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Superhero Hype!
It's Edukational
Source:
Edward Douglas
July 21, 2005
Every
year, one or two movies come from out of nowhere and take you by
surprise. This year, one of those films is Hans Weingartner's The Edukators,
a German film about three activists that break into the homes of the
rich to play pranks, only to become kidnappers when one of their prank
victims comes home early. It's a simple premise that is funny, romantic
and political all at once, perfectly filling the void currently lacking
in American independent film. It's a movie about a younger generation
of idealists and revolutionaries told in a way that can be appreciated
by liberal and conservative alike, so when the opportunity came to talk
to the film's director, it wasn't hard to come up with a few questions
about his film which crosses Y Tu Mama Tambien with the documentary The Yes Men, without being much like either.
CS!: Hans, your movie is so multi-layered between the different things going on, but what was the original seed of an idea that got you started making this movie?
Weingartner: The original idea was to make a movie about three young political activists, who do sabotage action at night.
CS!: Did you always have the idea of it being two guys and a girl and having the love triangle between them?
Weingartner: Yeah, yeah… well, actually, you know what happened? We combined two different screenplays. We had a love story between two outsiders, a girl and a boy, who travel to Portugal together on a bus, talk about God and the world and about political issues. This screenplay I had written six or seven years ago, and then I had another screenplay about these activists, and then we combined them. It's hard to tell afterwards what came when exactly, because the writing is such a chaotic process.
CS!: Is this based on something that has happened before? Has someone actually broken into rich German houses to pull pranks like these ones?
Weingartner: No, not in Germany, but I was inspired by a medical doctor from Paris—he was a well-off guy--who broke into the houses of the rich people of Paris for twenty years. He never sold the stuff that he stole; he stored it in his basement, but one day he was caught. I read about it in the newspaper a long time ago, but I never forgot the story, and I always thought, "Hey, why was this guy doing that? What drove him?" This must have cost him so much energy, and why did he take this risk? Was it his private revolution? It's a story that the idea that every private revolution will originally go public.
CS!: Hans, your movie is so multi-layered between the different things going on, but what was the original seed of an idea that got you started making this movie?
Weingartner: The original idea was to make a movie about three young political activists, who do sabotage action at night.
CS!: Did you always have the idea of it being two guys and a girl and having the love triangle between them?
Weingartner: Yeah, yeah… well, actually, you know what happened? We combined two different screenplays. We had a love story between two outsiders, a girl and a boy, who travel to Portugal together on a bus, talk about God and the world and about political issues. This screenplay I had written six or seven years ago, and then I had another screenplay about these activists, and then we combined them. It's hard to tell afterwards what came when exactly, because the writing is such a chaotic process.
CS!: Is this based on something that has happened before? Has someone actually broken into rich German houses to pull pranks like these ones?
Weingartner: No, not in Germany, but I was inspired by a medical doctor from Paris—he was a well-off guy--who broke into the houses of the rich people of Paris for twenty years. He never sold the stuff that he stole; he stored it in his basement, but one day he was caught. I read about it in the newspaper a long time ago, but I never forgot the story, and I always thought, "Hey, why was this guy doing that? What drove him?" This must have cost him so much energy, and why did he take this risk? Was it his private revolution? It's a story that the idea that every private revolution will originally go public.
CS!:
Was the love triangle between the characters done to distract from the
political message of the conflict between the different classes?
Weingartner: A common subject and theme is freedom. If you really love a woman, and she falls in love with someone else, then you have to give her freedom, and you have to accept it, if you really love her. Well, if you want to possess her, that's another story, and also, one man can fall in love with two women and one woman can fall in love with two men, or three men. I think the monogamous concept is not always possible, and nobody proves so far that it's the only possibility: one man, one woman. Of course, in reality, it mostly doesn't work out, but that's what films are for, to show alternative, to show dreams. In the hundred times, it's not going to work 99 times, but I can show the one case that works out. Of course, the love triangle is something that is very typical when you're young. You fall in love more quickly. It's part of being young to revolt, fall in love, and listen to loud music.
CS!: The chemistry between the three actors is excellent. How much time did they spend together rehearsing before filming?
Weingartner: Actually and unfortunately, we were very restricted in our schedule, because all the actors had films before and after our film, so the chemistry was more or less at the casting. I cast for seven months, and I had them altogether and we did one rehearsal, and that was it. Then, I was filming chronologically. Actually, the first few days were quite difficult, and we had to reshoot some scenes, but then after a few days, the actors were really into their characters. Also, I like to shoot the first rehearsal. I don't like them to rehearse too much because I believe in the magic of chance, and often, the best things happen in the first take. For me, the first rehearsal is the first take.
CS!: Did you feel that it was important to shoot chronologically?
Weingartner: The part in the mountains was completely chronological and somehow you feel it. The first part of the movie is not 100% chronological but that doesn't hurt, because in the city of Berlin in the first part, the whole story is more chaotic and unstable and in the mountains, it becomes more harmonic eventually.
CS!: Now you worked with Daniel on your first movie, but this was the first time you worked with Julia, and I read that you actually wrote the part of Peter for Stipe Erceg, the actor that played him. How did that come about?
Weingartner: Yes, he was the first actor that was fixed. I saw him in another movie and he's such a great improviser and such a genius and that was what I was looking for, actors who could improvise and have their own vision and mind about the character. Stipe really changed the character. For example, Peter was planned to be much more superficial and easy-going, and Stipe said that he wanted more depth in him. If he really is an Edukator and takes this very high risk, he must be idealistic. He can't just be a party animal. He was just perfect. I saw him in another movie in which he played a very similar character, so that's why we wrote the part of Peter for him. He's not 100% German, you know. He's Croatian, so he adds color and flavor to the film. He's also very different from Daniel and that's naturally, what you want in movies. You want contrast. You don't want three characters all the same.
CS!: How did your cinematographers feel about using all natural lighting for the movie? Did you have to convince them that this was the way to go?
Weingartner: No, I didn't have to convince them. They were enthusiastic about it, because it doesn't make the importance of the cameraman smaller. It makes it even bigger because it's a constraint that you can gain ideas from. It's not 100% natural light. We have some light, but you don't notice. If you don't have enough light, you use what you have as a natural light source and you amplify it. What you also do is that the set decorator, he becomes partly the lighting man, so in all the indoor rooms, we had a lot of lamps: a reading lamp, a standing lamp, a wall lamp.
Weingartner: A common subject and theme is freedom. If you really love a woman, and she falls in love with someone else, then you have to give her freedom, and you have to accept it, if you really love her. Well, if you want to possess her, that's another story, and also, one man can fall in love with two women and one woman can fall in love with two men, or three men. I think the monogamous concept is not always possible, and nobody proves so far that it's the only possibility: one man, one woman. Of course, in reality, it mostly doesn't work out, but that's what films are for, to show alternative, to show dreams. In the hundred times, it's not going to work 99 times, but I can show the one case that works out. Of course, the love triangle is something that is very typical when you're young. You fall in love more quickly. It's part of being young to revolt, fall in love, and listen to loud music.
CS!: The chemistry between the three actors is excellent. How much time did they spend together rehearsing before filming?
Weingartner: Actually and unfortunately, we were very restricted in our schedule, because all the actors had films before and after our film, so the chemistry was more or less at the casting. I cast for seven months, and I had them altogether and we did one rehearsal, and that was it. Then, I was filming chronologically. Actually, the first few days were quite difficult, and we had to reshoot some scenes, but then after a few days, the actors were really into their characters. Also, I like to shoot the first rehearsal. I don't like them to rehearse too much because I believe in the magic of chance, and often, the best things happen in the first take. For me, the first rehearsal is the first take.
CS!: Did you feel that it was important to shoot chronologically?
Weingartner: The part in the mountains was completely chronological and somehow you feel it. The first part of the movie is not 100% chronological but that doesn't hurt, because in the city of Berlin in the first part, the whole story is more chaotic and unstable and in the mountains, it becomes more harmonic eventually.
CS!: Now you worked with Daniel on your first movie, but this was the first time you worked with Julia, and I read that you actually wrote the part of Peter for Stipe Erceg, the actor that played him. How did that come about?
Weingartner: Yes, he was the first actor that was fixed. I saw him in another movie and he's such a great improviser and such a genius and that was what I was looking for, actors who could improvise and have their own vision and mind about the character. Stipe really changed the character. For example, Peter was planned to be much more superficial and easy-going, and Stipe said that he wanted more depth in him. If he really is an Edukator and takes this very high risk, he must be idealistic. He can't just be a party animal. He was just perfect. I saw him in another movie in which he played a very similar character, so that's why we wrote the part of Peter for him. He's not 100% German, you know. He's Croatian, so he adds color and flavor to the film. He's also very different from Daniel and that's naturally, what you want in movies. You want contrast. You don't want three characters all the same.
CS!: How did your cinematographers feel about using all natural lighting for the movie? Did you have to convince them that this was the way to go?
Weingartner: No, I didn't have to convince them. They were enthusiastic about it, because it doesn't make the importance of the cameraman smaller. It makes it even bigger because it's a constraint that you can gain ideas from. It's not 100% natural light. We have some light, but you don't notice. If you don't have enough light, you use what you have as a natural light source and you amplify it. What you also do is that the set decorator, he becomes partly the lighting man, so in all the indoor rooms, we had a lot of lamps: a reading lamp, a standing lamp, a wall lamp.
CS!: How did you end up picking Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as the film's theme?
Weingartner: My girlfriend played it to me, and I couldn't stop listening to this song for half a year, and then we were editing and we had problems with the ending. Then, I said let's try it with some music, and the first song that came to my mind was "Hallelujah." So we put it on the soundtrack, and it was a moment I will never forget in my life. It was like pure magic. It was like this song was made for this sequence. It was incredible. It's these moments that you live for as an artist where things fall into place, and now I can only say the same thing as everybody who sees the movie is that the song perfectly enhances the characters feel. It's this broken "Hallelujah", the beauty of sadness. It's this feeling like you're floating in the universe. You're lonely on the one hand, but on the other hand, you're part of the universe.
CS!: Oh, one last thing I was wondering about was the German title, which is different from the American one. What's the translation?
Weingartner: "Your Days of Plenty Are Numbered." It's from the bible, actually.
The Edukators opens in New York on Friday and in Los Angeles on Friday, July 29.
Weingartner: My girlfriend played it to me, and I couldn't stop listening to this song for half a year, and then we were editing and we had problems with the ending. Then, I said let's try it with some music, and the first song that came to my mind was "Hallelujah." So we put it on the soundtrack, and it was a moment I will never forget in my life. It was like pure magic. It was like this song was made for this sequence. It was incredible. It's these moments that you live for as an artist where things fall into place, and now I can only say the same thing as everybody who sees the movie is that the song perfectly enhances the characters feel. It's this broken "Hallelujah", the beauty of sadness. It's this feeling like you're floating in the universe. You're lonely on the one hand, but on the other hand, you're part of the universe.
CS!: Oh, one last thing I was wondering about was the German title, which is different from the American one. What's the translation?
Weingartner: "Your Days of Plenty Are Numbered." It's from the bible, actually.
The Edukators opens in New York on Friday and in Los Angeles on Friday, July 29.
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