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Hannah Arendt: Q&A with Director Margarethe von Trotta, Screenwriter Pamela Katz and Actress Barbara Sukowa

By Ron Gordner, DCFS Member

Hannah Arendt (Germany, 2012) is another great film about fascinating historical women. The film is about the controversial German-Jewish philosopher, journalist and political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Director Margarethe von Trotta tries to transform a thought into a film. She focuses most of the film around Arendt's attending the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann's 1961 trial in Jerusalem. Arendt became infamous for her "banality of evil" concept which states that his evil was not diabolical in intent, but rather an unthinking carrying out of his orders with ignorance of the consequences of his or the Nazi's actions. The film screened in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Barbara Sukowa was named best actress at the 2013 Bavarian Film Festival and at the 2013 German Film Awards for her portrayal as Hannah, which also named the film as best German feature film. Janet McTeer plays American author, critic and political activist Mary McCarthy. The film was released in Germany in January 2013 and also had screenings at the 2013 Filmfest DC. The film is expected to open in the DC metro area on July 5, 2013.


Margarethe von Trotta and Barbara Sukowa at the Toronto Film Festival

TIFF Moderator: What drew you to this person to make a film about, and how did you decide to focus on this amazing period of her life?
Margarethe von Trotta: I think of her as a very important woman of her time and as a political thinker. This was probably one of the most challenging stories to tell. To me she went through the Nazi period and was a victim to many since she was a woman, very intelligent, and changed the world. She is the one who really looked at the war criminals and changed our ideas about them and what they did. This was four years after World War II and Germany had gone from its love of Heidegger and his philosophy to the War, and then we have Eichmann and other individuals that Germany had to reconcile with. Her idea of the "banality of evil" and other theories really stirred up controversy and changed our views.

Audience Question: Can you talk more about Hannah and her relationship with Kurt?
Pamela Katz: Kurt was really her teacher but you can see how he quickly became her father figure and they met because of his Zionist movement activities.

Audience Question: Why so many cigarettes in the film and so little Heidegger?
Barbara Sukowa: Maybe there were so many cigarettes because there was so little Heidegger (audience laughs). Hannah really did smoke that many cigarettes, in fact she died with a cigarette in her hand. Yes it may have been more interesting to have more about Hannah the Zionist with Heidegger the Nazi, but for our story we thought these four years needed to be the focus of the film. A larger, more interesting story is the polarity of Hannah and Eichmann which interested us more. Also this is more than just the one man Eichmann, Hannah wanted to show how this phenomenon can happen if a totalitarian system develops. The moral decline on all sides is vast and even the victims and perpetrators become objects in this kind of system. Heidegger was part of that also.
Margarethe von Trotta: We thought too much Heidegger would make it like a soap opera. Her great love was her second husband Heinrich Blucher. Women in the meeting scene didn't understand Hannah's theories until Mary McCarthy helped her. Janet McTeer was wonderful and wanted to be here tonight but is filming in Europe. She will be sorry not to be here and see the great reaction the film is getting.

Audience Question: [To Barbara] Can you tell us how you prepared for this role?
Barbara Sukowa: I have worked with Margarethe several times now, and was not sure about this role but Margarthe is relentless in getting her cast. I had a great script and the two women here to update me, but it is impossible to catch up with the life of a scholar. I tried hard and I read a lot of what she wrote and read a very good biography by Elizabeth Young-Bruehl who unfortunately died before we finished the film. I had to go back to the old philosophers also and read Plato and I worked with a young philosophy teacher also. I collected all this material in my head and was glad when we started shooting to use it, and the rest is a sixth sense of using what you have read, experienced, and your own life to tell her story. The night before we started shooting I had a strange dream that I had to wear very big shoes that I could not walk in. I told Margaretha and she said well you should have thought about that before and laughed.
Margarethe von Trotta: I must also recognize the great talents and work of our producer Bettina Brokemper. [asks her to come up].
Bettina Brokemper: I have always loved Hannah Arendt and wondered why her story was not told more. I worked with Margarethe for seven years to find funding for the movie.

Audience Question: Why is there not much about her first husband Gunther Anders?
Margarethe von Trotta: She married him on the rebound from Heidegger but never really loved him. They divorced not long after being married and she met Heinreich Blucher who fled from Paris with her to the United States and she married him and loved him very much. France was being invaded by the Nazis and any Germans were viewed as Nazis although of course they were fleeing them. If she had stayed she would have probably been transferred from camp to camp and then the Nazis when in power would have sent her to Auschwitz. So she was lucky to find Heinrich and flee with him when she did.

Audience Question: What about Arendt's critics and did they have a point?
Pamela Katz: I don't have much on that. I do get asked do we agree with her comments and philosophy? I don't say agree with everything she said, but I do have great respect for her and the concepts that she developed. The important thing is can we learn anything from her idea that Eichmann and others could really be terrifyingly normal in many respects and do these acts? I will say Hans Jonas is one of her stronger critics and I can understand some of his comments and criticisms also. Many criticized her tone in her writing, but that was her nature. I think there are some merits in the criticisms of writers like Hans Jonas and Kurt Lowith, but I think that she was often also attacked by many of the so called "New York intellectuals" in a less intelligent and more vicious way. I think there is something to be said for controversy itself. Her ideas were very provocative and stirred great controversy and debate.

Audience Question: Did you already have many of the actors in mind while or before scripting or did you cast it later?
Margarethe von Trotta: Well, Barbara was there in our heads from the begining. I made my last film Vision about Hildegarde von Bingen and earlier films also and she is so great I can't do without her. There are many actresses capable, but for this role I knew she was the best. I am very grateful that she accepted once more to do my film.

A Hijacking: Q&A with Director/Writer Tobias Lindholm and Actor Soren Malling

By Ron Gordner, DCFS Member

A Hijacking (Kapringen) is the first feature film as a solo director for Tobias Lindholm. He also wrote the screen play and has written screenplays for Thomas Vinterberg's films Submarino and The Hunt and also writer of the popular Danish tv series Borgen (Castle). Although A Hijacking seems like you are watching a news driven documentary, it is actually a suspenseful feature thriller about a Danish freighter captured by Somali pirates who demand millions of dollars for release of the ship and its crew. Soren Malling plays the part of the head of the shipping company and Pilou Asbaek, the troubled ship's cook Mikkel. The film was screened in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and opened in the DC area on June 28, 2013. It won the Bodil Award as best Danish film of the year.


Actor Soren Malling at left; director Tobias Lindholm at right.

Audience Question: Why don't these freighters arm themselves against incidents like this?
Tobias Lindholm: Well things have changed since we made this movie. The United Nations now does allow freighters to arm themselves and since the film was made no freighters with armed guards have been hijacked. However they have started taking tourist ships beached on the northern shores of Kenya. Also some small companies can't afford to arm themselves, and having these kind of cowboys on board can also be problematic. It can also create problems with the sailors' unions having other personnel on board with guns, but yes it is allowed now and most all companies are using armed guards to prevent hijacking.

Audience Question: Can you speak about the casting process and where you found the actors?
Tobias Lindholm: I had worked with Pilou and Soren both on tv shows that I scripted so I had them in mind early in the process and a few other characters are professional actors. Gary, who plays the negotiator, was really an advisor for the script since he does negotiating in these kinds of incidents and how they were managed including the money drops. We gave him a scenario of a hijacking and for background taped him explaining the process of negotiation and resolution he would use. I went home and looked at that tape and knew he would be perfect in the film playing the negotiator and it also helped us to focus on that part of script and shooting. Some of the sailors used are real sailors who had experienced hijacking from the pirates also, so I think this all gave an authenticity to the film. Also Omar we found in Denmark who had been a refugee from Somalia since he was a child, so he knew about the manners and language that were realistic.

Audience Question: How did you keep up the intensity in the film and in your performance?
Tobias Lindholm: On the boat that was easy, because we did have the fear that we could be hijacked which made us tense. We also wanted to be respectful to the crew on board and the members who told us their stories of real hijackings they had been involved in. It was probably harder for Soren in Copenhagen since each day we could go back home to our wonderful wives and kids, so I think he may have had to struggle a little more with creating that intensity.
Soren Malling: Early on after I had read the script I told Tobias yes I am on board. I also did a lot of research and shadowed a real CEO of a shipping company so when we started shooting I felt prepared. The CEO is in total control, and Tobias said if you need to improvise--such as leave the room to get a cup of coffee, go ahead. We tried to add onto the script as needed.

Audience Question: Why didn't you use a government owned ship or have government involvement?
Tobias Lindholm: I was surprised also when I started investigating for the film but you have many nations involved. The country that owns the freighter, Denmark; an Indian who owns the cargo; and the many nationalities of the crew and where in the water the hijacking happens. Making this also at a government level added other issues. I liked that this was a corporate issue and that the CEO had to make decisions that affected not only the company but the crew and others and that really he was making life and death decisions. If the ship was Danish and sailing under the Danish flag it would have been a little different. We used the real story of a Danish freighter hijacked by pirates in 2009 and we basically followed the skeleton of their story and the government really never got involved on a major level.

Audience Question: Typically in these hijackings do most of the crew return safely to their families?
Tobias Lindholm: There really have not been that many killings so far. Mainly because that would harm what the pirates are selling, the hostages. But of course when you put guns in the hands of 16 year old boys, things can happen. I did a prison film with Pilou before, and I agreed with him that I would not kill his character in this one. So it would have to be someone else, but it does happen.

Audience Question: How long did it take to shoot the film and do you have distribution yet?
Tobias Lindholm: We shot in about 5-1/2 weeks. 2-1/2 weeks in Africa and the rest in Denmark. Due to no unions we could film longer in Africa which helped. I did research for a year, the script took a couple of months. I don't know about distribution yet.

Audience Question: What were they traveling with on the ship that was of value?
Tobias Lindholm: They had already delivered their cargo and were going back to Mumbai at the time of the hijacking. Many times you don't always pick something up where you dropped off a cargo. Also there is insurance, so if there is a cargo it usually has been insured, so that is not the problem. It is the men that are worth more for the companies.

Audience Question: Did you ever considering subtitling the conversation of the Somali pirates?
Tobias Lindholm: At a point, I was trying to tell the story of the Somali pirates as well, but I quickly realized it would be pretty arrogant of me as a guy coming from Northern Europe and living in a nice home to tell that story. We decided to use one camera and stick to the rules, and if we were able to understand the pirates, it may not make much sense for us to understand why the crew were so afraid. So early on, we decided not to translate the Somali pirates conversation and that we should not know anymore than the crew members did.

Audience Question: Was it difficult for some of the crew members who had actually been in hijacking situations to relive this during the shooting of the movie?
Tobias Lindholm: First of all, the crew members from third world countries have little other choices to work for money, unlike those of us from the developing countries. I asked them if it would be psychologically a problem, but they all wanted to do it to show their own families the type of experience they had endured and to share that with them. When we found out we had former hostages playing crew members, we tried to be respectful of them and made sure they were not the particular victims in the movie, but used them as professionals and as advisors for their experiences.

Audience Question: Could you comment on your shooting style, which was very documentary-like?
Tobias Lindholm: Well there is really only one camera, so we try to do it as precise as possible on the first take. Then it was up to the D.O.P., Magnus Nordenhof Jonck, to use his own judgment, since he has done a lot of documentaries before, so that was his technical responsibility. I monitored the scenes and we also made a rule the camera can not leave the person, but the person can leave the camera and go off-screen. We had all the camera crew and others work together for the same effect and it was shot digitally which gave us more time. Many times we shot for 30 minutes to an hour to find those 30 seconds to show how Pilou was suffering.

Audience Question: Could you discuss why you didn't really show the initial action of the hijacking?
Tobias Lindholm: I initially wrote a scene with the hijacking and also of the CEO in his office listening to the hijacking take place and not being able to do anything about it. I decided it was more important to stick with the CEO and his desperation, rather than trying to do an action montage of the hijacking itself. If we had an action scene, I think we would have seen the CEO as a different person and victim also and would have lost much of his character.

A Hijacking is currently playing at Landmark's E Street Cinema.

The Hunt: Q&A with Director Thomas Vinterberg

By Ron Gordner, DCFS Member

The Hunt (Denmark, 2012) is a provocative tale of Lucas, a divorced daycare worker played by Mads Mikkelsen, who is accused of harming one of the children in his care. The changes in Lucas' life and the reaction of his friends and the community about his alleged crimes create a tense thriller. Mikkelsen won best actor in the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Lucas. Vinterberg received a standing ovation after this screening in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens in mid July in the DC metro area. (Q&A contains some spoilers.)

Mads Mikkelsen and Thomas Vinterberg

TIFF Moderator: What was your inspiration for turning this story into a film?
Thomas Vinterberg: I had a psychiatrist living near me and he came and knocked on my door and said, I know you did The Celebration years ago and there is another film you need to do. This is based on some cases, I think you should read it. I ducked doing it for about 8 years, and then I needed to see a psychiatrist and thought about the film again. So I read it again and this time I was shocked and horrified by it. Also I am not a priest or moralist, but felt I had made a film about a child abuser in the 1990s and thought I should also do one as an antithesis of that film also.

Audience Question: Why did you decide to jump the story ahead one year in the film. And why did he stay in the town?
Thomas Vinterberg: The jump ahead of a year in time was to show that hopefully this was enough time for a healing to take place. Are his former friends his friends again, and is there really a possible life for Lucas in this town now? I think his leaving the town would have proved him guilty somehow. Also he is a very stubborn man but he also believes in the good of other people and that these bad feelings and actions will go away. I am not sure he stays at the end or not, that is a decision you can make as a viewer.

Audience Question: Could you talk about working with children on the film and also about the psychology behind why children may tell lies? Did you investigate this before filming?
Thomas Vinterberg: We did a lot of research and read some cases and what you are seeing is the airplane version or horrifying version of real life. You never know when they lie, but there are many cases where it is unclear if anything really happened. I consider this a very innocent lie. A small girl reaches out to a friend and is slightly rejected and she feels angry about it and makes a lie. After that she is doing it to please the grown-ups. You see the investigation where Clara is asked the same question several times. This is from a real transcript but leaves out all the terrible details that a truthful child would tell about. The problem is that in the end these children do become victims after seeing legal experts, gynecologists, etc. and they hear the same story repeatedly so that it does become part of their memory.

Audience Question: Why did you leave out some things that we saw but the protagonists didn't?
Thomas Vinterberg: First of all if he knew everything, it would have been a very short film. This is a film about mistakes. It is not a film about rational people acting rationally. It is how many people and communities react according to many cases and police interrogations that I have read about. You won't believe how sometimes the kids are coached or what they tell the kids.

Audience Question: How did you work with such a young actress to do this part and understand it?
Thomas Vinterberg: She is seven years old, so she doesn't understand. We had to find a balance so that we were not too secretive about the situation which would have made it seem even more toxic and we also spoke to her parents often. The scene where supposedly she is shown porn by the counselors or investigators, obviously we didn't really show her porn, but she seemed to know what generally it was about, so it felt more healthy the way we approached the scene. She pretty much studied her lines and played with her dolls when off camera, so we felt there was no harm done to her. She didn't absorb or understand all the sexuality issues, but knew it was about lying and the implications of that. Also we are in Denmark, which is very different from other countries. We tried to find and maintain a balance where kids are protected and sometimes may be overprotected at times.

Audience Question: Can you talk about the symbolism in the film including the title "The Hunt" and how this is projected in the film? Also there is a lot of taxidermy in the film and dead animals on the walls, lots of guns and hunting scenes. And near the end of the film Lucas may himself be hunted. Is there a metaphor or relationship of the hunter and the hunted in your film?
Thomas Vinterberg: You've precisely described what we wanted to show--this parallel throughout the film of the hunter and the hunted. I am not proud of the title "The Hunt" since it is so obvious but it is a nice, catchy title and distribution is happy with it. I think it would have been more clever without that title. The important thing for me is that there is life in this town. They have rituals, they have and maintain a past, and hunting is part of that and the life of this community. I try to create a real place in all of my films. So the hunting is important as a metaphor, but more as a thing to do in this community.

Audience Question: Are you involved in the Danish manifesto for making films with rules?
Thomas Vinterberg: Yes, you are referring to Dogme 95. Lars von Trier and others used this in making films. It was long ago and even though I was one of the Dogme 95 missionaries or spokesmen, and did many interviews about it, I don't remember a great deal about it now. It was a manifesto of film making that von Trier and myself created in 1995. I won't elaborate in great detail but it tried to strip down all the elements of making a film to get to the bare naked truth, as close as you could get since it is usually fiction. Use of hand held cameras, no artificial light or artificial sound or music. A group of directors used this style and made a great set of movies, but then as artists we have to constantly renew ourselves. We don't want to keep repeating ourselves, so Dogme is over but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Audience Question: Could you describe your creative process from pre-production, screenwriting, through to post-production?
Thomas Vinterberg: I do a lot of research and developing the script and also we spend quite a bit of time rehearsing with the actors and having conversations with the actors and the crew, over and over again, so that when we begin shooting or are in front of the camera, you can just let it go. That's the moment of liberation and that you have created a foundation to stand upon. That takes a lot of work to accomplish that feeling. I do enjoy the writing process more and more, the older I get. I am getting faster in developing and changing the script, but it is still a very thorough process that has to end up somewhat playful in front of the camera. Film making can become a very boring dry walk through the desert, so you must find that balance of playfulness and thoroughness but find those moments where the film is uplifting and just fun as well. So basically you do the hard work and then you eventually just let it go.

The Hunt is expected to open during July.

Byzantium: Q&A with Director Neil Jordan

By Ron Gordner, DCFS Member

Byzantium (Ireland/United Kingdom, 2012) is Neil Jordan's return to the vampire genre after his well known film Interview With the Vampire with this gothic tale of horror and humor. It is the tale of two sister vampires, the older Clara (Gemma Arterton) who is very aggressive and sexual, and her younger sister, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan), the introverted storyteller. Clara uses the strangely awkward man (Daniel Mays) who has recently inherited a rundown hotel at the British seaside called the Byzantium Hotel. Lush, gory happenings and cinematography make this a vampish fun time. This Q&A took place in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens around July 5th in the DC metro area.

Left to right: Gemma Arterton, Caleb Landry Jones and Saiorse Ronan at the Toronto Film Festival

TIFF Moderator: What brought you back to this kind of drama genre again?
Neil Jordan: It was the script, really. Moira Buffina was asked to write a script based on a play called The Vampire Tale and when I read it I thought I'd really like to make that film. She reinvented and changed our presumptions we have of the physiques and characterizations we have of these creatures and that it was the story of two women, possibly sisters.

TIFF Moderator: These characters have such starkly opposite personalities and could you speak how you portrayed these deeply emotions connections that they have? How were they developed with the actresses and how that dynamic was formed?
Neil Jordan: They worked beautifully together and I think you'll agree that Saoirse Ronan is one of the best young talents around now. Saoirse lives in Ireland and read the script and wanted to do it. I have also always loved Gemma Arteron, she is such a force of nature and this part could show her whole range of talents. We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse the parts, but they quickly adapted to the roles of mother and daughter or two sisters instantly. When they came on the set Saoirse was all stillness and Gemma was all this human energy.

Audience Question: Would you like to follow these characters again?
Neil Jordan: Well we'll have to see how the film is accepted and if these sucreant creatures are accepted. They're not quite vampires, but I would love to follow the characters again, yes.

Audience Question: Did you add all the comments on the walls or graffiti?
Neil Jordan: No, we used whatever was already on the walls.

Audience Question: Where did you find the Coventry tune we hear?
Neil Jordan: It's a famous tune in Ireland but I also found it on You tube. Is it known over here also? I gather school kids still sing it.

TIFF Moderator: Obviously there are some similarities of this film with your Interview With a Vampire film. Can you talk about your different approach in this film and how that experience may have been used for Byzantium?
Neil Jordan: Well I did Interview With a Vampire over 17, almost 20 years ago and that was my response to Ann Rice's work. I guess you could say that this is Moira Buffina's response to that film about a voracious male vampire. Here we have a mother or sister carrying around her guilt-ridden daughter or sibling, so there is a similarity in a way. She is a woman in a male dominated world and really is an 18th century woman kind of wreaking vengeance on men who have made her what she is.

Audience Question: Where is the island?
Neil Jordan: It is an island of the West coast of Cork called Beara. In the original script Moira had them going to somewhere in Asia Minor and they were bitten by an enormous bird-like creature but that would have cost too much, so we came up with this Irish island story.

Audience Question: Can you talk about your seeking the locations and art of the film and putting these women into a modern day context?
Neil Jordan: The seaside town was very important to the story and film and we finally found this town called Hastings near Brighton that was perfect. It has all this faded grandeur and rundown, shoddy elegance that fit the story. It's the first time I worked with our art and costume designers and we were aware we wanted to make very graphic, strong images.

Audience Question: Could you talk about the young actor that plays Frank?
Neil Jordan: Yes. Caleb Landry Jones, is a fine young actor, he has been in other films, including Anitiviral which is also at this festival. He read the part on a tape and sent it to me, and he was extraordinary. It's a dangerous part to play with a guy with this strange movie disease and he has an amazing touching and emotional range.

Byzantium opens July 5 at Landmark's E Street Cinema.

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