TED's DIGITAL JUNGLE - ANOTHER LOST ANALOG ARTEFACT?

    THE ART OF THE A.D. - ANOTHER LOST ANALOG ARTEFACT?


In 1983, during my last year in the directors' line of Sweden's Dramatiska Institutet, I had the privilege of attending a seminar by the producer of BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ,  which at the time was the biggest production in German film history ( I think it still is). Regardless of what one thought of Fassbender, the film was a masterpiece of production, and we were all eager to learn the details.

Early on, this producer ( whose name escapes me, but I think it was Peter Martesheimer) got our attention by telling us that the shooting ratio of this magnum opus was 3 or 4:1. For those who have not seen the film, it is a historical epic spanning more a decade of German history,
and it was shot out of sequence, according to the producer.

Our first question pertained to the script:

 How closely did Fassbinder follow his script?

 Apparently very closely, according to the producer.

But what did he tell the actors? How did he prepare them for their roles??

The producer answered," He said ‚" Danke‚" after every take."

For those who don't know, in most European countries, directors say
thank you after each take, and not "cut "as they do in the US.

There were murmurs in the audience, and then came the next question:
what did Mr. Fassbinder tell the crew?

Apparently very little. The producer told us that the crew was composed of
essentially the same people he has used in his many previous productions
as was the talent.

The Swedish audience was in a state of shock.

The only comparable production we had ever had in Sweden was Ingmar Bergman' s FANNY AND ALEXANDER, completed in 1983, and on which I had been an intern. Like my colleagues,  I knew that Bergman was the ultimate control freak, and paid painstaking attention to all aspects of the
production himself.

Like Fassbinder, Bergman used a veteran crew, most of whom he had worked with before ‚ and he used many of the same actors he had used in the past. But nontheless, he was omnipresent ( I wrote about my experiences in an article for AMERICAN FILM, the AFI Magazine..)

Indeed, when he was not available, we made believe he was around SOMEWHERE, because most everyone was afraid of him. Bergman had a notorious temper, and he did his best to carefully promote the legend by periodically annihilating some poor fool ( an unwitting extra or low-level crew member was the perfect foil)who had made a dumb comment.

In Sweden, Bergman was the archtypical " Demon Director‚" (demonregissor), and the Swedes understandably assumed  the German Fassbinder was part of this  same  Teutonic tradition ( Bergman had learned a lot from the German Expressionists in his youth and was an
admitted admirer of the Nazis until the end of World War II)

However, Fassbinder  had a very different modus operandi.

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ was about 3 times the length of *FANNY AND ALEXANDER, *and had impeccable production quality. The obvious question was: how on earth did Fassbinder do it? He was known for a dissolute lifestyle, but he was hardly the only film director with this reputation.

As it happens, I knew some actors who had worked with Fassbinder, and I also knew that the behind-the scenes intrigues were sometimes more interesting than the final product.  Martesheimer himself alluded to this, saying that the Fassbinder veterans ‚"all knew what he wanted"

But still ‚ the notion of laissez-faire directing seemed like an oxymoron -  maybe possible for Andy Warhol, but not for serious film making!

The producer finally revealed the answer : assistant director Harry Baer essentially ran the production, freeing Fassbinder to contemplate creative issues or whatever else he wanted to do.  (Apparently Mr. Baer subsequently wrote a book about his experiences, but I don' t know if it
still available.)

This approach, of course, is hardly unique to Fassbinder. In classic unionized production, the AD plays a prominent role ‚organizing and policing the set, and keeping everyone informed about the director's
intentions.

Elsewhere ,the AD also sets the table for the director, and the good A.D.is a faithful lieutenant who never steals the director's thunder. Peter Schildt was the  First A.D. on *FANNY AND ALEXANDER,* and he was a perfect example ( he was also my supervisor, since I was serving
as a 2nd A.D).

FANNY AND ALEXANDER, needless to say,was a great learning experience for me .

Later, I  always enjoyed my own work as an AD; I was an avid student of the production process,
and was always looking for little tricks to make things work better on the set  - without the pressure of worrying about the final product as director.

And, finally, as a director, I was eternally grateful to my best ADs like Frederick Becklen, since they relieved me of the need to keep an eye on all things at all times and played bad cop to my good cop, when necessary.And also did not hesitate to told me when I was getting on the wrong track, thank God.

In my current  MONUSCO Video Unit, I have one person who can play the role of AD, but this is only because he has the same Eastern European training I did ( at Dramatiska Institutet, nearly all of our
teachers came from either Hungary, Poland or Czechoslovakia).

Alas, in the digital era, I fear that the current emphasis on everyone doing everything has led to a decreased emphasis on specialization, with the result that the role of the AD and other professional categories  is rapidly becoming a lost art.

This is unfortunate, because I firmly believe some people are more suited to being cameramen, or sound engineers, or directors. There is simply too much to learn for one individual to be a one-man - or a one-woman band.

I would be interested in hearing if anyone out there shares my feelings
on this!

WALTER BENJAMIN, A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME

 From TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE - THE REVOLUTION THAT IS NOT BEING TELEVISED: ( this is the first of a series of blogs on Digital Media and Development)

  

WALTER BENJAMIN - A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME
  
Finally got a chance to read Walter Benjamin's classic essay ‚THE WORK
OF ART IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCTION,  and
 it was an epiphany. The fact that it was written in 1935-36 ‚ more than 20 years
before Marshall McLuhan started his writings on the implications of
electronic media , make it even more extraordinary.

Benjamin was a Marxist writing in Germany as the Nazis solidified their
grip on power, and there is an understandable sense of urgency in his
writing ( the fact that he was also Jewish doubtless contributed),
However, his cultural analysis transcended his contemporary situation,
and seems astonishingly relevant in our Digital Age.

Consider the following quotes from THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF
TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCTION AND OTHER WRITINGS ON M( Belknap,
Harvard University Press, 2008)

"The unique value of the authentic work of art always has its basis in
ritual.."

and:

"...The technological reproducibility of the artwork changes the relations
of the masses to the art work. The extremely regressive attitude towards
a Picasso painting changes into a highly progressive attitude towards a
Chaplin film..."

and:

"...The logical outcome of fascism is an astheticizing of political life.

and this:

"...All efforts to astheticize politics culminate in one point: that point
is war.."

Food for thought, indeed!

Personally, I must confess I was turned off by the heavy emphasis on
"scientific Marxism " when I was a university student in Sweden some 30
years ago; I had heard the name of Benjamin when I was studying art
history, but I never bothered to give him a second glance.

Now, however, I find him entirely relevant as I seek to make some sense
of the Digital Age. Shall be reading more of him, as well as the work of
his colleagues in the Frankfurt School .

Theodor Adorno, to start with.