Interview with Thomas Imbach

Why this film? Why the need to take a second look at the material from the shoot of Happiness is a Warm Gun ?

The intention to make a second film is not new. During shooting, we were already planning to film the whole process of working with the actors. At the time I didn’t yet know whether the result would be one film or two. During editing it became clear that there would have to be two separate, distinct films. But at that point it would have been too much to work on both films simultaneously – I wanted above all to focus my energies on completing Happiness is a Warm Gun. Six months later, I had achieved enough distance from the material to begin working on happy too.

What is the relationship between Happiness and happy too ?

happy too is like the other side of the coin. The first film invents Petra’s death for her, and there we see the actors as characters in the story, as fiction. In the second film, we see the actors at work. They transform themselves into the characters to such a degree that they as actors fall into the same patterns and authentically live out the same story as Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian. For me it wasn’t enough to just talk about this process of interaction between the actors and the characters they played; I wanted to show it.

Do you consider happy too a “making of” film?

The most important difference between this film and a conventional “making-of” is that happy too observes the story from the same point of view as the first film, i.e. with the same camera. In a “making-of,” the camera usually occupies an outsider’s position, and plays a documenting role. But here that was not the case. In the first film I concentrated on the fictional aspect and the chain of associations triggered by the shot at the moment of Petra’s death, and I left out quite a lot of the authentic process. The second film concentrates on the moments just before or just after a fiction scene. It is more open, less aesthetically constructed, because it tells the story of Petra&Gert – and/or the story of Linda&Herbert – for the second time, this time by much more minimal means. In other words, exclusively through the working tools – the actors’ emotions and the relationship between both sides of the camera. As far as that goes, the film does contain a “making-of” aspect, but with an important difference in point of view: we are watching ourselves at work. That was the deal with the actors, from the beginning. It’s not as if we discovered the footage after the fact and said “We could do something with this.” In fact, we deliberately recorded the material all along. While we were working, all of us were constantly aware that the camera was always on.

In your work, you have always called into question the traditional distinction between “fiction” and “documentary”. I’m thinking especially of one of your “Theses” from 1995, where you said: “The fiction film is dead, the documentary film is dead, long live film.” Nevertheless, do you consider Happiness is a Warm Gun a fiction, and happy too a documentary?

In this case I prefer to use another distinction: it’s like making an oil painting and a watercolor of the same scene. The watercolor represents the same motifs, but as a different kind of gesture; it doesn’t carry the same weight. With an oil painting the emphasis is on the colors, the mise en scène; it shines, it’s bombastic, it’s rich, it’s captivating... The watercolor is much lighter and more modest by comparison. They are simply two different variations on the same story. One tends more strongly in the direction of fiction and the other more in the direction of documenting a working process. It’s important to stick with a topic as long as it remains interesting, and not simply discard it for commercial reasons, just because it’s “already been done”.

Do you think the second film also functions as a commentary on the first?

I think so. Viewers will understand the first film differently after they’ve seen the second one, that’s for sure. But that wasn’t our reason for making the second film. For me,Happiness is a Warm Gun was a step forward in the development of the filmic means I’d already used in Well Done and Ghetto – that is, the next step was to work with actors. In my films with non-professional actors, it had become clear to me that I did my job as director best when I intervened as little as possible from behind the camera, and simply waited for “gifts”. But I felt the need to intensify the dialogue between myself and those on the other side of the camera, and that could only be done with actors. So I first had to develop a method for working with actors. And it came as a surprise to me how much they let themselves be “infected” by the story. This aspect was already visible in the first film, but here it comes across in an unvarnished and direct way. I think it’s very instructive to witness how such a process can occur. How much is acting, how much is real? Where is the dividing line between the two? It’s a real tightrope walk, and it was very interesting and stimulating for us to observe this process so precisely.

What about your own role as director? In the second film, as in the first, you are rarely on screen.

I reveal myself indirectly: on the one hand through the work with the actors, such as their reactions to me, or my off-screen interventions. On the other hand I am also present through the construction of the story and through the intertitles. Jürg Hassler reveals himself through his camerawork – the camera is also a character in the story, a character that reacts to what is happening. There are only a few moments in the film where I appear on screen, but my presence can be clearly felt: you can sense that there’s someone there who is shaping the whole process and who’s there as a sparring partner for the actors and the cameraman.

What criteria did you use in selecting the material to be included inhappy too?

The scenes chosen were always the ones in which something was revealed about the actors’ relationship with the characters they were playing, the scenes which showed to what extent the Petra&Gert universe was developing within Linda and Herbert. What was important were the moments in which this interaction comes across most clearly. These scenes are fundamentally about the actors’ work – and not about stylistic choices or details of mise-en-scène.

In Happiness is a Warm Gun the ending was pre-determined: the film had to conclude with the fatal gunshot. Where did happy too have to end?

happy too has two endings. One ending is that the relationship between Herbert and Linda has come to a point where he wants to put a bullet through her head – that both of them have developed to the point that the game has become real. That’s the end of the story of their relationship. The second ending involves a step backward, a reflection on the the acting process: that’s when Linda criticizes her own acting by saying that she was unable to convey Petra’s tenderness. The one conclusion is on the level of the content, the story – and the other is about the acting, about our work method. Unlike Happiness is a Warm Gun, happy too is not a film about Petra Kelly. It’s a film about acting: being an actor, working with actors.

Interview: Marcy Goldberg