Beside finding them on the amazing Criterion Channel and YouTube (sometimes), supplementary interviews, behind the scenes documentaries, and commentary tracks are still the reason I get my hands on physical media like DVDs. These resources are as important to aspiring filmmakers as the films themselves, inspiring confidence and caution from seasoned professionals. Here in New Haven, CT, I rely on a mix of local libraries and the invaluable non-profit Best Video in Hamden - the rare video store that still exists - and still cares passionately about cinema.
Having just watched Western a few nights ago, I was excited to find a nearly 30-minute interview with director and screenwriter Valeska Grisebach among the extras.
Grisebach spent years researching, writing, and location scouting all in service of developing this story for audiences. Yet, her desire is to work to create something unforced and natural, leading her to prefer the use of nonprofessional actors and real locations. For her, it’s the union of both the fiction and non-fiction that brings something new to film:
“There must be a touching moment. There must be something that the movie can do with the bodies, movement, faces, lighting. All the concrete things beyond my intention and control. It’s all artificially made, but there’s still something natural. A confrontation between a fictional idea and it’s reality, what opposes the narrative as resistance. I think there’s that’s very interesting. I also felt that I couldn’t direct ten actors as construction workers. It would be something completely different. There’s something you can’t replicate. But I was interested in the physique and the concrete things that these actors brought along.”
Later, Grisebach lays out her approach once filming begins:
“For me, a screenplay, however it looks like, is something that is questioned every day. Whether the script is on paper or in your head or in conversation, it’s not a static thing. After all, everyone who makes a movie has to deal with questions like, “Okay, does that really work? Does it work until the editing?” and balance again and again. “Is it right, or does it not work?” I told the actors about the scene, the dialogue, the choreography, and the blocking. But because I put the script aside, I have to not improvise, but I have to remember the scene again. I describe beforehand what will happen to the men…Understand it, remember it and reproduce the situation. Trial and error, that’s how the scene works. If it doesn’t work, try again. But that’s why it has little to do with improvisation.”
At each stage of filmmaking, it’s a negotiation; reality comes up against fiction, and the two must be infused together - or risk making something that feels unnatural and forced.
Western will definitely be a film I revisit, and I so wish I could get my hands on Grisebach’s previous film Longing, which does not appear to be available - eitheir streaming or as physical media. Too bad.