A RETROSPECTIVE
MEETING WITH THE DIRECTOR
Reality doesn't exist. Only the interpretation of reality exists.
I don't think that, er...
you can understand anything about art.
You can't question an artist.
This is something that is intimate, it's secret.
There are many things that are not revealed about an artist.
There's no explanation for an artist.
They're secret to him.
It may not be a secret to others, but it is to him.
These are the first images
of one of the most famous films of all time:
The Blue Angel.
The film's director has been forgotten by many,
but everyone knows the film.
Just as everyone knows the actress who plays Lola Lola:
Marlene Dietrich.
♪ From head to toe
♪ I'm made for love
♪ That's my whole world
♪ There's nothing else
♪ What choice do I have?
♪ That's the way I'm made
♪ Love is all I know
♪ There's nothing else ♪
Josef von Sternberg, director of The Blue Angel,
has been forgotten by many.
Although, before the war,
he was known as the most successful, the most talented,
the best paid director of his time.
His name, together with Marlene's,
the star he discovered in The Blue Angel,
actually became a concept well known to the public.
A combination that guaranteed a blockbuster.
♪ Love is all I know
♪ There's nothing else ♪
In his time acknowledged by the public at large,
and until recently destroyed by the official film critics.
The critics said...
An old-fashioned artist wallowing in aestheticism, tics, clichés...
Maybe one day, he will produce a good film...
A sequence of appalling films, all of them equally stupid and reprehensible...
If anything,
if anyone
is under the impression,
under the false impression that I am an artist,
he is wrong, because an artist is not known in his lifetime.
He's only known when he's dead.
Now, 35 years later, Josef von Sternberg is rediscovered
and recognised as being one of the great ones.
He is 75 years old.
"I was born in Vienna in der Blumauergasse 25.
"My father was extremely strong,
"and I often found that out the hard way.
"This is me when I was seven years old.
"No films yet, but no food either.
"When I look at this picture of the boy from Vienna,
"to me he looks like a carefree child.
"My life in Vienna ended when I was 14 years old.
"My family and I crossed the Atlantic Ocean
"to the Promised Land: America.
"Three years later I was accidentally employed in a lab
"where films were cleaned and scratches removed.
"It was inevitable that sooner or later I was going to discover
"the frames underneath the filthy and scratched surfaces.
"About ten years later,
"I would direct my first film
"using the little money I had saved."
Why did you make that first film?
I made it to demonstrate
that I know something about films,
not for any other reason.
People questioned... I used to have my opinions about films
which were not very favourably received, and people said:
"What right have you got to make... to have an opinion about a film?
"Can you direct a film?"
And I said, "I'll... I'll... I'll, er...
"I think I'll make a film, so as to...
"so as to show that I can, er... have some opinion about it."
And that's the only reason I made it.
"Douglas Fairbanks and his associates at United Artists,
"Charles Chaplin,
"Mary Pickford,
"David Wark Griffith,
"thought The Salvation Hunters was a masterpiece
"and they offered me a contract.
"I directed a film for Chaplin, The Sea Gull.
"This single production he didn't direct himself
"was shown once
"and disappeared immediately into Mr Chaplin's safe.
"The film hasn't been shown since."
Now personally, I am never offended
when a film of mine is not shown.
Many of my films, for instance,
three or four of my films are lost entirely.
No-one knows what they are, no-one...
and this is fine. I have no regrets about it.
During that time, he made a couple of films.
The first one was completely re-edited
and the second one was never finished.
Working in Hollywood has never been easy.
Hollywood is not a place.
It's an idea.
It is... it was never easy to make a film,
and when I worked, I was...
in... in...
in Hollywood, I was very unpopular.
One man that I know of,
a man by the name of Mankiewicz,
Herman, not Joseph, but Herman,
became very popular because he once said:
"In Hollywood, that we will have a day in which we will kill him."
And this was universally applauded.
So it is not a...
I never enjoyed much popularity anywhere.
Except here, in this fine place. Except in Belgium.
Underworld, the first gangster film in film history,
and Josef von Sternberg's definitive breakthrough as a top director.
Given the enormous success of Underworld
- the cinemas were open day and night -
Paramount offered von Sternberg a fabulous contract.
He would earn the unbelievable sum of 4,000 dollars,
or 300,000 Belgian francs, per week.
In three years, he realised five blockbusters:
The Last Command, with Emil Jannings,
The Drag Net,
The Docks of New York,
The Case of Lena Smith,
Thunderbolt, his first sound film.
Contrary to many of his colleagues,
the use of sound didn't cause him any trouble.
On the contrary, it was a major improvement.
The famous German actor, Emil Jannings,
invited Josef von Sternberg to come to Germany
and direct the first German sound film.
Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat
turned out to be the perfect subject matter for a film
where Jannings could, once again,
show his incredible Schauspielkunst, as the Germans call it.
But, against all odds,
Jannings was surpassed by an unknown theatre actress,
Marlene Dietrich.
Here, hold this.
Pretty eyes, eh?
They're not pretty?
Yes, absolutely! Very, very pretty.
You're not on "official business" tonight?
I'm afraid that, last night, I may have behaved
somewhat unseemingly.
Yes, you did.
Today, you're much nicer.
Oh, I'm sorry!
Hey, Professor,
send me a postcard when you're done.
The Blue Angel became an unparalleled global success.
Marlene Dietrich became instantly famous.
At the time, Josef von Sternberg probably didn't yet realise
how Marlene would further enrich his work.
He returns to the United States.
Marlene follows him.
Their first American film together is called Morocco.
♪ Le roman vite s'achève
♪ Et l'on reste à jamais meurtri
♪ Quand tout est fini ♪
May I offer you this glass of champagne, mademoiselle?
Thank you.
A votre santé!
- May I have this? - Of course.
In Morocco, Josef von Sternberg
designed a new kind of woman.
A type of woman who would dominate the 1930s.
A type of woman he would refine together with her in later films.
Although he wasn't planning further work with her,
because, he said:
Just happens that I was with...
I made a film with Miss Dietrich, and she was very good in it, and, er...
she refused to work with anyone else except with me,
and I had to make some films with her.
Luckily for us, their successful collaboration obliged him
to refine the image of the woman
he has painted in The Blue Angel and Morocco.
And this is mainly thanks to the masterly handling of light and shadow.
It's only today we realise that a man as talented as Josef von Sternberg
develops himself with every film.
What used to be considered as ordinary dazzle
now shines in its fullest glory.
As Marlene keeps getting more beautiful,
his films become more and more perfect.
In five films she becomes the Marlene we still know today.
In five films he becomes the master we now rediscover.
- You're under arrest. - Arrest? What for?
Never mind what for. We know how to take care of spies. Come on.
Austria may not care what happens to you,
but you certainly do care what happens to Austria.
Hmph. Shall we go?
Come on, let's go.
Have you thought of me much, Doc?
Let's see. Exactly how long has it been?
Five years and four weeks.
Well, for five years and four weeks, I've thought of nothing else.
You were always polite, Doc.
You haven't changed a bit.
You have, Madeline.
You've changed a lot.
Have I lost my looks?
No. You're more beautiful than ever.
How have I changed?
I don't know. I wish I could describe it.
Well, Doc, I've changed my name.
- Married? - No.
It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.
So you're Shanghai Lily.
The notorious White Flower of China.
You heard of me,
and you always believed what you heard.
What else is there to tell?
If you come closer, I'll scream.
It will be easier for you to scream without a straw in your mouth.
With The Devil Is a Woman,
according to Josef von Sternberg,
"a caprice, a salute to Spain",
his talent reached an almost abstract perfection.
But Spain didn't respond to the salute.
The Spanish were very offended by it.
This was understandable, because the film was made in 1935,
and, a year later, the Spanish had the Civil War.
The few people who were able to see the film,
acknowledge this was a peak,
but it also meant the inevitable endpoint.
While making the film, Josef von Sternberg announced:
"Miss Dietrich and I have gone on together
"as far as we possibly could.
"Any further collaboration won't be of any use to either of us.
"if we continue, we will repeat ourselves,
"which could damage both our reputations."
The seamlessly built oeuvre will now fall apart
during eighteen years of unrealised projects
and eight films.
A crumbled body of work where the splinters
are so many sparks of brilliance.
I, Claudius could have been a new turning-point,
maybe even another high point in Josef von Sternberg's career.
But they stopped in the middle of filming
after numerous difficulties.
When is the full moon, Thrasyllus?
Tonight, Lady Livia.
Cut! Print that.
That's fine. I need just... Emlyn?
What remains are fragments of a possible masterpiece.
Grandmother,
you remember my dear Uncle Claudius,
who prefers the society of pigs to that of the court?
I have asked Claudius to be present at these ceremonies,
and to be my guest at dinner tonight.
Grandmother, think of his table manners!
Be silent, you impudent puppy!
You take your uncle for a fool, but he's not.
I sometimes think he pretends to be one
so as to make fools of us.
Far from being a fool, he's the last decent man left alive in Rome.
One can rely on him.
If he makes a promise, he keeps it,
and when he swears to the truth, it is the truth.
Am I right, Claudius?
Don't let him start talking. He might have a stroke.
Well, idiot?
Can't you see any change in me?
I was blind not to see it instantly.
You're no longer human.
May I be the first to worship you?
as a g-g-g-g-god?
It took you a long time to perceive that I am no longer human.
I know.
Have mercy. I was overcome.
I've only been used to the pigs.
The Shanghai Gesture, filmed in 1942 by a sick director,
who directed the sometimes magnificent sequences from a cot.
It became a melancholic attempt to impose his unique style
in an era where magic, dreams and personality looked out of place.
It was war.
In 1953 he produced his last film in Japan,
The Saga of Anatahan.
Josef von Sternberg himself considers this work as his best film.
"Because it was the least successful,"
he adds, perhaps sarcastically.
Anatahan really is a unique film.
A song of his oeuvre, a philosophy about the meaning of life,
one of the few films that constantly breaks through
the fragile boundaries between appearance and reality.
This story about Japanese soldiers
who are trapped for seven years with one woman
on an island in the Pacific Ocean,
not knowing that the war is over, because of their isolation,
uncompromisingly displays the whole of his art and skill.
The Saga of Anatahan is a spirit that has become a film,
and this is perhaps why we are still afraid to understand it.
Who is Josef von Sternberg?
What do his films hide?
What does his life hide?
Why did he suddenly stop making films?
What is he doing now?
How does he live?
Arrogance and modesty,
humour and bitterness,
stubborn but humble.
How many other masks does this man wear?
Is he happy?
Do I look unhappy?
No!
On the contrary, I'm very happy.
No, I don't have any, er...
feeling of unhappiness,
and I don't have any feeling of disappointment.
On the contrary.
I was just trying to get an impression of the man you were.
- Of the man I was? - The man you are, yes.
Well, that's difficult. I'm a very complicated person.
But if you, er...
but if you read my book,
you'll find out what kind of a man I am.
I'm a very complicated person.
And I'm seventy-five.
That makes a lot of difference.
You get more complicated as you get older.
Josef von Sternberg refuses practically every interview.
And, if he does give interviews,
he doesn't say much about himself or his work.
What?
How should cinema be taught?
- How should it be taught? - Taught, taught, yes.
I can't tell him in a few words
what it takes me an entire season to convey.
Huh?
In a few words, thematically?
In a few words. It's impossible to... to...
Read my book.
Why don't we stop that?
As a matter of fact, I wrote the book
in order not to talk about it anymore.
But, er...
apparently it did no good.
Two years ago, he wrote his autobiography.
He also hides behind this book.
Did you enjoy to write a book?
When I wrote my book,
I tried to be as forthright and as honest
as I knew how to be,
and the opinions that are expressed in my book
are worth studying, that's all.
Many questions are answered in the autobiography.
But the book doesn't contain the simplistic questions
that are usually asked of a film producer.
Is there any difference between actors now and thirty years ago?
No.
Nor is there any difference between actors now
and three hundred or three thousand years ago.
Actors are marionettes, they don't know how to...
They do what a director tells them to do, and nothing else.
No-one asks me any questions
that has to do with the making of a film.
They simply want to know...
they want to debate with me, and what can I do?
Why did you stop making films all of a sudden?
I never started. I'm an accidental director.
The responses in his book
are those of the man, Josef von Sternberg.
Because, by the way, he's not only a film producer.
I don't, er... think I..., I...
I can explain entirely why I, er...
made films, but, er...
I was in that work,
and it seemed simple for me to continue it.
It was not a deliberate choice.
My deliberate choice, if I may say so,
was to make...
fifty dollars a week.
That's... that was my deliberate choice that I had,
and this... it happened that, er...
that this became unimportant,
but this was the reason.
I'm not a film director, I'm sorry.
This laconic statement
is indicative of his self-mockery and sarcasm.
And he also applies sarcasm to others.
This sometimes makes it harder to approach him for the first time.
But isn't it true that a seamless first contact is always a bit suspicious?
Those who really get to know Josef von Sternberg
become his friends.
During his visit to Belgium,
- he was invited by Flemish Television -
we met Josef von Sternberg.
He responded to many of our questions.
And we got to know him.
We got off to a rough start, though.
Yes, I had terrible trouble getting here.
I had to fight the elements every inch of the way
This is that... Los Angeles is a long way, and I...
New York Airport was closed, and,
as a matter of fact, er...
I'm surprised that, er... the fact that, er...
my age seemed to have no connection with this.
Usually, a man as ancient as I am
would get exhausted, but it did not affect me.
So I was...
I was pleased by that.
But it was a terrible journey.
It was a terrible journey.
I would not want anyone else to make it.
Josef von Sternberg stopped making films in 1953.
To the outside world, he was, and is,
the man who discovered Marlene Dietrich,
the creator of The Blue Angel,
the maker of films that have entered film history.
But for him filming was an occupation like any other.
I have no relation to my work,
because when I'm through with my work, I'm through with it.
It's only when I work that I am intense about it,
but when my work is finished, it is finished,
and I don't think about it.
Josef von Sternberg now travels the world.
He has always done that to collect works of art,
memorial statues, but maybe also friendships.
Josef von Sternberg has always been an avid collector.
How long have you been collecting? All your life?
- Thirty-five years. - Thirty-five? Only?
I've been collecting over fifty years.
- Fifty years? - Yes.
I had a big, er... Lovers in the Flowers.
Oh yes, that's nice, the bouquet with lovers flying in.
- But I sold it. - Yes.
I..., I..., I, er...
I had the largest collection of moderns,
Gauguin and Rouault and Van Gogh and Picasso...
But I sold it because of... I went to the Orient...
Mm-hmm?
...and I fell in love with China and Japan, and...
And then I began to sense
the psychiatric personality you speak of in the...
Got rid of it.
There comes a time when you realise
that you can't have everything until you stop.
He stopped every time he reached a goal,
the highest success or perfection.
His collections, his collaboration with Marlene,
his film career.
Was it all coincidence?
The memory of misery gone by is pleasant.
You know, once upon a time, it was, erm...
approximately, er...
It was in...
about twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago,
I... I had...
Excuse me for saying that I had everything I wanted.
Everything.
I had magnificent houses,
I had magnificent paintings,
I had marvellous objects,
I had acres of ground. I did everything I wanted.
I had many friends, and I had...
and I must say I was the unhappiest man on earth.
And I decided at that time
that never again will I
expose myself to conditions where I have everything,
and I began to get rid of everything.
I deliberately threw everything away.
I auctioned my collection of paintings, and I...
sold my house, and I sold my grounds, and I gave away...
my enormous library.
And, er... I began to...
to... to...
to be without anything,
so that I could wish to have something.
Because if you wish to have something, you...
you are reasonably happy.
The memory of misery gone by is pleasant.
Making a film is a very difficult thing,
because unless you are a complete master of what you do,
unless you have a complete control of your subject matter,
and of your actors, and of...
of everything that is connected with a film,
it is impossible to make a film.
Because the moment you have to please someone else,
no matter who it is,
you must, in that moment, this man, or this, er...
combination of men that you have to please.
They have their own visualisation of what you want to do,
and their visualisation is not yours.
And it's no good trying to
explain what you're going to do, because how can one explain
a picture by Van Gogh? Or a picture by Gauguin?
It's impossible.
No-one can explain a picture.
So when that moment, er... everything is lost.
And if I ever had complete freedom, I would make a film,
but where can I find complete freedom?
Were you not completely free in making Anatahan?
No, because I had, er...
very fine Japanese partners,
and there are many things in Anatahan that I wanted to make different.
The film is all right as a film,
but I had so much respect for the Japanese people
that I deliberately held back some of my ideas in making it please them.
They had certain restrictions, which influenced me.
You know, the dangerous part of a man directing
is not what your enemies think, but what your friends think.
It is very difficult to work without influence,
but it is very difficult to work with it.
Of course, I must also mention
that complete freedom is very dangerous.
It is not good to have the entire world in which to, er...
to do something.
You should have some form of reflection for your ideas.
Because, er...
it is not the...
I think that a man who works in complete freedom
does not work.
You must have something, things, something against which to operate.
You must have some purpose for your work,
not just... just...
work in an empty space.
However, this is curiously a paradox, and...
and I wish I knew how to make that paradox clearer.
The brain of the artist is the mirror of his heart.
I believe, first of all, a very important thing.
Anything that any man can do
can be done by anyone else if he studies the same problem.
There's nothing that is mysterious about
working with a man, except the working of, er...
of an artist.
- Sure, this is accepting yourself. - And I don't think that I'm an artist.
Well, you're too modest.
ART AND ARTISTS
The greatest artists are those who produce nothing.
It isn't necessary to produce something to be an artist.
How do you know, then, that he is an artist?
I mean, if you have no evidence?
Well, I don't think that it is important to have evidence.
If you read the history of artists, you will read that artists were not...
recognised immediately. Sometimes past their death.
Too much talent is always punished!
CREATIVITY
Now there's... we say very often among our... my friends that
that a man is a genius,
and if he knew a little bit more he'd have talent.
You know, talent is not an easy thing to have.
It is, er...
it is easier to be a genius than to have talent.
Which definition of yourself would you choose?
Are you a creator, or a craftsman, or...?
Yes, perhaps a man who knows his work thoroughly.
You know, a skilled craftsman and an artist,
the difference is very important.
The difference is that an artist knows when to stop,
and a craftsman does not.
I believe personally that if this man had a fault,
it was that he did not know when to stop.
And that's the difference between...?
No, this is the difference between all great artists.
The painter Antoine Wiertz.
A genius, but not an artist
according to Josef von Sternberg.
But Matisse...
It's amazing, you know, that, er...
a painter who, er...
is so careless with his patina.
I think he must have finished this in...
- two or three hours. - I think so. It feels like...
But the impression of, er...
of colour and form is marvellous.
His admiration for the method of Matisse
can perhaps be explained by his own way of working.
I prepare a circumstance, or a scene,
in order to produce a fortunate accident.
- Yes, er... - I don't prepare deliberately,
but I deal with the circumstances, and with the material, until...
something emerges which is...
greater than anything I can imagine.
And that's good.
When I get that, that's good.
But this is not my creation. It's only an accident.
For instance, a great painter.
A great painter works with a canvas, and...
if he is...
good, then the canvas takes possession of him.
He doesn't... he no longer...
he no longer dominates the canvas,
but the canvas dominates him.
So in that way, if something good emerges from my work,
it is because the work has become, er...
dominant enough to control me, not that I control my work.
So there wasn't a moment in your life
when cinema dominated you?
Well, yes, when I work,
when I'm engaged in making my films,
I make very few films.
Most directors make as many films as I have in my entire life,
they make as many in a year.
So this is... I have made my...
I have made very few films.
But there was a period in the early thirties,
when you made very...
Making a film only takes three weeks, four weeks.
That's all a film takes.
Scarlet Empress took five weeks to make,
and I had to make all the sculptures
and all the décor in that time.
I worked with a tremendous fury. It's the only way to do it.
You can't provoke an accident slowly, you must provoke it quickly.
It took a year to prepare a film,
but only takes four weeks to shoot a film.
It isn't worth the effort.
Because a film has a, er...
complete, er...
continuity which no-one understands.
It's not a pleasant thing to do, to direct.
I wouldn't advise anyone to direct or try to.
Harry, these people want to know if it's hard work to direct. Tell them.
Well, it's hard work, but it is nice.
- Oh, you like it? - Yes.
Well, when you get to...
when you've made enough films, you'll...
- change your mind about it. - I hope I'll still enjoy it as much.
But I never enjoyed anything I had to do.
This is part of my personality.
A film is not a car, although a film consists of just as many parts.
The making of a film
is perhaps... some of you will find out,
is a very difficult...
Even to make a bad film is very difficult.
WHAT IS CINEMA?
Didn't you want to make more films than you have done?
I never wanted to make any.
Cinema is a perfected shadowplay.
It's happy accidents for us.
Were you not pleased with them
when you finished them? That is something, because...
No, because the, er...
charm of my work in films is the...
is the creation of it.
A director writes with his camera.
Only a few can decode the language the camera writes.
I want to know how you react in cinema as a spectator.
Have you see many films? Are you curious of cinema
as an art, of films made by other people?
Yes, very much, very much. It's the...
it's the most effective way of learning what to do,
is to watch the work of other people.
You can always, by avoiding...
by avoiding what you see, you know which path you have to take.
The analysis of a film is not easy. It's a very involved process.
- But, er... - And it's a process which has to be
completely deprived of emotion.
You cannot watch the movement of a film
and be moved by what you see, but you have to be ice cold.
George Jean Nathan, who was a marvellous theatre critic, said that:
"The only way to create passion is to be ice cold."
You cannot be passionate and create passion,
but you have to do that deliberately and without any feeling.
EROTICISM...
♪ They call me Naughty Lola
♪ I'm known far and wide
♪ I have a pianola
♪ That is my joy and pride
♪ They call me Naughty Lola
♪ The men all go for me
♪ But I don't let any man
♪ Lay a paw on my keys ♪
Right here, gentlemen.
What a soft hand!
I love you, worship you!
The wind of life breathes in my films.
TALKING ABOUT WOMEN...
I don't think I've made er..., er...
women important.
I think an extra in my films is just as important
as any actor or any actress.
Anyway, the making of a film is an artificial process,
and one uses the material in order to create
a reasonably good impact.
And so...
as there are always more women than men in films, in the audience,
it is advisable to...
since every woman regards every other woman as a potential rival,
it is good to show this... to show this...
this sex at its best advantage.
Besides, I don't think there's any difference
between a woman and a man, except, er...
perhaps that women have a little bit more sense than men.
Otherwise, I don't think that there is much difference.
They're all human beings.
There seems to be, from your first films on,
a certain pattern
in the way women behave, and are.
You know, you wrote in your book:
"Good girls don't smoke,"
was, for instance, bad.
I must say that there are some...
punctuation onto that kind of girls,
that do smoke, if you understand...
No, no. Don't think so.
Many of my films, er...
no woman ever lit a cigarette.
Besides, I don't think it is, er...
it is very good to smoke, but...
But is it not also a dramatical, er...
No, the reason if I ever use a cigarette to create, er...
in a scene is not a question of good and bad,
but it's a question of...
creating motion on the screen.
Smoke moves,
and that is the only reason that I use it.
Just as I use rain, or fog, or... or...
some of us, the tremendous importance
of the motion picture is that it moves.
And every second, there should be some...
some perceptible movement on the screen, however it's done.
Whether it's done with the action of a human being,
or with smoke, or with...
some passing fancy, there should be motion all the time.
That's the only reason I use a cigarette.
This motion is planned. It is not an accident.
It's important that your eye is always aware
of something moving, whatever it is.
You haven't a cigarette, have you, Doc?
You appear to be nervous. Sleep would do you more good.
What makes you think I'm nervous?
For one thing, your hands are trembling.
That's because you touched me, Doc.
I've been wanting to talk to you, Madeline.
Mr Carmichael tells me you prayed for me last night.
I can't quite reconcile that with what followed.
If you did pray for me,
which I doubt,
do you mind telling me why?
I would have done that for anybody, Doc.
Good night.
ACTORS
The actor is a breathing object.
Actors are...
part of a palette.
They're pieces of colour.
They're pieces of...
They're not more important than the rain,
they're not more important than the carnival,
they're not more important than the mask.
Everything plays its part.
Everything is done so that you have one conception
of the entire film.
Not many different ideas.
If you like Miss Dietrich, that's fine,
but if you don't like her, that's fine, too.
They're not told what to play.
They don't know. They don't read a script.
There is no script.
They're told on the stage what to do,
and they do it, and they go home.
Not only that, but I didn't speak to any actor,
and they didn't know what they were doing,
and I didn't bother to tell them.
The story... if the poet is good who writes the story,
if the director's good, they're good,
if the script is bad, and the director's bad,
then they're bad.
The actors that worked for me, in most cases,
assume the personality I give them.
It's not their own personality.
Of course, actors are...
are like children.
They are not difficult,
but they have not grown up,
and the difference between a grown-up man and a child
is very important.
A grown-up person has...
has a division in his brain and body,
but a child is only body, has no brain.
An actor wants to show in his face, everything he can possibly feel.
And the ideal way to make a film would be to use masks, not faces.
And it is possible to make a human being like a mask.
MASKS
For many years I wanted to shoot a film only with masks.
A mask has no protest at all,
but the actors always protest.
Actors are hurt. I mean, when they...
when they ask to come on the scene and say something,
and they don't know why they say it,
they don't know where they fit in,
they don't know anything about it, they, er...
they are dismayed.
For instance, Miss Dietrich gladly lent her mask to my work.
She didn't protest at all.
This is a mask.
It is not a thing which, er...
changes expressions, and which has no, er...
virtue.
The virtue of this mask is that it does not move.
It is always the same,
and, being always the same,
and having the same expression,
it is more powerful than if this face were animate.
The idea of a mask is not uncommon.
Now, the entire oriental people
work with masks.
For instance, you see a Chinese play,
or a kabuki theatre in Japan.
The actors have expressions painted on their faces,
and the expression is always either the same,
or, when someone expresses ferocity,
it is always ferocious. It never varies.
and some of these things are very interesting.
They are very effective.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Yes, the boy I met in Cuba, yes.
Yes, that's a very...
He said to me as I came out, when he asked me for an autograph,
and I said to him:
"I'm not an actor."
He said, "Oh, but you have a thousand masks!"
I represented all the actors to him.
So this boy was, er...
extremely intelligent,
which is something which I cannot say for many people.
Josef von Sternberg has said:
"Sometimes it happens that the painter is totally captivated
"by the canvas he is painting on.
"That, while moulding a mask,
"the moulder is becoming that mask."
This ultimate blending of the maker and the object he created,
is a rare, and perhaps even a dangerous occasion.
In the Marlene Dietrich- Josef von Sternberg collaboration,
one can experience that blending.
"Marlene doesn't exist without me, and she knows it.
"Marlene, that is me.
"The actor is like the colour on a painter's palette,"
adds von Sternberg.
But dealing with an actor is more dangerous than dealing with paint.
That will be reflected in the following unique document.
To try to make visible this arduous creation process
of the artist with his material,
we asked Josef von Sternberg
to come and film a young actress, Dorothée Blanck, in our studios.
Dorothée Blanck, as she will be filmed by Josef von Sternberg, doesn't exist.
She is created by the filmmaker.
The Dorothée Blanck who will be filmed by the director Harry Kümel
on the same day in the same studio,
looks perhaps more like the real Dorothée Blanck.
That's a little too fashionable, I don't know...
- Fashionable? - Too fashionable. It should...
She can comb until her hair falls out.
Yes, yes, I see.
Come on, get up.
Okay, let's go.
No, no, wait, wait. I'm sorry.
Yes, go for it.
- Camera... - One moment.
- Are you ready? - Okay, camera. Yes, go for it.
Yes, Dorothée, here.
Sit yourself down.
Keep the pose.
There we are.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Dorothée Blanck, as she was perceived
as a natural person,
and now Dorothée Blanck in Josef von Sternberg's view.
In a vague sense,
it is an attempt at making a mask,
but for her to assume a mask
would be something that she's incapable of.
For me to... let's say with this girl,
for me to achieve some response from this girl
I have to influence her in some way,
some way which is foreign to her,
and some way which she does not know,
and some way in which...
where I have to dominate her mind for the moment,
and, in that sense, this face that she makes
is really not her face.
But it is a face which I impose on her.
And I don't know what kind of a face I want from her,
but, in some way, her face, when she responds in a minor manner,
to what I want, is alien to her.
And it's alien to me also.
As you will notice, Josef von Sternberg
still possesses his creative power at the age of 75.
He does everything himself.
Once again, you will notice with this simple test
how important light and shadow are to the filmmaker.
The light and shadow that must remove from Dorothée's face
what von Sternberg doesn't consider interesting
and must reveal what is important.
- Can you feel it? - Yes.
What are you... what are your...
Why don't you sit over here?
There, sit down.
Hold it. Now, put the light on her.
Put the light on her, please.
Put the light on her. More. Is it on?
Make it stronger.
Make it stronger?
Concentrate it?
Keep working with your hands.
- Denise, come here. - Yes?
Tell her to forget about everything.
Tell her to completely...
forget about everything.
There's no-one here except me.
- Now, where's the lighting man? - Here.
Make this backlight stronger.
Lower it. Bring it down a little bit.
No, down, down, down. Not up, down.
No, it's two, three up. Hold it. Hold it.
That's better.
I don't care about television.
I'm not doing this for television. I'm doing it for film.
I can't get this to throw shadows on her.
Is it possible to do a...
It is possible to put this light up a little higher?
- You want it higher? - I want to throw this shadow on her.
Do you understand me?
Bravo! Bravo!
It's small, small...
Small. Not...
Denise, please?
Usually, when I get through with my actors,
they're so tired they don't care what they do,
and that's the way I want her.
Ah!
- Come in... do you understand English? - Yes.
- You're not an automat? - No.
Don't make it automatic, like this. This is no good.
You have to....
Swing it. You understand me?
That's better. That's better. That's better.
But slowly. Not too fast.
Make believe you're a tree.
He knows how a tree behaves in a gentle breeze.
- Now... Denise? - Yes?
Tell her that whatever she does is okay,
but I want her to look this way.
I want her to look towards the camera,
because I'm trying to get the shadow underneath right there.
I don't want her to...
I don't want to make a Rembrandt, I want to make a Sternberg.
No, no, don't do anything. Leave her alone.
The actor, and particularly the actor's face,
modelled by light and shadow,
is the material the filmmaker works with.
It's the only struggle for von Sternberg,
to hide and reveal.
To separate what's unimportant and what's essential.
It's also the only doubt of this great director,
when he shows us, the spectators,
that maybe what the eye sees is unimportant after all,
and that the essence eventually remains hidden after all.
I hope this... when can I see this?
Can she work over here more?
Why is she crying? Is she doing this for me?
Tell her that intelligence here
is done with the brain, not through the heart.
An actor does not cry.
If an actor cries, the audience does not cry.
It's our business to simulate,
not to be real.
Tell her that my actors never knew what they were doing.
As in his big films,
this little test shows once again
that the truth maybe lies behind an artificial mask
and that reality can maybe be captured
through that other mask, the frame.
But it can seem a paradox.
Eventually this fully artificial image probably contains, somewhere
in a small detail, in a shiver, in a breath,
more of Dorothée Blanck than one would suspect.
Let me explain.
These lights in the back are very important.
Without that, no close-up is any good.
These lights in the back are very important.
- Yes. - Without them, the picture's no good.
Tell them there has to be a balance.
Okay, let's turn it over.
Okay, I need you to move a little bit.
- Very little, very gentle. - Yes, yes.
Okay, turn it over.
- Oh, Denise, are you here? - Yes.
That's good. Let's start.
Now look at Denise.
Now at my hand.
Now look at Denise again, quickly.
Now quickly over to my hand.
Now quickly to Denise.
Now look at my hand.
Does she understand sign language?
Cut!
Now look at Denise.
Now at my hand.
Now look at Denise again, quickly.
Now quickly over to my hand.
Now quickly to Denise.
Now look at my hand.
Does she understand sign language?
Cut!
SUBTITLES BY POWERHOUSE FILMS LTD