Interestingly, von Donnersmarck was as interested in Gospelcom and Past the Popcorn as we were about his film. What was our perspective? Were we Christian, evangelical, Catholic?
Suffice it to say that we are an eclectic bunch, and that von Donnersmarck graciously declined to pigeon-hole us.
Courtesy of a local publicist, Mike Smith talked privately with von Donnersmarck in a suite at a downtown hotel.
Thank you very much.
MS: I have to admit, in light of our discussion of the Christian perspective of Gospelcom, that my favorite part of the film was when Wiemer hires a hooker. I thought it was a profound turning point in his life; it actually brought tears to my eyes.
I can see why that would be your favorite part [chuckling ironically].
She has a quite amazing body doesn’t she? However, seriously, you get the feeling of someone trying to reach out and make a human connection but he doesn’t know how to do it. I think that is the main thing.
MS: Agreed, the only way he knows how is through some gut-level exploitative method. However, it still affects him.
But you know, I think somehow that is how prostitution works.
I believe prostitution is illegal in the U.S. It is not in Europe.
Very often, it is legal in Europe, but it is just quite despised. It is important to understand that people that go for that are looking for a connection. Something is missing.
I think it is [often] this idea of a cynical dirty person going after this. But I think more often, it is people who don’t know, who haven’t somehow… learned… Life hasn’t taught them how to approach a woman in a normal way. So that was something else I wanted to show.
MS: I felt that was a pivotal point in the film.
Yes, and right after that he realizes this is not how he is going to get joy and connection out of life. The next scene he then goes, and this is my favorite part, he actually goes back into the apartment, but not in a hostile way.
He tries to find out, “Why do these people have a life and I don’t? Is there maybe something else at play here?” He tries to get a feel for what life is like for these people, just from the surroundings.
I like this part because there is a short minute here where there is no dialogue—just walking through the apartment. For me that is my favorite scene of the film.
MS: I was moved to tears several times, and that was one as well.
Well, thank you.
MS: And I am supposed to be dispassionate!
Well only if I can get you—as a critic—passionate is my film going to be seen.
For a subtitled film, if you don’t have the help of the critics, people won’t go to see it. How many read Past the Popcorn? I need those readers to go and see my film.
MS: I read in your bio that you tired of making short films in school and decided to drop out and make this feature.
MS: So you dropped out, made this award-winning film, and they awarded you an honorary degree. Or, at least presented you your degree.
Yes, they did.
MS: So who taught whom?
Well, it’s funny, I don’t really believe in film school as an institution.
Especially nowadays. In my time, maybe it was a little more necessary to make short films. It was expensive to make films and use the editing equipment, cameras, etc.
. Now you can get an amazing video camera for $500.00 or less.
You can [install] an editing program and suddenly you are a studio. That was not the case when I started eleven years ago. I had to go to film school just to access the equipment.
But now, my advice to film students is to not bother with making short films, but go straight to feature length movies. Short films are not going to teach you how to make that full length film.
MS: Did you learn well?
Or did they just not teach you what you needed?
No, it was a very good film school. But you can’t learn film.
Film is about actively applying your own tastes and just detecting untruthfulness. If you see someone acting and you find something you don’t find truthful in that acting, you have to say so. You have to name it.
You have to correct it. That’s not something you can learn. Nobody can teach you to detect lies.
You can either do that or not. It is something that life teaches you, certainly not a professor. Then the technical side of filmmaking is not that difficult.
I pretty much had known what I needed in terms of blocking. I kind of learned that before film school through the short films I had done. Film school is an opportunity to have a lot of equipment at your disposal with the time to think about the stories you wanted to tell.
But everything else is not really that useful.
MS: One of the things that intrigued me about your short film history is this: What was it like to be unproven and have to get funding for a first time feature film?
It was difficult.
But the great thing, once I had the actors I didn’t worry about it so much. Even though I had a very limited budget it didn’t really matter. Because the most expensive thing in a film budget is the actors’ salaries; but these actors had agreed to perform at 20% of their normal pay.
That made it fine; I could do the film at a top level just because of their faith in the project.
MS: It had to be a compelling story.
Yes, they liked the screenplay.
MS: I felt like this film would be enlightening to young Americans.
I hope so. People no longer know about the dangers and extremes of totalitarianism, and communism.
They don’t know what we were fighting so hard against. They don’t know that. I hope this film, while entertaining them, will teach them that.
MS: I guess that it’s more of a reminder or an expose, probably both.
Indeed.
MS: What did West German citizens think of the East Germans when the country reunified?
What was it like? Scary?
Hmmm.
It was weird how you got to accept [the Berlin Wall] as something normal. You just accepted the strangeness that this is what it was about. However, I never thought it was going to be there forever.
Because freedom always… History has shown us that freedom always comes through. You can’t keep people as slaves and prisoners forever. They will always free themselves.
MS: Or someone will come along and free them.
Yes, normally it is some strong individuals that do it. Moses, or Gorbachav; you will always have someone come along who says, “We will not accept this anymore.
”
MS: Yeah, but Moses had the ultimate help.
That’s true [laughing]; but they all do.
After a good week of great film-viewing, talking with von Donnersmarck was the capstone.
I believe The Lives of Others is the most important film any of us may see in quite some time. Despite its great entertainment value, it says some very, very important things. It is important for us to see what totalitarianism really looks like.
I am not sure we would recognize it without this film’s help. It is worse than we imagine.
I am grateful to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for making this film.
The subtitles are in no way a distraction; perhaps you’ll see it twice to make sure you got it.
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