25.02.2019 AXEL ONLINE #12 BEST MASTER CLASS INSPIRATION -EVER Steen Dalin DFF reports from the IMAGO Symposium in Vienna 25-27th of January 2019 VIENNESE WALTZ - Jan Weincke and Astrid Verschuur represent the IMAGO Master Class Committee CAN NOT ALWAYS BE A DANCE ON ROSES “We have enough inspiration to last us for...? Forever! - This has been the best Master Class Inspiration - ever!” These were pretty much the words by which IMAGO President Paul René Roestad FNF summed up the IMAGO event which took place at the start of this year. It was met with applauses from the tightly packed hall of European cinematographers (two of them respectively of Chinese and Brazilian origin, though). As usual, the Danish delegation of DFF constituted the largest national group of foreign guests, only surpassed by the local Austrians. Perhaps presented at this event without an Oscar the excitement also reflects the fact that the nomination, but indeed a cinematographer Master Class Committee had engaged three with an impressive backlist and one of the few European and one Australian cinematographer, women, whom Jan Weincke welcomed in his all having made a career in Hollywood. Three opening speech and expressed gratitude at of them made it to the semi-final - which is their increasing numbers. This year the event a nomination for the Academy Awards - and was fully booked: 160 delegates distributed probably as close as you can get to an Oscar between 25 countries - and a long waiting for Best Cinematography without actually list, you might add. Throughout the ten- winning it. However, for the first time, not one year lifetime of the committee, four similar IMAGO President Paul René Roestad single American was on stage. That is, just events have been held: One in Amsterdam, welcome Vienna Inspiration apart from Maryse Alberti, who was born and two in Copenhagen and finally this one was raised in France. She went as a teenager to the second time in Vienna. In addition to Jan Cover print by Wim Wenders from the exhibition in the United States and had her entire career Weincke DFF, the Master Class Committee Metro Kinokulturhaus titled: across the Atlantic. She was the only one consists of Herman Verschuur NSC, Ron Airplane in Monument Valley - 1977 Photo Credit: © Wim Wenders Courtesy of Johanson ACS and our Austrian host Astrid the artist and Blain | Southern London / Berlin Heubrandtner Verschuur AAC, who concluded 2 Brawls by night in Vienna drenched by rain Convention on Human Rights. “Just imagine this”, she said: “Trying to make it socially acceptable to question human rights.” She was deeply shocked and continued: “This is not only happening in Austria, it is the case all over Europe and the rest of the world. In times where we have to face these kinds of movements, all artists like us cinematographers have to stand up against this insanity which is growing everywhere.” WENDERS & MÜLLER - THE DYNAMIC DUO Four years ago, the IMAGO Inspiration took place in the Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus, near to the Metro Kinokulturhaus where we were staying now. But at that time the residence could not house Inspiration, due to extensive restoration. But now this magnificent Kinokulturhaus has reopened, hosting a Cinematheque, a Film Archive and two floors of state-of-the-art Exhibition Halls. It presented a retrospective exhibition on Wim Wenders, which he himself personally her welcome speech with some nasty news prestigious Hotel Astoria having windows inaugurated only a fortnight prior to our that tormented her. At the same time as facing the street, couldn’t help but to be arrival. The entire exhibition glitters in all its our event, the extreme right-wing forces awakened both nights by the brawl among the whitened purity, displaying the director’s own in Vienna held their annual Akademikerball 3000 guests to the Ball and the approximately preferred polaroids and his black and white (Academicians’ Ball, being in the homeland 8000 opponents. It was a personal matter for photographs along with quotes from his diary of Johann Strauss). Demonstrations against Astrid to inform us that only three days earlier, of the various film recordings - everything the Ball could be expected, and the police one of these extreme politicians, Minister of resembling pieces of contemporary art. An had closed off a larger area surrounding the the Interior, publicly attacked the European exhibition that could easily take place in Hofburg Palace, just a few hundred meters many European art galleries and museums. from our event. Indeed, those of us at the 3 Wim Wenders at the inaguration of the exhibition 4 Exhibition Halls at the Film Archive 5 His distinctive images describe the twenty years of filmmaking with Robby Müller NSC, which started very early in the 70s producing titles such as: Alice in den Städten and my absolute favourite, the black and white, three- hour-long Im Lauf der Zeit, followed by Der amerikanische Freund, until the partnership ended miserably in 1991 with Bis ans Ende der Welt. At that time their friendship had deteriorated and they split once and for all to go separate ways. Wim Wenders continued his cinematographic expeditions around the world, while Robby Müller joined forces with Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier among others. All of this and even more were confirmed in the cinema on Friday night, when the above- mentioned Astrid Verschuur had Claire Pijman NSC in the ‘hot seat’ for a conversation before the screening of her documentary Living the Light. Since the premiere in Venice last year it has toured at numerous festivals and film schools in Europe, including our own in Copenhagen in collaboration with DFF last November. Right now, Claire Pijman and her entourage are “praying for a good American premiere,” as she puts it. Robby Müller was living his life through the lens of a film camera. When he wasn’t working professionally, he compensated using his video camera. He simply filmed EVERYTHING: His parents, his girlfriends, his dogs and his daughter, who in Wim Wenders addresses the audience in the beautiful Claire’s documentary seemed pretty fed up Baroque theater dating back to 1840 by always watching her father on the other side of a camera. But in his studies of hotel 6 Dennis Hopper with Robby Müller during film recording rooms, of the street downstairs, of the Edward Hopper-like urban landscapes in the United States - and outside in the wild: Birds in flight transforming into light reflections and withered leaves in flowing water - in those videos you get to know his search for scenes and moods. Later they appear in the movie clips Claire Pijman quite intelligently had selected and merged with the endless Hi8 recordings that she got access to with his permission. Robby Müller died in April last year, but he got to experience the exhibition Master of Light at EYE in Amsterdam 2016, and also had the opportunity to watch the documentary several times according to Pijman, which is either Astrid Verschuur introducing Claire Pijman ironic or just miraculous, as he would never even watch his own video footage - he was just filming. 7 TWO BRITISH CINEMATOGRAPHERS - AND KEN LOACH Back to the Metro Kinokulturhaus, on the ground floor in the heart of the building the space opens up to a wonderful carefully restored Baroque theatre dating back to 1840. First man on stage was Barry Ackroyd (moderated by Volker Gläser AAC) who in 2014 took over the post as President of the British Federation BSC. He turned out to be a very pleasant and charming man with a low-key English humour. Characteristics that he attributed to his director over many years, Ken Loach. In the same spirit, but rather unusual in such master classes, he started a selection of three clips from films he had NOT photographed himself: First of all, Kes (Ken Loach 1969), this 16mm grained classic brought tears in the eyes of the older segment of the cinematographers. Then 8 The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé 1984) and finally The Mission (Roland Joffé 1986). All three films photographed by Chris Menges BSC, who had supported Ackroyd in the leap from documentary to feature film. He also made Ackroyd join the British Society of Cinematographers and, in general, served as his mentor and source of inspiration. One day Ackroyd received a phone call from Ken Loach himself: “He’s a humble man and said: Ken Loach’s masterpiece on the “You’re probably very busy, you probably don’t Anglo-Irish War of Independence 1919-1921 want to work with me.” My answer was: “I do - I do!” This resulted in the first film Riff Raff (1991) together with his idol and furthermore in a 25-year long collaboration over 12 films. It was a continuing learning process at the ‘Ken Loach University’ that he would never forget. There was a reason for everything Loach did: The observing, the long lenses and the documentary style that Loach himself admitted having learned from Chris Menges. When Barry one day ventured to bring a lamp into a location, Ken Loach exclaimed: “Oh, it’s very bright isn’t it! Do you think the actors would like that?” Their last film together was The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) which Ackroyd considers to be Ken Loach’s masterpiece. But the inspiration he got from Ken Loach and Chris Menges became the foundation stone, upon which he later built his entire career in collaboration with many directors: 9 10 Chris Menges shooting Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2011 The Hurt Locker – first Oscar to a female director Each camera operator has full freedom to improvise and to zoom at will - no use of fixed (and locked) optics.