Film Portraits by Ute Aurand introduction and discussion with Haden Guest and Ute Aurand.

Transcript

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Film Portraits by Ute Aurand introduction and discussion with Haden Guest and Ute Aurand. Monday November 12, 2012.

John Quackenbush  0:00 

November 12 2012. The Harvard Film Archive presented short films by filmmaker Ute Aurand. This is the audio recording of the discussion and Q&A that followed. Participating are the filmmaker and HFA Director Haden Guest.

Haden Guest

Thank you so much for sharing these films with us. I wanted to start by talking about editing. One of the sort of signature qualities of your film is this rapid editing, and I love this sort of synaptic cutting on an action where, for instance, be it, Franz skating, or your father eating his cereal, where you're cutting on one action, and it seems to sort of intensify an action... I was wondering if you could talk maybe about editing in general, maybe about this particular style of cutting, where it seems you're reminding us to open our eyes, and look closer at a particular action or a particular gesture or movement.

Ute Aurand  1:04 

Yeah, I think what you are describing is more or less a result of the editing—I call it “in the camera"—while I'm filming. So I try to create the rhythm while I'm filming. And later, on the editing table, I take things out. So I'm working always with the handheld camera. And I'm also moving around people, or in a room. So it is this approach, or going closer, or, you know? So I like—how can I say?—touching things, without going too intensively deep into something, but kind of kaleidoscope creating. So I mean, technically it is just the interruption of you know: you don't push the button / you push the button. And this is a musical and a rhythmic element. And maybe in the beginning, I work more with the editing in the camera. And later, like in the last film, I try to bring these pieces, edited-in-the-camera pieces, in a classical montage way, together. So sequences... but that's a different process of editing.

Haden Guest  2:28 

Right, so yeah, really, I'm speaking of the shorter portrait films. Which brings me to another question, which is: when you are setting out to make a portrait, say, like a film like Maria, is this part of a longer process of filming in which you select this particular moment? Or do you do say beforehand—I mean these are intimate friends and family—that okay, the decision is made. You know, the garden is something that’s such a part of her, this is what I'll film? Or are you selecting something from a larger engagement with the camera and your subject?

Ute Aurand  3:13 

Basically, I'm filming, and very often I don't know where I will use the footage. So first of all, it is very often, a collecting. I collect things. When I'm visiting Maria, for instance, I had my camera with me, and I filmed her in the garden. But at that point, I didn't know where will this footage be used, in which film. And then we had another trip, and we went together to Frankfurt, and we visited the exhibition of the Impressionist women painters. I filmed. So, then at some point, I decided I will make the portrait. And actually, for these five portraits, which were Paulina and Franz and Maria and Susan and Lisbeth, the initial thing was the portrait of Paulina. I started with it. And also I filmed her in the black-and-white, when she visited me in my apartment. And when I saw the footage, and because she was sleeping, I thought, maybe I look to my footage, what I had, all over the years, when I filmed her, when we were together. And then came the idea. I made the portrait. And so Paulina guided me to Franz. These are my two godchildren. And then I went on. And I think that I will go on.

Haden Guest  4:33 

Well, let's go back to your first film, if we can. I mean, I was seeing... There was… I was seeing a lot of Maya Deren in there. There was this sort of view of this character sort of searching for something in this world of elements that are alive: fire and ice and many other things. So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how this film came about. Which is a student film of yours, of course.

Ute Aurand  5:01 

Yeah. So this was my first film I made in the… So I look to them! [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest

Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s...

Ute Aurand

This was the first film, when I went to the film school in Berlin. And this was the first film I made there. And it was a very open spirit at the film school. So that meant every student had the possibility to work with a special amount of money, which we all got. But we had a filmmaker, Helke Sander, and she gave a subject, and she said “relationships.” And so I thought, oh, relationships, what shall I do? So I was thinking, and then I went to the idea of mirroring and mirrors. And, this was actually more a kind of selection. I selected images. With this film, I had a kind of script. And it was my first editing experience. So I had all this footage, and because we were not so poor in this film school, so we filmed a lot of footage. [LAUGHS] And I was there in the editing table, and thought, what shall I do with it? And this was really interesting. So it took me some, I don't know, weeks, months, to find—always to go shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter to find the structure. But one can say it is focused around this subject of, yeah, reflection.

Haden Guest  6:37 

I love the way you appear in a number of the other films.

Ute Aurand  6:42 

But Haden, this is not me! This is my sister.

Haden Guest  6:44 

That is your sister, in some of the other films, really?

Ute Aurand  6:47 

Yeah. Also in the first film, it's my sister.

Haden Guest

Oh, really? Oh my gosh.

Ute Aurand

So she sometimes—I mean you can say it is a kind of me, but it is my sister.

Haden Guest  6:56 

Oh, she had me fooled. I was gonna ask specifically about that.

Ute Aurand

Good. Yes. [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest

[LAUGHS] Well, that's wonderful. Well, you do appear, though, in photographs, as well, though.

Ute Aurand

Yeah.

Haden Guest

Of course, so you do actually make an appearance.

Ute Aurand

Yeah.

Haden Guest

So, tell us about the film about your parents and how this came about. I mean, this is a film that's, I think, you know, definitely one of the most personal of the films. And it's a film that begs a question, I mean, I feel like your films are so private. These films are very private, in a certain sense. And they allow us, sort of bring us intimately close to these people so important to your own life, at the same time keeping certain things secret. Like we don't know exactly where these places are, the cathedral, or what the relationship is to the subjects of the film. And I was wondering if you could talk about how, in this particular process, where you're dealing with such a huge and emotional subject, how you put it together. How this film came together, reaches to the deeper personal past, into the present. And...

Ute Aurand  8:17 

I mean, the main impulse for this film was the loss of my parents. My mother passed away in 2000, and my father in 2007. And I have filmed over the years, my mother, in certain occasions, so I had some footage. And my father I only filmed in the very last, maybe last year of his life. And so when they passed away, and because I don't have children, and I think that's a little bit the difference to people who do have children. So the moment when the parents pass away brings you in a very special, emotional moment in your or my life. And I thought, how can I express it?, because I felt suddenly I'm an adult, but also thinking back to my childhood. So I try to—with this idea of, I want to express these feelings, I looked through my footage, what I filmed, and I started collecting, putting things out, putting together. But then I also filmed. So the idea of the photographs… Ah! Also because, I mean, the footage with my sister—because the parents’ house, we had to give it up, so everything was removed. And this was also a process of going through and leaving things behind.

But in some moments, I thought I have to add something, so this was the idea with the photos, for instance. But there were things like with my parents, a double-exposure film. I just made it because this was their marriage day, and it was clear, my mother will die in maybe the next four weeks. And so I thought, ah, that’s a moment, let's try something. So I asked them and… but I had this little unit, and I didn't know in this moment that I will make a film.

Haden Guest  10:17 

So the films all come out of a sort of diaristic impulse, to a certain extent. I mean, you're constantly filming. And so, I mean, what is the, sort of, the daily life of your camera? I mean, are you filming pretty much all the time, or?

Ute Aurand  10:37 

Yes and no. You know, because it's, yeah, also, sometimes, I don't know, they are not in particular, diary films, because I think what you said: there is there still some secretive...

Haden Guest

A sort of impulse, right.

Ute Aurand  10:53 

...secretivity, or something? So something is not said, or not direct. And I think maybe a diary film means more direct? I don't know. You know, I try, like the children or the parents, I try also to be abstract in a way that [these are] parents for everyone, or, you know, moments of feelings which we can share. But I'm not constantly filming. But of course, when I'm traveling, or when I meet friends. Sometimes, not always. I don't know, I can't say. The moment to film, or not to film doesn't follow a principle.

Haden Guest  11:41 

Are there any questions or comments for Ute Aurand in the audience? Yes, we have one here, if you could just wait for the microphone, which is coming to you right now.

Audience 1 11:55 

Just curious if you guide, or tell the individual that you're filming, anything to particularly do, or if you provide any guidance at all? Or if it's just completely natural?

Ute Aurand  12:16 

[LAUGHS] What?

Haden Guest  12:17 

Do you provide any sort of instructions to when you're filming? Like do this, or do that? Or...

Ute Aurand

To the people?

Haden Guest  12:22 

Yes. Like directions?

Ute Aurand  12:24 

That depends. That depends…. Let me think.... I mean, like Lizbeth, when she had the performance with the mask. This came out of something, because she was going through all her artwork, for preparing it, to give it to a museum. So I was there, and we went through, and then suddenly the mask came, and she put it on. And then I said, oh, let's go out, and maybe we make a little performance. So sometimes it's more an interaction between me and the person, and sometimes it is more just, you can say, an observation what anyway, happened in front of the camera.

[QUESTION NOT AUDIBLE]

Ute Aurand

Oh, my sister, the breakfast? Sometimes, yeah, sometimes I say, maybe “can you sit there?” Or she sits there, and I'm just seeing it.

Haden Guest  13:21 

Yes, we have another question here in the center.

Audience 2  13:27 

Can you explain a little bit how it came along that you made the film about the Arsenal?

Ute Aurand

Yeah.

Audience 2

Because I think people here don't know that.

Haden Guest

Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Audience 2

Explain the kind of theater it was, and the importance of the people, and the famous people in there, maybe, also. And I don't know it either. So I'm curious. [LAUGHS]

Ute Aurand  13:52 

I mean, this is the only film which is the commissioned film. The Arsenal is a cinema. I don't want to compare it to the Harvard Film Archive, but it is the kind of place in Berlin, which is the only non-commercial cinema. They have a big archive, and they have a collection, or are devoted to independent cinema for decades now. And Für Karl, For Karl, that's his name, he was working in the distribute, distribute…

Haden Guest

Distribution?

Ute Aurand

Distribution. And so Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, who is running the Arsenal now with some colleagues, she asked me if I wanted to make a portrait for him as a surprise when he got his retirement. And actually Haden had chosen it. It was not my decision to put it in the program. Because that—

Haden Guest  14:48 

No, no, no, but the question about how it came about.

Ute Aurand  14:50 

Yes, it is. It's a little different, because it was really… And so, all the people you see, the colleagues in the institution, working in the institution. And he loves circus, so that then I thought how to make it, to bring it into the movie, and the circus, so I Iooked at films from the archive, from their collection. And so this was, yeah.

Haden Guest  15:14 

Any other questions? Yes, Rob Todd, in the back.

Audience 3  15:22 

I was wondering if you could talk a bit about your use of focus, and if you had a thesis about it, or something spontaneous about it? Or is it something that you think about when you're shooting. That, there's some moments where, like in the short ones, where it's out of focus, and then it's suddenly in focus, then it's out, then it's in. And I'm just wondering if that's a design? Or is this more impulsive in the moment, or how do you think about focus?

Ute Aurand  15:48 

Focus and not focus?

Haden Guest

Yeah.

Ute Aurand  15:52 

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, focus and not focus and, and turning the iris, so going into black, or going into white, that, these are elements I'm using to bring rhythmic elements in the film for me. So, um… I think that's it. [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest

Well, see….

Ute Aurand  16:17 

I like the idea of a dynamic sometimes, between the in focus and not in focus. You know, because even if we don't see, we still see. Even if something is out of focus, we have like a gaze, you know, but we see through. So I think in life, actually, it's not always so clear.

Haden Guest

Yeah, go ahead, Rob. Oh, OK. I thought you were saying..

Yeah, no, I mean, it seems that also, there is a painterly dimension to your work. And I think that the focus—I'm glad Rob brought that up—is sort of part of that. You know, real attention to color and texture throughout. Are there other questions, comments? If not, we'll go on to the next two films. Do you want to say something about these final two works?

Ute Aurand  17:10 

Yes. The final two are the final ones because we will project them from a different projector, because they have magnetic sound. And first you will see Jón in Akureyri. That's a portrait, also, about my brother-in-law. He’s an Icelander. And then the last one is Zu Hause, At Home, which is for me also a separate film, but, actually, it is also the end of a longer work which is called Terzen, I made in 1998. Yeah. And both have sound. Okay!

Haden Guest

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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