Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Last year, Jean-Marie and Danièle Straub finally succeeded
in getting the Committee on Young German Film
and a producer to finance their Bach movie,
also thanks to a campaign organized by moviemakers and other critics,
They were able to start shooting in the second half of 1967,
Everything had been meticulously prepared:
The many locations in West and East Germany, the selection of the musicians,
the hundreds of authentic costumes, the technical equipment,
You' re Joachim Wolf,
the production manager on this Bach film, right?
How big is the budget for this film?
The budget for this film is about 600,000 Marks,
Is that a lot by German standards?
That's relatively little for such a movie,
made with very good musicians, who usually charge very high fees,
But since they met Mr, Straub halfway,
it was possible to produce this film with this sum,
You' re aware, I think, that he did whatever it took to make this film,
Yes, Mr, Straub is one of the few people
who take something they've started really seriously,
He was never tempted to do something else, just because it took so long
to complete the movie this way,
He is a complete ascetic that way; he lives a simple life and,,, survives,
What do you mean by that? Could you explain?
During the past couple of years, as long as this film
could not be produced, he more or less got by with translations,
he invested a lot of money into this film; he doesn't drive a car, for instance,
he doesn't have a phone, he's been living with his wife
in a 1-bedroom apartment in Munich for the past 7 years-
that's no reason to be sorry for him, and I believe
Mr, Straub would be the last person on earth
to make any claims for himself in that respect,
- But he's living for the movie, - He's living exclusively for the movie,
You could say this movie is Straub, and Straub is the movie,
And his wife, too- that applies to his wife, as well,
The starting point of the Bach movie is the desire
to avoid using music as a background
but, as Straub puts it, to show it as an aesthetic matter,
The story is told by Anna Magdalena, Bach's second wife,
performed by Christiane (Lang) Drewanz, a musician herself,
I had a new piano book that Sebastian had started for me,
including two new suites, and he had such a suite engraved in copper
for the Michaelmas Fair the following year,
as the partita for the piano exercises,
It was the first composition he had printed,
After that, he would publish such a partita every year,
except for five others,
which he had printed as Opus 1 together with a sixth one,
Besides the music and the chronicle of Anna Magdalena, the movie also includes
short episodes from Bach's life,
directed into moments between musical sequences,
The following is the preparation of such a moment, number 106 of the script,
The central figure is Gustav Leonhardt, who personifies Bach,
Straub does not want to turn him into an actor,
He does not want any accents or expression in the text,
Once again, he aims at complete authenticity,
Okay, once again, At the beginning, you were,,,
You were more free in the beginning,,,
Well, it's hard,,,
Action,
It is also called " bassus continuus," or, with the ltalian ending,,,
Your hand there,,,that definitely has to stay like that,,,
- Which one? - Your left,
- My left, - And your right, too,
It is also called " bassus continuus,"
or, with the ltalian ending, " basso continuo,"
because it is played continuously,
while the other voices pause here and there,
Today, however, this bass is often,,, too many,,,
" Pause here and there", you could tell that you tried something,,,
naturalistic,,, somehow,,, you tried to,,,
- Yes, - No, I didn't try something naturalistic,
The,,, my impression is,,, I had the impression
that you've been wanting to give us the impression
you do this naturally somehow,
No,
Action,
It is also called " bassus continuus,"
or, with the ltalian ending, " basso continuo,"
because it is played continuously,
while the other voices pause here and there,
Today, however, this bass is often found to pause quite frequently,
especially in artfully arranged pieces,
This can become almost ironic,
It can become,,, a mixture of defiance and irony,
It is also called " bassus continuus,"
or, with the ltalian ending, " basso continuo,"
because it plays continuously,
while the other voices pause here and there,
Today, however, this bass is often found to pause quite frequently,
especially in artfully arranged pieces,
- Very good, - Yes, Thank you, Keep this,
The film crew is international,
The sound technician is French,
the lighting technician and cameramen are ltalian,
Since everything is filmed with direct sound
and the microphones have to remain invisible,
of course, determining the settings requires great care,
As you have seen in the previous movie fragments,
Straub's film settings are a typical characteristic
of his personal movie style,
They are mainly static, They intentionally do not show any curve or tension,
Virtually all compositions in this movie, even if they take four or seven minutes,
were recorded in one setting,
The visual, the optical only wants to reinforce the reality of this movie,
which is the music,
Your left hand,,, is this going to stay like this,
or do you have another suggestion?
- I mean, I am fine with it, - Well, I have,,,
Well,,, then we' re going to leave it like that,
But in the beginning, by all means,
There, you can stay like that, or come up with something else,
and in the beginning, you definitely have to,,, the,,, before,
A conversation in between takes with Leonhardt
about his first, and probably last, movie role,
My first question is actually how you, as a musician with a great reputation,
all of a sudden end up in the movie business,
Yes, I can say that it was a big surprise because
a director I didn't know,
and which turned out to be Straub, appeared to have chosen me
as the person, the musician who would be best able to play Bach,
And his choice was based upon listening -
which all took place ten years ago - listening to records
of all musicians who not only both play the organ and the harpsichord,
but also direct ensembles,
Are you also involved in the musical selection,
the musical accountability, so to speak?
Well, the pieces have all been selected by the director,
but the execution, that is all in my hands,
and the number of performers, the members of the ensemble,
that has interested me a lot,
It is both for historical reasons and for musical reasons exactly the number
Bach had, so to me, it also became a touchstone allowing me
to hear what Bach had in mind, because it is foolishness, of course,
to say that Bach had been unable to do what he had in mind,
The ideal number of musicians Bach wanted to have is also known in writing,
- So that is carefully respected here, - That is respected precisely,
Now, about your Bach wig and clothes, Is that still awkward?
No, that has become completely natural,
It is also strange when you see your colleagues
in a costume for the first time, you laugh about it, but the second time you see them,
it's normal, and now, especially when you play music, it has even become an element
which, well, has become completely normal to me,
Does it also mean something to you to be so intensely involved with Bach's life,
not only with his music?
It is important to me
even though I never had the feeling that I played Bach,
I do it as a musician, The element of unity,
so everything there is to see in the movie,
the environment, and the old instruments
and also the costumes and the spoken text,
exactly the element of unity, and also that it always took place consecutively,
There was only one break in the recording session,
That was a very important element to me, the moment of unity,
First, I hope that those people who don't know Bach's music
will experience an epiphany at that point,,,
Of music?
Yes, And that they will subsequently embark
on a journey of human mentality
of the 18th,,, of the first half of the 18th century,
And also, that they will discover Mr, Leonhardt, because this movie,,,
- As Mr, Leonhardt? - As Mr, Leonhardt, because the movie
is increasingly turning into a movie about Mr, Leonhardt, you could almost say,
a documentary about Mr, Leonhardt,
Something I discovered later is that it was important, simply because,,,
I wouldn't want anyone to view this as a nationalist statement
in any respect, that is,,, neither anti-, nor something else-
but I do believe it is also,,, important that the person
who, let's say, impersonates Bach in this film-
he impersonates Bach after all- is not German,
Because of what happened in this country,
mainly between '33 and '45,
I am glad to have found a Dutchman,
And what people,,, I hope, that the,,, viewer, the person who will
be sitting in front of the screen, will discover cinematographic matter,
Well, what I've tried to define earlier, to talk about something more specific:
the scene we shot yesterday,
the 25th Goldberg Variation, played by Mr, Leonhardt on the harpsichord,
is a very simple, rather close-up shot,
We start with his hands, very simple, on the keyboard, and move up,
we pan up to his face and the hands stay outside the picture,,,
and we keep focusing on his face,
And what I call cinematographic matter here
is what would have to be discovered by the viewer,
You see someone who is doing something underneath the camera,
in front of a wall that is hardly lit, because this is like dusk, almost night,
and this wall is just as important as the face, but still,
something is happening on this face that, to me, should be,,,
pure cinematographic matter,
Ten days ago, Jean-Marie and Danièle Straub
came to the Netherlands for the movie festival
in Utrecht where the Bach movie premiered today,
The first city where I stopped over when I left France in 1958 was Amsterdam,
- It was Amsterdam? - Yes, The first city,
Directly from Paris to Amsterdam,
- I stayed for two weeks, - Ah, yes, yes,
Ten years ago, as a refugee of the senseless happenings in Algeria,
Straub had not made a single movie yet, He only had a complete script,
THE CHRONlCLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH,
And now, this militant artist is once again visiting Amsterdam,
with the movie, the result of ten years of thinking and working,
Now that I know him a little better,
I am convinced that he, and Danièle Huillet,
never had any doubt in their hearts
that their CHRONlCLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH
would become a reality,