In part two of my Q and A with actor-filmmaker Mario Mentrup, he talks about the response to his feature film, I Do Adore, elaborates on his ideas about the art and biz of acting, and offers some advice to young actors. If you missed the first part of this Q and A, you can read it here.
TGAB: I suppose the notion of the actor-manager, or the notion of the actor being responsible for an overall aesthetic in the way, say, Chaplin was, appears to be out of fashion, or actors don’t think of themselves in this way anymore. Nowadays, it seems, actor are more like employees, submitting to the casting process, and they are brought into projects purely for functional reasons. As you say, there is suspicion towards actors who make their own stuff. In almost any other art form, or business, we admire those who strike out on their own, but that doesn’t apply to actors. Would you have a view on that? Or, what response did the fact that you acted in and directed your own feature, receive?
MM: Most actors see themselves as employees who just do what they are told. Their worker's pride is to serve. Especially male actors usually aim to come across as hard working men, but anyway the technicans get laid by all the cool ladies on set. Actors are frustrated in all ways: No work, no play(with ladies or boys vice versa).To compensate they must pump iron or fuck their brains out like Sasha Grey- i mean it seems, that fucking-for real is the new method of our time, isn't it, Michael Fassbend-me-over (his nickname in the blogosphere since "Shame") ?
Seriously, the big problem is that this business is so damn anti-intellectual.
Nobody dares to be a Chaplin or Buster Keaton or Charles Laughton or Orson Welles. Or John Cassavettes. Or Jaques Tati or Jerry Lewis. Or Marlon Brando, apart from being this great crazy pain-in-the ass for the business or Coppola, this mad big man has directed a great Western: "One -eyed-Jack."
The Servants of today forgot or do not even know that the director's job is actually a new invention of the last century, and the real tradition is the actor directing himself and his performance.
Since ages Shakespeare and Tchechov and a few new well -made-plays are the basis for actors to imitate "Art" and TV and Film is to earn money by imitating a cop and a nurse, that's it . Most Actors , here in Germany for example, would laugh in your face, if you would say that it is art what they are doing. Same with the directors. At this point i must say that the Pranks by American actors or performers who irritate their audiences is an interesting aspect; by doing they create at least a conceptual piece of art.
Crispin Glover is an example for this, who, apart from his pranks ,is financing and producing his 35mm Celluloid Films and avoids any digitalisation; he is touring all over to screen his films in the tradition of a vaudevillan. Of course Vincent Gallo has to be mentioned, whose provocations among the Net and Magazine- Communities made him so special, that it got really fascinating watching him in "Essential Killing" transformed into a Taliban who spoke absolutely nothing the entire film. Director Jerzy Skolimowsk said, it had been Gallo’s idea not to say any word at all. Guys like Joaquin Phoenix or James Franco also try hard to be crazy Pranksters, but that is another and more boring story. Paz de La Huertas is still very interesting. I like her ad-campaign for the Lingerie- Company "Agent Provocateur" and on an advice that she should avoid playing nudes scenes in future she said : That's good advice, but I'm telling you, typecasting is typecasting. And I mean, look at Charlotte Rampling. She's a brilliant actress, and she's still getting naked for films. If I look like that at her age, I'll flaunt it.“
That is an actor-auteur. Balls. Balls, that is what most people in this job are missing.
I go over now to your question what response the fact that i acted in and directed my own feature, received.
People simply avoided to talk to me about my acting in this film. They talked about everything else, a lot about the other actors to me. Some times i heard "Beautiful Pictures , but where is the story?"My answer is, that the pics are the story and that it was in my script and that i developed the storyboard together with Volker Sattel. By saying this i only gained disbelief. But still, most of the time the crowd is fascinated and pleased, having seen a movie like this. And although i cannot think of going a tougher road these days, where we see the glory of Script-Doctor-companies and 27- or 48- hours -Filmproducing -competitions all around the globe, with the horrible result that Film became an empty Party- event, there is bunch of actors and filmmakers who enjoy to go our ways. Christoph Bach, a TV- actor- award winner for his impersonation of "Dutschke" and internationally known for his part in "Carlos" by Olivier Assayas is very into the idea that acting should be art and an actor should be an auteur. And Christoph is fighting like a lion. I worked with him for my short film:"Der Adler ist fort" ("The eagle is gone") in 2010. We will continue working together. I can mention her RP Kahl, an actor-auteur- director who already made some Films and who made the controversial "Bedways" last year, which is distributed worldwide.
Or Nicolette Krebitz, you British people will know her as the cover-girl of a NEW ORDER album back in 2001. She has made two features yet and as far as i know, she battles for her new one against all odds and Business.
TGAB: It seems the situation here is very similar to Germany. I have actually been laughed at by my peers for suggesting that they should think of themselves as artists, back in my younger days when I was more naive. Also, the notion of the director being a 20th century invention, is extremely important - actors didn't even used to rehearse together necessarily, the lead actor would rehearse alone then slot into the company at the last minute. . Fascinating aswell, that people didn't really talk about the fact you were the main character in I Do Adore - perhaps they take your acting for granted, whereas perhaps making a feature is a rarer accomplishment... You make many points that we could explore further. But i would like to look at the idea of the "actor-auteur". You mention your contemporaries, and you seem to be saying that if you've got balls and determination, it can be done. Having been through it yourself with I Do Adore, what advice would you give to a young actor reading this, who maybe is starting to think of himself as an artist, but is not necessarily in an environment which encourages this.
MM: First i suppose you are right concerning the response to my acting in my own film, the people seem to take it for granted. It suddenly appears to me that i already could have become an "actor-auteur" over 20 years ago with the first Feature i was starring in and i had co-written .But at those days me myself and the circumstances around me were not quite right. Now that i shall give an advice to younger actors who start to think of themselves as Artists , i will switch from gloomy to light now.
Yesterday an actor-friend of mine, who had been casted 8 years ago by old Guerilla Filmmaker Klaus Lemke and acted in 4 of his Features premiered his own written and directed Low Budget Feature- in which he also is starring- in Berlin and it was a blast. Of course he had been nervous. In the process of nearly 2 Years he had screened slightly different versions of the film two or three times to me and some friends. I always told him quite the same: your film is crazy indeed, and of script-doctors will miss the plotline-and twist on minute so and so, but i saw funny and astonishing situations and refreshing ideas, who the fuck says you have to make
a masterpiece? And maybe it is....
The premiere the night before yesterday was a blast, and he is very very happy.
Actually , and not to forget, a good way is to start or join a Theatre Group with Actor and Writer and Musician and to focus on improvisational or new forms of theatre. A lot of groups are doing exactly this and even if you OFFOff doesn't mean you cannot get recognition. If you tend to listen to everybody or to harsh and frustrating acting teachers or maybe your parents or your depressed colleagues whoever, i would rather tell you to try find another profession.
There is this guy , who had a small but important part in my film. In the 90s he had had quite a quick start at age 18 when he played the Turkish-Berlin kid that he was in two main roles in a row. Then nothing worked out for him for ages, 7, 8 years no film, no nothing. He tried to become a director, no Filmschool wanted him. He did not give up. Meanwhile he was doing his thing in Metalbands, banging the guitar and his head and walking around with attitude. Finally 2005 a theatre asked him to direct a play. Since this day he writes and directs and acts in his own Theatre Play. This year his second self produced and written Microbudget Feature will be premiered at Berlinale. Guess what, Volker Sattel is the cameraman. More advices?
More Advices, get content. Read. Interviews with actors you admire or do not admire read Novels, Autobios, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, get into Mathematics, Metaphysics, even Esoterics. But read. Now as i write this down, i remember Werner Herzog, who did good challenging work the last years, is preaching this like a mantra: Read.
TGAB: I totally concur about reading. Has enormous impact. I think watching movies away from the mainstream, or prescribed "independent films", is also very important for the actor.Having watched your film, I could see in the aesthetics that it was made by cinephiles, ie - people with a broad and diverse knowledge of cinema, and an acute appreciation of it. In my experience, it is unusual for an actor to be a cinephile, and to want to make, let's say, auteur films. Here in London, few actors would even have heard of somebody like Godard, and it can be a real problem attracting actors to arthouse productions, especially when budgets are low. In my experience, a lot of actors are unnerved by anything other than industrial production processes. I wondered if the situation was similar in Germany? Also, I think screenings of important auteur films should be part of an actor's training, partly to awaken him to alternative forms. Would you have a view on that?
MM:
Hilarious statement, it reminds me of Susan Sonntags famous essay about "Camp" and her prognosis that the "method" of Marlon Brando would be seen as "Kitsch" in the future. Marlon Brando was very aware of this, but Klaus Kinski was overrated for sure. I mean did you see his directorial Actor-Auteur's Debut and last film ever: "PAGANINI"? Oh i can imagine Stewart Home, who claims to be inauthentic will love it for its Mega-Kitsch.Realism and Authenticity in Films is surely overrated like Lars von Trier is surely "kitsch" nearby in the future. I am a cinephile because i hung out more with filmmakers, filmbuffs, artists, writer and nerds than with actors. Nowaday i got some actor's friends and it is the directors who bore me now in freetime. And narrative Films bore me more and more. Since 10 years, I am more into experimental and Artfilmsor in the films and writings of Jean Epstein. The hysterical craziness in early Phillipe Garrell or Werner Schroeter Films, the dark eroticism of Frans Zwartjes or a music label like "Family Vineyard" are more thrilling for me than to watch the next nominated OSCAR Film or Arthaus Flick. But that is obvious. These new Films are not made for me, i am neither a kid nor a senior You wrote: "screenings of important auteur films should be part of an actor's training, partly to awaken him to alternative forms." I totally agree, but it should be a must for producers in particular and directors too. And not only Films by Godard, Antonioni or Fassbinder but also Films by Dario Argento, Tinto Brass, Alain Robbe-Grillet (do you know: "Transeuropaexpress"?), Val Lewton, yes and why not Jean Rollin or Porn by Radley Metzger? Fuck taste and what is a masterpiece anyway? Eric Rohmer was once claiming to watch films and not "masterpieces". Okay , Dario Argento is boring today but so is Scorsese. You wrote that actors are unnerved by anything other than industrial processes. Yes because they only think of feeding their divorced wifes or husbands and families and to keep their lifestyle established.
But i tell you such an actor was begging me, when we met at a dinner party, to write a part in one of my poor Films for him because he couldn’t stand the painful bullshit of acting in a TVseries, Main part actually, any longer.
I think i let him play a "fucky" vampire in an Jean Rollin inspired Movie.
If you would like to find out more about Mario's work, please visit www.mariomentrup.de
By the way, remember MADE IN BRITAIN as being a motor for me a 19year old German kid secretly aiming to work for Film? My friend Stewart Home, a London-based writer and novelist just titled movies by Alan Clarke like "Meantime", "Scum" "Made in Britain" as luvvie style-staging. (here in a hilarious bad review on Steve Mcqueen's HUNGER which i didn't watch out of sheer ignorance: http://stewarthomesociety.org/blog/archives/508)
Closure Of Catharsis is a feature film I made with Rouzbeh Rashidi at the end of last year. It's about a man who wrestles with himself as he attempts to remember a trauma from his past, a trauma which has slipped from memory. The film is structured around a park bench monologue and intercut with mysterious imagery. It's visually poetic and possesses a dark brooding atmosphere. It's a film I'm immensely proud of, and have taken great delight in seeing it gradually accrue an audience over time (in the proper arthouse tradition); Closure Of Catharsis has so far played in Ireland, Croatia and will do so in Chile later this year. In addition, it has garnered very positive reviews, and is well on it's way to a having a sizeable following. The film was originally inspired by Jesse Richards' Remodernist Manifesto, which, broadly speaking, seeks a new spirituality in cinema, "concerned with humanity and an understanding of the simple truths and moments of humanity", and Closure Of Catharsis is full of such moments. Furthermore, and crucially for my own personal cinematic project, Closure Of Catharsis is a film for the cinephile for sure, however, it can also be viewed by those who might normally seek out more mainstream fare - infact, I screened the film for a group of such people and they were engrossed by it - in a cinema culture as soul-destroyingly conservative as Great Britain's, where most films are merely marketing paradigms (many of those going into filmmaking now, would have gone into advertising 20 years ago), this is important. "Audiences" are not the zombific drones we are lead to believe, quite the contrary infact, they long to enter into strange new worlds, and are compelled by the unusual, the individualistic, the provocative. My point is that the production of arthouse cinema among young filmmakers in my own city is non-existent, but it needn't be, and this has always been my conviction. Perhaps then, with films such as Closure Of Catharsis, it's maker, Rouzbeh Rashidi, is showing the way. While so many filmmakers spend their time moaning about "funding" (yawn) or begging us to "like" their Facebook page, Rashidi spends his time actually making films, making cinema, and in the process developing and refining his aesthetic and mode of production, thus arriving at a point where a film of Closure Of Catharsis' calibre can be produced. Rashidi has, in the corners of Dublin and Tehran, quietly rewritten the rules of the filmmaking game.
And so it is then, he and I will travel this week to Bristol, where Closure Of Catharsis will be screened at Cinekinosis, which is curated by acclaimed filmmaker, Juan Gabriel Gutierrez. Subsequent to the screening, there will be a question and answer session in which I am expected to participate in, and, having never done so before, I begin to think about how I can do it well and prepare correctly - this is especially important for somebody as beloved of speaking waffle as I am. I think it is particularly problematic for actors to speak about their work because inevitably it leads to speaking about themselves, which may in turn descend into solipsism. On the other hand, there is the loathsome false modesty, which seems to be the favoured tool for self-promotion among our leading actors: pretending that they are clumsy and disorganised, cute and innocent (when we all know it takes aggression, ambition and hard work to build a career). Either of these routes is repulsive, and both help to foster the generally terrible image of actors as self-obsessed, trivial and phoney. When I think about those who speak about their work in a way that I find engaging, they tend to be honest and unpretentious, simple, and possessing a genuine desire to communicate something, and in a form which may be meaningful to the listener. In the end then, the same values which I aspire to in my actual work; truth, directness, generosity and strength, should also be present when speaking about my work - it's about taking responsibilty: audiences come to us artists in order to be delighted, and are willing to suspend their own self-consciousness and place their well being in our hands to obtain that delight. The artist, therefore, is in a hugely privileged position, a position which should be cherished and handled with care, and those who would abuse it should be despised. The audience responds most strongly to the artists who take care of them.
Mike Leigh: 'This is the most deeply personal film I’ve made'
The veteran director talks to Dave Calhoun about how 'Another Year' was a film born out of his own memories
Mike Leigh has a dicky tummy courtesy of an especially hot Chinese meal with his son on Shaftesbury Avenue the night before. How do I know? Because when I ask the plain-speaking 67-year-old director how he is doing, he looks me squarely in the eye: ‘Fine – apart from the diarrhoea.’ It’s 10am, we’re standing in his spartan Greek Street office in Soho, with its posters of ‘Naked’ and ‘Secrets and Lies’ and framed black-and-white photos from all of Leigh’s 12 feature films on the wall, and bullshit is off the menu.
You shouldn’t expect anything else from Leigh. If he thinks you’re talking rubbish, he’ll tell you. It’s there in his films, too: life in all its guises, ugly and beautiful. But Leigh’s frankness, on and off screen, breeds misconceptions, and the two biggest ones are that, firstly, he’s a miserable git and, secondly, he lacks compassion. The first, I imagine, he couldn’t care less about. The second must really irritate him.Why? Because his films live and die upon whether you find them compassionate or not. From ‘Bleak Moments’ in 1971 to his new film, ‘Another Year’, which has its British premiere at the London Film Festival this month, Leigh has built a career out of a sensitive approach to characters recognisable from all our lives. He crafts each of his films through intense periods of improvisation and research with his cast, building up a life for each character from birth, whether it’s Poppy in ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ with Sally Hawkins or Johnny in ‘Naked’ with David Thewlis. A close collaboration between director and actor, based around a complete understanding of the character, is key.‘Another Year’ is undoubtedly one of Leigh’s best films. It deals, partly, with folk of a similar age to Leigh, and it feels like one of the wisest and richest of his films. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, both Leigh regulars, play north Londoners Tom and Gerri, a professional couple (she’s a therapist, he’s a geologist) in their sixties who are happy survivors of the 1968 generation. We meet several of their friends and family, some of whom aren’t finding life so easy. There’s Tom’s old friend Ken (Peter Wight), who’s unhealthy and depressed. There’s Tom’s brother Ronnie (David Bradley), who’s near silent with sadness. But most fully in the spotlight is Mary (Lesley Manville), a nervous, chatty colleague of Gerri’s who is terrified of getting old, uneasy with her place in the world and, we fear, very lonely.The film is more explicitly meditative, calmer even, than many of Leigh’s works. We move through the four seasons, from spring to winter, and there’s a feeling, as the title suggests, that we’re dipping in to 12 months that could be the year before or the year after. The characters are specific and believable, but, above all, you feel one thing: that all life is here.‘Another Year’ throws up so many themes that it’s hard to pin down what it’s about. I assume you think that’s a good thing? ‘I do, and it’s not only difficult for you, it’s immensely difficult for me. Of all the films I’ve made, firstly, it’s the one that is the most difficult to talk about; secondly, it’s frankly the one I’m least inclined to talk about. Ideally, I’d like never to talk about anything I make. But it was tough to make because it is elusive.‘Also, and this is the hardest thing of all for me to talk about, it is the most deeply personal film I’ve made, with the exception maybe of my first film, “Bleak Moments”, in 1971. Somebody said to me recently, are you any of the characters in “Another Year”? Of course, there are no self-portraits in there, but, yes, I am… I mean, I do relate very closely to Tom and Gerri and Mary and Ken and Ronnie.’The film feels like it’s about relationships, love, friendship, time passing… ‘It’s also about loneliness and disappointment and ageing. I mean there are personal things in the film for me; the relationship that the two main characters, Tom and Gerri, have with their son Joe, is very much in the spirit of my own relationship with my two sons.‘Having done “Happy-Go-Lucky”, where obviously the focus is on young-ish people, I thought that I needed to look at us – my generation. I’m 67, so I’ve got friends who retired ages ago – a word that’s not in my vocabulary, obviously, and I’ve got a sister who thinks that it is ridiculous that I don’t have a retirement plan.’The concept of retirement doesn’t really exist for filmmakers, does it? ‘Yes, well, they say you’re only as old as you feel, and all that stuff. But at the same time, I’ve got a very close, old, old, old friend who’s just about as old as me; he’s nearly 70, but that’s the same age at our age – who is not well, and I go and sit in a cottage in Wiltshire with this guy, and we just sort of make each other laugh and I take him out in his wheelchair, and we just go for a walk, and we are in that context two old codgers… I was with him this weekend, in fact. So there’s all that stuff on the go, which I wanted to deal with on some level in this film.’You say there’s a lot of you in the characters in ‘Another Year’. How about Gerri, played by Ruth Sheen? She’s a therapist who explores emotions and backgrounds with people, one on one. Is there a bit of you in Gerri, in terms of how you work with actors? ‘Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. In 1985 I was working on my film “Four Days in July” with Brid Brennan in Belfast, and she was talking about her dad, and I was talking about my dad. I was saying he was a local GP in Salford, and we were having this conversation while we were on a rehearsal set. She was lying on a bed and I was sitting at the end of it and talking about my old man, and she said, “Well, you’ve clearly inherited his great bedside manner.” And, in a way, I think there is some of that going on.’We should talk about Lesley Manville. Her performance as Mary is very strong. ‘Well, first of all, Lesley is a record holder now: she’s worked with me more than any actor. I think that’s important. She is a delight to work with. She is so sharp, adventurous and yet professional and precise.’This is your seventh film with her. Do you take it somewhere new each time? ‘Yes, we have to. It’s a given that whenever I work with somebody the second time, I say that, whatever we do, we are not going to repeat ourselves. It’s an ongoing, ever-more-in-depth investigation. I mean, I can never, as you know, talk about exactly what we do and how we do it and all the rest of it, because people wouldn’t understand – and you’re one of the few proper journalists who doesn’t waste time asking about it. It does involve some sort of creative telepathy, and I’m only ever as good as my actors.’ You always develop younger actors, like Katrin Cartlidge and Sally Hawkins. In this film, you’ve cast two actors from ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’, who play Tom and Gerri’s son and his girlfriend. ‘Absolutely, and the great first-timer in this film is David Bradley, who is 68. I’ve never worked with him before, but, you see, the thing about working with people for the first time is, if it works, which on the whole it does, by day two, you’ve forgotten it’s the first time. You just get on with it, and David Bradley is the most fantastic actor.’Is it easy for an older actor to get used to your way of working, to the improvisation, the months of research? ‘Well, that’s a very interesting question, and Jim Broadbent reminded me that there was a time when my problem was I couldn’t do old characters because there weren’t any who could do this sort of thing. But of course we’ve moved on from those times.’So it’s a generational thing? ‘Totally. I went to Rada exactly 50 years ago yesterday or today, which I think is an important historical landmark. It was September 26 1960 when I came to London from Manchester to live and study. But to answer your question, no disrespect to any of them, but of my generation at Rada, very few, and that’s putting it politely, very few of those guys can do this. Some of them will protest and say, “Well, you’ve never tried,” but the fact is we never did any improvisation. If you walk into Rada now, this sort of thing is second nature.’Your business partner and producer, Simon Channing Williams, died shortly before you filmed ‘Another Year’. Was he involved at the beginning? ‘Well, he was involved in the early shenanigans that led to the raising of the money, and it was Simon who called me from London, when I was in New York at the beginning of last year, to say it was green-lit. Actually, we leapt into action quickly because we wanted to make it while he was around, but sadly he died before we got into it. He knew the cast, but he was very, very, very ill by this stage.’I want to ask about Cannes. Everyone expected ‘Another Year’ to win a big prize, but it left with nothing. Were you surprised? ‘Well, no! Look… The point about this is that I’ve been there before, I’ve been on the jury in Cannes, and been through it all. But the hype and expectations were so total in their conviction that we would get the Palme d’Or. However, the truth is that I know that the jury will do whatever it wants to do, for whatever reasonable or idiosyncratic reasons. And there is a case, without prejudice, for arguing that the decisions made this year, not just in relation to my film, were fairly idiosyncratic.‘But to be in Cannes with that degree of celebration is good news whether you win the Palme d’Or or not. For me, to have won it twice, after winning it for “Secrets and Lies” in 1996, would have been lovely, but of course the real disappointment at a certain, completely solipsistic level was not getting the Golden Bear for “Happy-Go-Lucky” in 2008 because I would then have won the top award at all three of Venice, Cannes and Berlin.’It must have been gratifying to see Sally Hawkins win a Golden Globe and an award at Berlin for ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’? ‘Yes, all those things – and yet no nomination for the film in any category for the Baftas! I repeat, no nominations in any category! The Baftas completely and totally ignored “Happy-Go-Lucky” and were very cross when we grumbled about it. I mean, it’s ridiculous; it’s absurd. But that’s another story – and of course it was wonderful for Sally.’So it must be pleasing to see Sally on the sides of buses for ‘Made in Dagenham’? ‘I had that same thought on the way here when I saw a bus on Charing Cross Road. I love it. I love it! Whatever Sally does, and she’s done relatively small parts in dreadful films, she just never fails to hit it. She is just brilliant.’
