Be My Star introduction and post-screening discussion with Haden Guest and Valeska Grisebach.

Transcript

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Screening of Be My Star with introduction by Haden Guest and Valeska Grisebach and post-screening discussion and Q&A with audience. Monday November 19, 2018.

Haden Guest  0:00 

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Haden Guest. I'm Director of the Harvard Film Archive. I want to thank you all for being here tonight as we welcome back for the third consecutive night, the great German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach and we've been traveling backwards in time since we saw her most recent film Western on Saturday. And then we saw her breakthrough film Longing last night and tonight we're seeing her first feature film called Mein Stern, translated to English as Be My Star. This is a film that was completed in 2001 as Valeska Grisebach’s thesis film at the Vienna Film Academy. And in this film, those of you who've seen the two more recent films will discover in this really seminal early work many of the themes, many of the ideas that we see extended, expanded, reaching full and different flower in the two other films. Of course, here, those of us in the film world so to speak, “star” means something very different from those glowing bodies in the firmament. And, in fact, “star”—an actor, those who have a certain gift, a certain different kind of presence on screen—speaks to the interest in Grisebach’s films in performance. In performance, not only on screen, but in everyday life.

This film seems at first to be a documentary style, say kitchen sink film, a realist study of youth in that sort of fragile moment on the threshold of adulthood. But as the film unfolds, we start to see other patterns, we start to see a kind of performative rigor and play to the ways in which these youth interact with one another and with the larger world around them. As in all of Grisebach’s films it's a film made with non-actors and cast through an extended interview and research process. And so I'm really excited that we can go back in time to this early work with Valeska Grisebach and learn more about this film and where it came from and where it would take her.

I'm really grateful that Valeska Grisebach is here, not just as a visitor here at the Harvard Film Archive, but also in extended residency here at Harvard as a Baby Jane Holzer Visiting Artist in Film. Thanks to the generosity of the Holzer family and Rusty Holzer in particular, we are able now to invite some of the most luminary and exciting figures in cinema today to present films at the Harvard Film Archive but also visit classes here at Harvard and also to meet with students and to do all variety of kind of immersive interaction with the vibrant film community that thrives here. So Valeska Grisebach will be giving a masterclass tomorrow to a select group of students. So, this is a real thrill for us and a real honor. And I'm so glad that she's here. And I'm grateful to the Holzer family for giving this gift not just to the Harvard Film Archive but also to the Visual and Environmental Studies Department and the Department of Theater, Dance and Media. I also want to thank our friends at the Goethe Institute for supporting this program and to give special thanks to Karin Oehlenschläger who is the curator of cultural programs there. And now with no further ado, please join me in welcoming Valeska Grisebach.

[APPLAUSE]

Valeska Grisebach  4:02 

Hello, good evening. First of all I really would like to express my happiness to be here. It's really a wonderful invitation to Harvard and it means a lot to me and I think not only to me, to all the other people who did together with me the film. I got a lot of text messages, "how is it here?" And I also would like to thank Haden Guest and also Dennis Lim, who's here as the chief curator of the Lincoln Center for all the support for my films in the States and also Cinema Guild who released Western here and this means a lot to me and all the others who worked with me on the films and thank you so much.

This film was my first longer feature film and when I was at the film school, I had quite a crisis because to make feature films at some point I lost my trail. And because of this, I started to make documentary films. But there was one point when I knew I would leave the film school that I realized I would like to try something. And I went because I was studying in Vienna, I came back to Berlin and for me to a new neighborhood because I was growing up in West Berlin. And it was after the Wall came down. And for me, it was very clear that I would live now in the East and was this film—how do you say?—I experienced my new neighborhoods and also a new way of filmmaking for me. So I'm really looking forward to talk to you after the film. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

 

Haden Guest  6:00 

You so much for sharing this film with us. And before I take questions from the audience, I thought we could start with a short conversation here. And I'd like to ask you to describe the origin of this project how you came to make this film, which is both a film about youth but seems to me a film about something much larger too. About sort of social pressures and patterns that define a society in a place and a time but what was it that led you to this film? How did it take shape?

Valeska Grisebach  6:35

And it was just because I didn't see the film for a long time and I was really surprised how much do they smoke in the film.

Haden Guest  6:44 

Among other things…

Valeska Grisebach 6:46 

Especially because now I'm only sometimes smoking and it feels a little bit strange... always it really was quite surprising how much nicotine. No, so I think when I knew before the project that I would like to make a love story about some maybe archetypic situations and love stories, but for me, it was very important to find some kind of contrast. And I thought then, I would like to take some themes of love stories and love songs but [put] them in a situation when very young people, almost children have their first experience. And so I came back to Berlin and I was in this neighborhood and I started to ask people—boys and girls on the street—if they would like to come for an interview or casting. At the beginning, I started all in Berlin. And then I realized now I would like to stay in my neighborhood so I'm still living there. It changed a lot. And now they are grownups and have children themselves. And so it started with interviews and then I wrote a first draft and changed a little bit because when I met Nicole, I had a feeling okay, she could be the main actress for the film. And yeah, I think was the beginning.

Haden Guest  8:24 

So what were the interviews about? What were you asking the people that you're meeting?

Valeska Grisebach   8:30 

I think I asked them about the daily life but especially about the expectation of the future and the expectation to love. And for me, it was very interesting because maybe it changed after two or three years but I was quite surprised that they were 14, 15 between 13 and 16. And I was quite surprised that their dreams and wishes for the future were quite conservative. So to have little apartment and a job and also the ideas about love were quite straightforward conservative. And but I think two years later maybe it was totally different with 16 or 17. But this was quite surprising to me and I think that the goal or the idea was to find these little shifts under the surface when something starts to change and if you realize maybe to love means that you could be hurt and maybe if before you could be hurt, you hurt yourself and and then to see what are you doing with this.

Haden Guest  9:47

I was wondering, the opening scene I think is really brilliant. You have this game of couples where they're being linked by this card and then you know the one has to kiss and seems like in this opening scene, you have a lot of the ideas of the film sort of condensed in a sense. The pressures are to be a couple, to find love and of the sense of this idea of a game with rules that they have to sort of learn and then intuiting now but they’re gradually being taught these sort of these rules. I was wondering if you could talk about this opening scene and perhaps the idea of games that recurs throughout the film. We see these sort of games that the kids play with them challenging each other to ask them questions that then, you know, resemble the interviews, job interviews, and things like this. It seems like there's a kind of game that defines a sort of rules that describe the sort of parameters of a society.

Valeska Grisebach  10:49 

Yeah, I think for me, this border was interesting that it's still a game and maybe it stays forever a game but at the same time it starts to get very serious. And to me maybe it's interesting and exciting to go into these roles. But at the same time, it's a little bit dangerous and I think this border was for me, very interesting. And also it was maybe important to set the tone that there's this little prologue that another boy asked her, “Do you want to be with me?” and immediately it's over. So, they are together for one day and there must be something else waiting for her.

Haden Guest  11:30 

But in your two next two films, in Longing and in Western, we see that you are dealing with this idea of, of cinema itself as a kind of narrative force, a kind of storytelling that creates certain roles that are both defined as real as actual roles, but also as performance is also as that they can fall away and they can you know... Thinking about the idea of the Meinhard in Western, he's both a cowboy and he isn't—as a worker. The fireman is both this hero and then at the same time he's something else. And in this film this idea though that these roles, there's a sense that they both come from real life but they also come from cinema itself. There's this idea that you're also playing with, if you will, a kind of realist cinema, a kind of cinema of like say the Dardennes or, you know, this idea that it's taking a kind of rhythm and an energy from the streets from the actual neighborhood. But at the same time, you're stepping back to say that actually no, you're describing sort of rules and sort of, I don't know, the more abstract logic at work and not just the sort of texture of the place itself. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about that.

Valeska Grisebach  12:56

Yeah, I think this is something which is, I think, not only me together with a team. I think this contrast is very the moment what we are always searching for. That you have all these stories internalized or roles and to create this contrast between some kind of fiction idea and then to have the reality as parents partner for the fantasy. And then there's something happening you can't invent and this kind of resistance to an idea and to find this moment which use this material moment of film. That material can take, I don't know, light and the physic of a person and something which is this moment of transcendence. I think this kind of resistance or contrast, something we were looking for in all the films.

Haden Guest  14:00 

You said that this idea of song lyrics is this idea of songs of being a kind of inspiration and sort of origin of the film. And it seems to me that language is particularly important. In this film, we see the youth. I want to call them children, but they’re not, they’re teenagers. At times were saying things that they clearly don't really understand. The boy is talking about women and tattoos and things like this and they don't actually have tattoos and then we're talking about marriage and things like this. And then we also see Christopher at one point like, memorizing a song, learning a song and it seems like there's one of the ideas the film is exploring is this idea of language itself as having this kind of, how to say, sort of social weight that one has to sort of, is sort of given and one has to learn how to understand again. The rules have a sort of language the way in which it can be performed, if you will.

Valeska Grisebach  15:05

For sure. I mean, for me, this was a very bittersweet moment that I thought at one hand this expectation which roles are waiting for you, it’s very exciting.  But at the same time, maybe that you have these [UNKNOWN] of words and sentences and then you can try them and they're very sweet but at the same time, maybe they don't express everything and you are lying. So where's this moment of truth between them? And so I think language is at this moment of truth and lying at the same time. This was important.

Haden Guest  15:41

It seems because there are so you start to identify like, children's language and then adult language. That moment where the little girl talks back to the motherm says, "oh, cigarettes, it doesn't matter if they stunt my growth because I'll drink milk to counter it"...like there’s this sort of child-like logic there but then when they speak the language of adults, it's like there's a different weight and a different sort of gravity to their movements. It seems to me that,  in a sense, there's a kind of, melancholy, it seems, you're also speaking about a sort of conformist pressure as well, right?

Valeska Grisebach  16:20

Yeah. So it's ambivalent, so conformist pressure, I think.

Haden Guest  16:26 

Well, I wonder if we could talk just about clothing for instance because this is something in your films you often use characters often put on uniforms, the fireman's uniform, the cowboy outfits, if you will, with the black leather vest that Vincent wears. But here we have Nicole putting on this baker's costume, and that's clearly marked as taking this adult role. But then we also have the kids wearing this athletic gear with these logos on, branded as, you know, youth consumers. I was wondering, in terms of choosing these outfits—which they wear almost like uniforms—how did that come about? 

Valeska Grisebach  17:13 

This is a little bit ambivalent for me also for myself for the reception of the film because I realized for example there's this scene when he is introducing her to his friends. And so the boys, we cast it for the friends, they didn't appear at this day and we thought okay, how can we now find a friend?

Haden Guest  17:36

They didn’t show up.

Valeska Grisebach  17:37

They didn't show up. And so we call and then they say, “Okay we can organize new friends.”

Haden Guest  17:44

[LAUGHTER] That’s a statement.

Valeska Grisebach  17:45

And no and then there was this time pressure and then they were not really his friends. This was other guys.

Haden Guest  17:55  

Pil and...

Valeska Grisebach   17:56 

Pil and... then I mean, the clothing really means something in Germany, I think you understand. So it's really from the right wing. So this is some clothes and I realized while shooting, If you were in Germany, Helly Hansen it's like "Heil Hitler."

Haden Guest  18:17

Oh, really?

Valeska Grisebach  18:18

If you wear Lonsdale, it's like NSDAP. But I realized while shooting and so I was really thinking a lot about it but then okay, it was in the film, but it was really a topic for me that I have these clothes in the film. So if you ask me the bitter, bitter truth...

Haden Guest  18:44

No, I didn’t understand that at all. I mean, hm.

Valeska Grisebach  18:55

Hm. For me it was also “hm.”

Haden Guest  18:55 

Well, I know we've talked about dance before and I want to talk about it again because, you know, it occurs in all your films but here the dance is particularly charged. There’s this wonderful moment where the children see the older couples doing the waltz. And then there’s one of the most beautiful moments in the film is that extended dance sequence of Nicole. And it seems like the two possibilities here of dance. You know, there's one of the dance which is really about the sort of closed group together and sort of couples right?  And then there's this dance really where that one moment she seems to be the freest, she seems to be instead of having to carry the heavy weight of language that she's being imposed on her. She's finding a different language of her body and different gestures. So I was wondering if you could talk about that scene and like, was this Nicole, the actor, young woman, dancing herself? How did the scene come about it? Was there a direction in the scene?

Valeska Grisebach  20:02 

Just a little note to the old couple dancing, because when I now see the film, I see that I was really reacting to my surroundings. And then many places really changed a lot because there was this pavilion in the middle. I mean, it looks like a village, but it's really in the center of Berlin. And there's this pavilion and little park and there were these dances. How do you say it, tea dancing? What an--

Haden Guest  20:29

Afternoon dancing.

Valeska Grisebach  20:31

Afternoon dancing. And so I thought this could be an interesting connection to have these... to bring these couples into the film. And now there's a very chic Swiss restaurant and so many places change a lot, but so we really reacted to this kind of surrounding in the center of Berlin. And then I think the dancing scene of Nicole... I always knew there would be a dancing scene. But I saw Beau Travail when we were preparing the film, with this wonderful dancing scene in the end. So it was really like—I don't know how do you say...

Haden Guest  21:10

An homage...of sorts?

Valeska Grisebach  21:11

Yeah. So to think about this film, but I think it was for me, she's a little bit...She's fragile, but at the same time, she's like a warrior so very strong and like she could be alone. So I think it's a moment for her own, even if she's later trying again to deal with boys.

Haden Guest  21:36

So the dance itself, that was her own and…

Valeska Grisebach   21:38 

Yes, once I saw her dancing, and she was always I don't know, it was such a special dance.

Haden Guest  21:45

Her sleeves....

Valeska Grisebach  21:46

She was always working with her sleeves.

Haden Guest  21:51

Okay. I might take some questions from the audience. I'm sure we have questions or comments for Valeska Grisebach. Any in the audience at all? Yes, we've got one in the center there. We want to wait for the microphone.

Audience  22:09

Thank you. It is a very anthropological movie because watching it, then I was thinking how German the Germans are. Sullen, quiet, unverbal. They're not romantic. It's just, they'll utter a few things, a few grunts, there is no real...it could not be mistaken as French romanticism or Italian romanticism. They are Germans, they grunt, they don’t express themselves, they are quiet, they look at each other, they avoid their eyes. And I say this pure anthropology it’s just but as a love between teenagers? Oh, dreadful.

Haden Guest  23:08

I mean, this idea that this is in a kind of ethnographic or anthropological project, I think is a really interesting question. You know, I mean, in what sense? Did this in fact...you talked about making documentary before. In what sense did you perhaps think of this or have a sense that you were in fact studying? You know, youth, it is a kind of...

Valeska Grisebach   23:30

I think it's both. But at the other hand, it was totally clear for me that I didn't want to make at this time a contemporary to tell something about youth at this moment. So I was really looking for something more, more timeless. But so I think it's a combination of this construction of the story and then to bring something into the film which is yeah, you can...How do call it? Ethnological?

Haden Guest  24:04 

Ethnographic.

Valeska Grisebach  24:06

Ethnographic or...Yeah, even for me, it was really interesting now to see the film and to see it after I don't know how many years, almost 20 years. And I think it tells a story about Berlin about a time and...

Haden Guest  24:25

But this question I feel like, which is something that some have associated as well with the Berlin School, if you will, which is this question about asking what is German-ness and what is the responsibility of cinema, of German films to actually deal with that, to question, to examine. It's the kind of heavy expectation that's often I think, loaded on German filmmakers, it seems to me your films are all actually dealing with this, as the gentleman said, but you know, in really subtle and at times almost quite subversive ways. And I was wondering if this is something, you know, this interest in like these distinct quintessentially German places and subjects, I was wondering if you could talk about how, how it is that you come back to these...

Valeska Grisebach   25:18 

I mean, I came back to Berlin and I'm moved by the story of Berlin and this is very concrete. So this is these are concrete places, concrete people, and it's really in a way, how do you say, materialistic? But, it's really something which which moves me and to come close to this within maybe with an idea but then to see what is the reaction of a place, of the people dealing with with the idea of the story. And I don't know what to say about it but I think German-ness is interesting to me. So even still in Western, so what is this kind of German-ness and...

Haden Guest  26:13 

...even when outside of Germany? Yes. Other questions or comments do we have? The gentleman with the glasses in the back.

Audience  26:25 

Thank you for this movie. I was wondering about the space. You said right away that it was like very much built-in feeling of around the 2000s. But at the same time you said it's a timeless story. It also seems to be very specific to Berlin but also very spaceless in a way if occasionally the fancy term in the background but all the interior scenes, you have this ongoing theme of light switches, the fusebox, the meter and also outlets that have this little tiny story about. You can place it by them that you're somewhere in East Germany. But it's a very subtle way of telling the story. And I wonder how you found the spaces how important were those spaces for telling the story.

Valeska Grisebach   27:30 

I think in this film, also in Longing, in a way that the films they play in a milieu, but for me, it was very important to avoid to put too much pressure to the milieu. And I remember that one other German filmmaker asked me, “But it's not really a milieu. Why didn't you show really the milieu?” and I think it's not so interesting to me and also when we rented the apartment and we—how do you say? I don't English word. We furnished the apartment, I still have the apartment. And so now always friends are living in the apartment. And so we tried to create this kind of milieu but to make it a little bit more simple and not so colorful and not to give too much pressure to it. And then maybe to find that in some places this very simple subtext: Okay, this is a playground, this is a street, this is a kiosk and this is the entrance door and to have concrete places but at the same time, like...

Haden Guest  28:48 

Archetype.

Valeska Grisebach  28:50 

Archetype, places. And to give some orientation but not too much. And so to create some simple structure for the film

Haden Guest  29:01 

I feel like your films—if we've looked at all three of them together—they are in a sense moving towards different kinds of abstraction of place, this idea of, you know, as the gentleman said, not sort of leaving out any clear monuments or markers of place, and even times of horizon line. I think in Western, we rarely get the bigger views or vistas and things like this. I feel like that's maybe perhaps because you're really interested in the characters more than the larger vantage or vista over the place.

Valeska Grisebach  29:42 

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's also a weakness. Sometimes I realize that and that there are these transition moments to create a kind of understanding of places. Sometimes when you're sitting at the montage in the editing room, we really think, Okay, What is the logic of the places? So I think sometimes as we are so concentrated to certain scenes that we are missing some, I don't know some übergänge, I don't know the English.

Haden Guest  30:14 

The location shots or

Valeska Grisebach  30:19

Not, not. I think sometimes you need some time or some transition to understand the link between two places and so it's not everything is planned sometimes. Just missing.

Haden Guest  30:37 

Other questions or comments? Yes, we'll take that one. Whoops. Oh, aiyiyi. You ok?

Unknown Speaker  30:55

I’m okay.

Audience  31:08

It seems like there is a similar narrative in all your three movies. You're always suggesting, you're always leaving things in between. A bit in a fragmentary way. And while you analyze your characters, you seem to keep always a distance. And I don't know if it is conscious or unconscious. But the entire fragmentation create an impression more than an analysis of the characters and it keeps them distant from us as viewers. So how do you feel about that?

Valeska Grisebach  31:50

I hope I understood everything. I think with every film, I try to understand something. So maybe sometimes there's some kind of, not this is maybe too, too big or too pathetic, not a thesis, but more questioning with this kind of construction of a story. And I tried to understand something and I think always when I try to understand something, it's very ambivalent. And so there are different choices very close to each other. And so I think there's sometimes a lot of ambivalence in the films but then to fix some moments when you have some kind of, I don't know, truths, or you can have concrete moments. So sometimes when I'm writing a script, some people, they tell me, "when you're writing a scene, you say this, this is the truth and then afterwards, you write the contrary." So I don't know, for me, it's not so easy when I write, to say, “Okay, this is, this is the information about one character” or “I know this about character." For me, it's always very contradictory. And maybe this is also my connection to the characters that there's always a little bit mistrust about my knowing about a character and I think there's something I know a lot and I don't know.

Haden Guest  33:24 

I feel like something all of your characters share is a kind of awkwardness or... This is something which is I think gives them—while you play with these ideas of social and cultural archetypes—expectations to perform them. The characters find within those archetypes a kind of freedom or expression through this awkwardness. And this, I think, to me also comes from your work with non-actors, this idea that these aren't polished performances necessarily. These are performances that have a different kind of sincerity or authenticity than perhaps we're used to seeing on screen perhaps there is the kind of truth of the films if you will.

Valeska Grisebach  34:19

Yeah, I mean, for the actor, I think it's quite though this naturalistic moment is very artificially made for I think. For them it's quite an effort to... for everybody who works in the film to create this moment and, but I think for me, maybe this is a link back to other films that they have this star moment for me. So Nicole has for me, I don't know, she was a little bit like a star. Also Meinhard. So I think they have for me some kind of film iconic moments. And I really adore actors and maybe someday I will work together with actors but because sometimes people in Germany think that it's an ideological moment that I'm only working with non-professional actors, which is really not the fact. For example for Longing, I also cast actors, but I think this is something sometimes in this perfection of acting, which is irritating to me. And there's this kind of sometimes imperfection, which is very attractive. I think was every film is a questioning what is the material of the film? What is the film made of? And I think for these films, it was important to have these contrast moments these kind of not [UNKNOWN] or naturalism but which was very important to make together with these actors.

Haden Guest  36:05

I was wondering if I could ask about perhaps some other film inspirations from cinema. This time watching the film, I found myself thinking about Sharon Lockhart and her work with youth and the ways in which she is so deeply invested in a place. But then again, I found myself thinking at times about the Dardenne brothers—just at brief little moments—and I was wondering if you could talk about because this is, of course, a film that comes out of your time at film school when I imagine you were studying and deeply imbued in cinema, if you could talk a bit about some of some of the things that were guiding you some of the ideas or perhaps inspirations.

Valeska Grisebach  36:46 

I think one, which is the early work of Milos Forman was very important to me. And once I read in an interview that– I mean the English title A Blond’s Love?

Haden Guest  37:03

Mmhm. Loves of a Blonde.

Valeska Grisebach  37:04

Loves of a Blonde was in this time very important to me. So this was a film I had in mind. And in one interview with Milos Forman, I read that when he was shooting Black Peter or before he was starting to shoot, he gave the actors the script—and then this was a time without email and everything computer— and one week before they start shooting, he took away the script from the actors. And so they started to get quite nervous but everything was in so they just had to re-memorize the dialogues in the scene. And this was for me totally clear: Okay, I would like to try this and maybe without a script, so there is a script but I only tell the actors the scene and the dialogue and because I was a little bit afraid when they start to learn text that they [don't] have these in their head. And to trigger this understanding from which everybody has an understanding of life and situations and without this text barrier so we were talking about the scene and the dialogue only by words and yeah, I took this from Milos Forman. And Maurice Pialat was also very important to me. Because sometimes I was reading that some people think he is not a good scriptwriter and for me he's a totally perfect scriptwriter because he really opens in 90 minutes, some [UNKNOWN]. So you really have the feeling you spend some time with the characters and how close is love and aggression was also very inspiring to me. Claire Denis of course. So but I [said] this before.

Haden Guest  39:04 

We have time for one last question if there's one final question or comment. All right, let's right there. It's coming to you in a sec.

Audience  39:19

I just wanted to say that I appreciate how genuine you are. I also watched Western and I noticed that you put a lot of focus on lcharacters and story and then any bigger themes that you can make from the films, it's secondary, like you really focus on how well like a film it works. And I really appreciate that. I have a question about this film. How did you go about processing the film? Because it was kind of like, there's a lot of dust on it. And I was just wondering if...Did you hand-process it or just...what the story is behind that?

Haden Guest  40:00

She's asking about the processing. Because there was some dirt. So this film was shot on 16 and then blown up to 35 millimeter, correct? And that was standard to be shooting on 16 millimeter for your project. And... right?

Valeska Grisebach  40:15

It was standard. This was the only thing we could afford. So yeah.

Haden Guest  40:19 

Yeah, ‘cause this is 2001. So it wasn’t...

Audience  40:21 

Just interested because I’m in film school, too. We have to learn how to use film, but we also have digital as an option, so.

Valeska  Grisebach  40:27 

No, but at this time, we only had the 16 millimeter camera.

Haden Guest  40:32 

And it was processed I guess in Berlin. Exactly. Well, there's certain sadness now saying, calling an end to this, the third of three really wonderful evenings. But I want to, I really want to thank you Valeska for being with us. And we'll look forward to welcome you back again soon, I hope.

Valeska Grisebach  40:52 

Yes, this is wonderful. Thank you so much.

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