Christian Petzold, Nina Hoss & Ronald Zehrfeld - Barbara Interview

Christian Petzold, Nina Hoss & Ronald Zehrfeld - Barbara Interview

Cast: Nia Hoss, Ronald Zehrfield
Director: Christian Petzold
Genre: Drama
Rated: PG
Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: Summer,1980. Barbara, a doctor, has applied for an exit visa from the GDR (East Germany). Now, as punishment, she has been transferred from Berlin to a small hospital out in the country, far from everything. Jörg, her lover from the West, is already planning her escape.

Barbara waits, keeping to herself. The new apartment, the neighbours, summertime, the countryside – none of that means anything to her. Working as a paediatric surgeon under her new boss Andre, she is attentive when it comes to the patients, but quite distanced toward her colleagues. Her future, she feels, will begin later.

But Andre confuses her. His confidence in her professional abilities, his caring attitude, his smile. Why does he cover for her when she helps the young runaway Sarah? Does he have an assignment to keep track of her? Is he in love? But as the day of her planned escape quickly approaches, Barbara starts to lose control. Over herself, over her plans, over love.

Barbara

Release Date: March 7th, 2013

 

 

Interview with Christian Petzold, Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld

A Special Form Of Love

Question: Before shooting began you had extensive reading rehearsal with all the actors. How does that work?

Christian Petzold: A few weeks before shooting started, we met with the entire ensemble. On the first day, to somehow get started, I read out a text in which I describe the characters. We then watched films such as a love scene from a Chabrol film. In 'Barbara" I was concerned with several questions: Who is telling the story of the film? Where is this person positioned? Is this person removed from the plot looking onto it from above like a surveillance camera, or is he standing right in the middle of it amongst the people? Is this person part of the system that exists between people? Which is why I found it interesting to see for example French Connection, a film the never stands on the side of power. We then very quickly spoke about the details, going over the characters, locations, smells and memories.


Question: Mr. Zehrfeld, when you hear the description of the character, does that change your perception of the role?

Ronald Zehrfeld: No. I had already had an idea about the character after reading the script. And then it's really about what I can bring out and how I can make it visible. The first reading rehearsals were great for the extensive way we explored the situations, the degree of detail and colour and tone we used to describe the images that existed between the characters.

Christian Petzold: I was somewhat afraid of you, Ronald, because I perceive you as a person who is very grounded in your East German past. Your life experiences are rooted there and you went to school there, whereas I had only been there to visit because almost all of my relatives still lived there. My parents had fled the GDR. For me East Germany had always been a projection space, whereas for you it was a living space.

Nina Hoss: I found it exciting to listen to the actors who came from the East talk about what had happened to them and how it was for them to be there. One of the actresses who had fled East Germany had had a very similar experience to Barbara's. She was on a tour performance with her theatre company and she knew that she would have to lie, the way Barbara lies to Andre. We read the scene and she whispered to me: 'You feel the heat of discomfort rising within in you". She then told us her story and talked about what it means to lie and realising in that exact same moment: 'I will never see you again, but I can't tell you that until I actually get out".

Christian Petzold: Basically the first part of the rehearsal in Berlin served to stir our collective memory. What did East Germany sound like? What did it smell like? That's the sort of thing we talked about. I think we only read the script once and then we just remembered, reflected and watched movies. And then almost all of us drove out together to visit the locations and motifs where the film is set.


Filming Locations

Christian Petzold: I felt it was important that the hospital in the film was a real hospital that was accurately furnished in a 1980 look down to the last fine detail. When we saw it we were somewhat shocked at how different hospitals are today with their high flexibility and their outsourcing. In this hospital you had this feeling… it was like something out of an Astrid Lindgren novel. We – the actors and I – met regularly to talk about the day in the staff break room that the nurses in the film hang out in to smoke, listen to the radio and read the newspaper… It was like doctors and nurses planning the day's schedule: 'First we run the drainage procedure, and then comes Nina's long monologue". That's how it felt sometimes for me. I mean, you were all anyway very well prepared, you had had good training as film doctors, and there were people around that had actually once worked in this hospital and could guide us.


Question: Did you know the filming locations before the shooting began?
Nina Hoss: Yes, the most important ones. The first time we went to visit, the sets were almost all ready them. That was great… you can build a physical relationship to the spaces and rooms that you'll be moving in on the day of shooting. It gives you a very different feel for the character and the scene you are working on.

Ronald Zehrfeld: I had underestimated the benefit of seeing the rooms and locations, the hospital and the forest beforehand, and then allowing the experience to inspire you again. You suddenly had all these images and knew what the space looks and smells like, how it's set up, and how you can move in it.

Christian Petzold: When I walked into Andre's apartment that the production designer Kade Gruber had built, I was deeply moved by it because it was so unpretentious. All the objects in it were familiar and not typical or characteristic. What I also found quite interesting was that even the files that Ronald held in his hand...

Ronald Zehrfeld: Those were original files from the clinic in Dresden One day I suddenly discovered my surname in one of them. I called up my father and asked him if he had had some third-degree distant relative living in Dresden in the 50s. Though that wasn't the case, I still found it great that even the props weren't some old folders with something written on the front that you just use to do the scene, but that you have something real in your hands.

Christian Petzold: I think it is absolutely important for everything to be correct. Otherwise you end up doing all kinds of nonsense. We had this scene where we had x-ray images of a skull fracture and a knee dislocation. And the three actors – Christina Hecke was also there – were medically very well prepared; they'd taken courses. So here they are standing in front of the x-ray screen and all of sudden they break out into a fit of laughter, the way I used to crack up laughing in church when I was younger every time the word whore came up in the bible.

Nina Hoss: At that particular moment we were only taking about these x-rays. Otherwise you normally have a plot that you can stand behind. But when you're just standing there in front of these images pretending you're some kind of expert: 'Here is the fracture, we have to open it up soon, doctor", you almost feel like a charlatan, and then you crack up laughing.

Christian Petzold: We then cut it down to three lines. The x-rays didn't get any single shots. The dislocated knee was never seen or spoken of again.


Secrets

Question: Do the characters hold some kind of a secret for you as the writer and director on the one hand and you as actors on the other?

Nina Hoss: Certainly. We often surprised ourselves while acting. You naturally have a clear idea of the character while you're thinking or talking about it. But it's another thing when you start acting and suddenly a reaction comes that you hadn't expected. Even though these may be small things, nuances, they suddenly make you realise: 'I can react differently here than I had originally thought". Something then emerges that I may not be able to describe afterwards.
Christian Petzold: Every day of shooting was a complete surprise for me. Having a clearly defined picture of a character is important because it provides a foundation. When you have a figure that already holds depth and mystery within it, then you've got something you can start working with. There's the scene in the corridor where Barbara drops the coffee cup. I had a clear picture of how that should go: Something falls. They both kneel down to pick up the pieces. He says: 'Now, why don't go lay down". And she says: 'No! I don't need to." Even though she's on her last legs. I didn't quite know how to resolve the scene. But then during the rehearsals something happened between the two of you, something you just can't plan: Roland simply puts his hand on Nina. It's as if this surge of warmth starts flowing through her and in that moment Barbara feels protected and tired. That's how I perceived it. This is something I could never have imagined beforehand.

I'd really like to mention the other actors now: Christina Hecke's performance was excellent. Though she only had a few lines, in her role she remained a solid part of this hospital. Same goes for Claudia Geißler, who only has one line, or Kirsten Block, Schütz's wife. Or how Susanne Bormann raises the issue of class conflict with her single, improvised line 'You've got pretty hands, but you also use them". And Jasna, with her triumphant face as she shows Andre out of the room whilst looking at Barbara. Or Stella, who emanates this life lived in and out of all these homes. Or how Rainer Bock smokes with his back turned in the solitude of the café…. With all the actors I felt that the social space simply carries on; even when they're no longer in the picture, their characters don't just simply fade away but continue to live on.

Ronald Zehrfeld: This basis that Christian talked about created the space for us to be at times creatively surprised. And this requires an unbelievable level of trust. The feeling I had in the rehearsals was confirmed on set. And then all of sudden I realised that we're all talking, thinking and feeling in the same tone and pattern. This basis made it possible for us to be free at the moment of acting. That we had this space is of course also thanks to this production's excellent preparation: That we could start the day going through the scenes again.


On Set

Question: You also rehearsed on the day of shooting: Was it to go over the scenes, gestures, and timing or was it about something more basic like the characters and the constellations?

Nina Hoss: No, it was quite specific. The preparation made it unnecessary for us to talk long about things. We were all acting on the same ground, so to speak. The great thing about Christian's production conditions is that we get the opportunity to rehearse the scenes of the day every morning. As a result you can really take your time and quietly figure out if it all works. You can check the scene and your role in it with your partner. And Christian has a chance to see if it still works for him, if something needs to be added or lines need to be cut. We rehearsed but only to the point where something could still emerge, where we all felt: If we shoot now, we'll get something more.

Ronald Zehrfeld: I just had to think of our favourite word: 'nonverbal". We arrived at a level where the scene was simply clear. Again I use the words 'tone and atmosphere". All of a sudden you realise it's happening right now. All you have to do is perceive the other and really live out the situation, not produce it using some acting method. This is what created the small surprises during the filming, these nuances, because the freedom was there for it.


Question: You shot the film to a large extent chronologically? What effect does that have?

Ronald Zehrfeld: Knowing which scene, which effect, which turn had happened before, lends the whole thing a sense of aliveness. When you don't film chronologically, you have to permanently keep the narrative arc in mind that you're trying to build together with the actors and the director. When you film chronologically, this arc is established quite differently. The level of acting is far closer to the character, far more organic and vibrant.

Christian Petzold: One example is the scene where Andre is standing at Mario's bed because he believes that he's suffering from more than just a skull bruising. Several scenes play in this room and normally you would set up the lighting and shoot all the scenes at once. But I think it's important that you first see how Barbara stands at her locker and wants to go home but her medical conscience won't let her. She then goes to Mario's room and is surprised to find Andre there. She would rather have nothing to do with him, but because he thinks the same way she does on a professional level, something develops. She becomes a companion. When you shoot that chronologically, starting with the locker then the walk down the hallway and then into the room, though it certainly takes up a lot of shooting time, it gives something very important to the characters. Barbara walks into that room in a specific physical state, with a specific feeling. This is what it means to film chronologically.


The Kiss

Question: You mentioned a scene that you deliberately took out of the chronology.

Ronald Zehrfeld: That was the kiss scene.

Christian Petzold: There is often a very important scene that takes place at the end of a film and in our case it was the kiss between Barbara and Andre. The kiss is something quite decisive. I always felt that this kiss should be done in such a way that we don't quite really understand it or grasp what it means. It can't have any precedent; it isn't planned. I didn't have a clear picture for this kiss. But it had to be there, at that specific point. And if you keep it in the chronology and shoot it at the end, then all you talk about for the last ten days is this stupid kiss. So there are two reasons I wanted to take a scene like that out of the chronology: Firstly, if you shoot it as early as the eighth day, then you carry the kiss within you for the remaining days and you know as an actor what you're heading towards. And secondly, if it doesn't work out, you can do it again.

Nina Hoss: Sometimes it's best not to have to rethink what you played out in a scene. Then it's just the way it is. That's how it was for the kiss. Even though I was unsure because I also had the feeling… those two don't come together at first, but there's a tension there. And a kiss is a relief or a resolution of this tension, and yet at the same time it creates a new tension.

Christian Petzold: I think it is more important that the film doesn't move towards the kiss but towards the non-kiss. Andre doesn't know that Barbara is leaving. Had we talked extensively about the kiss and then shot the scene at the end of the film, it would have turned into a farewell kiss for Andre. The kiss has an effect. Rather than filming the actual kiss, I find it far more beautiful to capture the one left behind after the lips have parted. The one that remains behind is left stunned. This disbelief is an important image because Andre believes that this kiss is not the last one. That's why it was important to do the scene at the start of shooting.

Which is why we also shot the scenes in Andre's apartment beforehand. Barbara gets a book as a present, Andre is cutting up a zucchini, he stands with his back to her… It's a real kitchen. This is not a stage but a real room that you have to work around. And there's this little corner that Barbara squeezes herself into, puts down the book, and asks: Can I help...?

Ronald Zehrfeld: We even cut up some onions in a pot…

Christian Petzold: That's right, the whole kitchen smelled of onion. It was simply very sensual. And that stands in contrast to another sensuality: Before that, Barbara had been in a hotel. The man kisses her, they lay down on the bed, cool jazz plays on the radio, they drink Krimsekt (Ukrainian sparkling wine), and make escape plans. And I always felt that they try to get some sensuality, but it's just not happening. Cut. She sits in the train. And you see in her face that she somehow suspects this new world she's going to might end up being a cold chamber for her. And the contrast to that is the scene with Andre in the house: Here is someone that she believes to the very last moment is playing a double game. And yet he is so sensual and that confuses her. This is the split that this character has to carry, this feeling of being torn.


Monday Shots

Question: 'Barbara" is a period piece, with a historically driven plot. The writer, set design, and the actors all do research. Is there a point where you just have to stop?

Nina Hoss: Not for me. Because every day, with every talk, with every scene, new things emerge that you want to explore, sense and grasp more deeply. You are constantly involved up to the very last day because you want to use up everything to its fullest. At some point in the middle of filming I began listening to Wolf Biermann and Degenhardt because I knew them from my childhood. It was the kind of sound that would have filled Barbara's world in those days and I felt it would help me. And it did.


Question: Is there a danger of losing yourself in the scenery because of the sheer mass of historically authentic details? That you are tempted to re-enact the familiar picture?

Nina Hoss: You have to liberate yourself from that. We're making a feature film and not a documentary. We do have to prepare to make sure that the procedures are played out as authentically as possible, but whether you hold the syringe this way or that way is not what's important. Of course I'd like to be able to do that but I can't allow myself to focus on it and so neglect my acting.

The balance must remain clear. Preparation is everything, and then you can just forget it.

Christian Petzold: The research must be precise and accurate. It must be filled with narrative. You can't just use basic items to fill up the scenery. The objects have to carry meaning and significance. But then again, you also have to be able to let them go.

The Spring/Summer 1980 Quelle catalogue that we have in the film wasn't so easy to come by. It was an anniversary catalogue, the first one with more than one thousand pages, which probably contributed more to the collapse of East Germany than the Strauß loan. But the catalogue is only looked at twice in the film. In this scene it is far more important that the catalogue in all its glory is in the hands of Susanne Bormann and Nina Hoss, then to actually see it. It's not about the catalogue, but about these two women flicking through the catalogue – and, in that moment, about their image of the West: 'Will I ever get out of here?" says one of them who want to be in the Quelle catalogue. And the other realises that she has a completely different image of the West. It's about this moment.

The night at Nikolaiplatz on the way to the Interhotel was quite an expensive scene, because it required an old East German tram to drive by, not to mention all the roads we had to block, and all the antennas and advertising we had to pull down. It took ages but we got a shot of the tram driving by though the picture. But then Bettina Böhler, the editor, cut it in such a way that the tram only appears for two seconds in the scene. A strange effect, but it works because it makes East Germany appear more authentic, more real.


Mistrust

Question: Is there a particular pressure in making a film about a time that is not so distant and still very charged with emotions, opinions and images?

Christian Petzold: Harun Farocki made 'Videograms of a Revolution" in 1991, about Romania and the fall of Ceausescu. Before that I used to think: the secret police, the Securitate, have their electronics and microphones everywhere, in all the most unlikely places! Then the Ceausescu system collapsed and it turns out that the whole place was rotten. All that fear and suppression was happening between the people. That's where it worked. All the beauty, love and liberty were poisoned by mistrust.

This was one of my experiences on my visits to East Germany. There was a great deal of mistrust everywhere, not only because you felt the government is everywhere also because there was a kind of barter economy: 'If I give him something, I will get something in return". I thought that's what the film should focus on. How does power infect love? That's the situation when these two people meet. Everything that is attractive about Andre automatically has a second meaning, namely: 'I will open up your heart and soul and read you, and then I'll know everything about you." That's what I wanted the film to explore and not some Honecker pictures on the wall. We only have one single sign with a motto on it in the film: 'Optimism leads us into the future". I liked it because it was so old and faded. It was as if East Germany in 1980 no longer believed in itself.

Ronald Zehrfeld: I felt it was right to leave out all that emblematic stuff; the hammer, the compass, the wreath. It's about telling the story of the people who lived in such a system, and how it all felt. The question was: Can we manage to recreate the blues that existed back then, with all the sublevels between the people that so constricted the space between them: 'Can I trust someone? Is he doing this just for his own benefit or does he really mean it?" And at the same time bring back that special social interaction that was so much more common back then, at least in my childhood, and that more and more people miss today. And this worked for me. I could feel it again, how it was between people.

It's incredibly exciting to figure it all out: How do they look at each other? How does doubt find its way between them? When Andre says to Barbara: 'I'd like to travel to The Hague someday, to see the Rembrandt." – 'Oh well, apply for a departure permit..." You know exactly why he says that; he's fishing for information. Interestingly, in East Germany people took a much closer look at each other. The type of mistrust that existed back then made people particularly alert to one other, because you looked each other in the eye in a very different way.

Nina Hoss: In this atmosphere there is always an underlying mistrust. And yet it had great warmth. This country also made love possible. This film passes no moral judgments, but rather offers possibilities.


Love

Christian Petzold: In the reading rehearsal we watched 'To Have and Have Not" by Howard Hawks. Basically in all the stories and films that politically condemn a system, the situation is juxtaposed with a love couple or friendship that is pure so as to better criticise the system. And in Hawks' movie, it's actually the love relationship in the film that is the system. They're intelligent not because they simply don't trust each other romantically, but because they constantly remain alert.

Nina Hoss: And challenge each other.

Christian Petzold : Yes. And this creates a form of love that has absolutely nothing to do with our wishy-washy socialised love of the West German 70s. Andre picks Barbara up, the serum is there, he asks: 'Were you searched? Does that happen often?" At this point, he's got the upper hand. But then suddenly she asks: 'You produced the serum yourself? You have a lab in the clinic?" In that moment, she begins to use interrogation techniques that were probably once used on her. And instantly, she regains the power in this car.

Basically this is also a form of seduction. It isn't about 'love tears down all walls". Rather this East German situation brings about a specific form of love. Nina and Ronald eliminated many of these beautiful lines that Harun and I had written into the dialogue. Because with everything that was going on between the two of them, these lines simply disturbed; the wit, the looks, the touching, the looking away - this rhythm that two people slowly develop into a duel.


The Lie

Christian Petzold: There was this scene where Barbara shows up for her night shift and Andre says to her: 'Could you check on Mario again"...

Nina Hoss: We had rehearsed the beginning of that scene when I come out again and say: 'How is he?". But when we came to shoot the scene we realised something's not quite right. It was only the beginning of the scene that had to be changed; I think it was only where you were standing…

Ronald Zehrfeld: In the doorframe? Yes, that's where we found it.

Nina Hoss: She trusts his intuition and that doesn't let her go, because she thinks: 'But I need to know what's happening with this Mario".

Ronald Zehrfeld: What was exciting was how in this moment they move from the level of 'doctor" to the level of 'mistrust", until they find themselves standing opposite each other on the level of 'human". He says, 'I have a bad feeling. I want to run some more tests."

Christian Petzold: And Barbara says: 'I'm off work then." But he knows quite well after having worked with her for several weeks what the point is: When it comes to the life of a human being, when it's about your passion, then no, you're not off work. Barbara is ashamed of herself for it. And then she lies. The camera then stays on the lie, on Barbara in the doorframe, who almost collapses.

Ronald Zehrfeld: Because she's too close to him, to these eyes that say: 'Are you telling me in all seriousness that you're off work? I want to see it in your eyes". You don't need a dialogue for that.


Question: When Andre leaves Barbara's empty apartment and walks past the Stasi officer, something fundamental changes in that moment?

Ronald Zehrfeld: For Andre it's simply over when he asks him: 'Have you arrested her?" and Schütz says: 'She will never be back." Andre knows him, he took care of his wife, and he knows how the system works. But he can no longer look this person in the eye. He has to leave. In the moment the State has lost. And then to find someone who because of Andre still believes that there's still something worth maintaining and keeping… it makes me happy to finally see Barbara on the bed: 'Okay, I wasn't all that wrong. We do have a chance."


Question: There was a line at the end of the script between Andre and Barbara: 'They were blood clot. Tomorrow would have been too late." When did you decide to cut that line out?

Christian Petzold: We constantly kept thinking about the ending and what actually happens there. And at some point it became clear that they don't say anything at all.

Nina Hoss: I think a space has to open up at the end. That was always my feeling. Everything has been brought back down to earth and made strangely harmonious. There was absolutely no discussion about not needing to speak this line. But I don't want to tell you what you're supposed to think at the end. I think it needs to remain open for personal interpretation.

Christian Petzold: There were many possibilities for the final scene: They could either sit next to each other, opposite each, or one of them could stand. Sitting opposite each other creates a very different kind of tension. It's a triangle, but it's not a family. This boy is still a patient. He is not the storyteller. Only her eyes and his eyes. And then we have what Nina describes: A door opens. Everything needs to blow through.

Barbara

Release Date: March 7th, 2013