Alle som har sittet og basket med målbeskrivelsen i sin søknad til NFI vet at det kan være vanskelig å definere hva man vil med en film. Det som (kanskje) kom til i en intuitiv malstrøm av inspirasjon skal nå analyseres og til sammen peke mot et noe, som du er nødt til å definere med utilstrekkelige ord. Dette er sikkert en sunn øvelse i bunn og grunn, men problemet er at man aldri helt klarer å glemme hvem man skriver til, nemlig de som sitter på pengene. Skattebetalernes penger. Denne vage massen av alle arbeidende i kongeriket Norge, som gjerne lar høre fra seg gjennom det politiske partiet FRP.

Men hva skriver man da, til NFI, som i bunn og grunn er den man må tilfredsstille? Er det nok at man vil utforske sitt personlige uttrykk? Holde et speil opp for verden? Voldta publikum til selvstendighet, slik Michael Haneke ville med sine tidlige filmer? Prosessen med dokumentet blir fort en kamp med et superego som vil være flink og smart.

Jeg: For meg er filmen på mange måter som en jazzkomposisjon som improviserer over temaet Forbudt kjærlighet.

Superego: Det er ikke å ville noe.

Jeg: Okay… Jeg ønsker å utforske grenseoverskridende kjærlighet fra ulike perspektiv.

Superego: Så det er en slags moderne Anna Karenina?

Jeg: Tolstoj? Jeg vil ikke virke innbilsk.

Superego: Du vil ikke virke belest heller?

Jeg: Hva ville Tolstoj med Anna Karenina da?

Superego: Gå inn på Ask Jeeves.

 For å bli inspirert til å skrive en mer opplyst målbeskrivelse slo vi opp i vår lille oransje bok igjen, nemlig Directors Master Class av Laurent Tirard. Hva vil disse regissørene med filmene sine?

Wim Wenders:

There are two ways of making a film, or, if you prefer, two reasons for doing it. The first consists of having a very clear idea and expressing it through the film. The second consists of making the film to discover what you are attempting to say. Personally, I have always been torn between these two approaches. And I have tried them both.

 As for knowing for whom you’re making it, I think that someone who shoots films for the images alone does so for his own benefit. After all, the perfection of an image, the power of an image, is an extremely personal notion, wheras telling a story is, by definition, an act of communication. Someone who attempts to tell a story neccesarily needs an audience. And as I’ve gradully turned towards storytelling, I’ve started making my films for the audience. There again, I could never define my audience. I consider it a gathering of wider than my circle of friends. Therefore, I believe in general , I make a film for my friends – in other words primarily for those who work on the film. They form my initial audience, and I try to ensure that the film interests them.

Claude Sautet:

You have to understand that the films that made me want to direct are American B movies of the forties and fifties. What I liked about them was their total lack of literary pretension. The directors simply filmed the actions of their characters with enough attention and compassion to bring them to life. As a result, of course, a large part of their personality was left in the dark. That’s what I liked, and I’ve always attempted to re-create that in my films. It’s what I call ”a portrait in motion” – in other words, a sort of snapshot that unavoidably, always remains incomplete or unfinished.

This is why I never start out with a story but with something more abstract that you could call atmosphere. In fact, everything begins with that jumbled obsession that I find hard to explain and that I try to sum up by imagining characters, by creating a relationship between them, and by trying to find the most intense point in this relationship – in other words, the moment of crisis. Once I have that, I have my theme. Then my work consists of exposing this theme through film techniques, delaying it, speeding it up, or hurling it forward, often by indirect means. And that’s how the climate is created.

Directors who manage to summarize their films always impress me. For example, if someone were to ask me what The things of life is about, I wouldn’t know how to reply other than to say, ”It’s about a guy who has a car accident.” Otherwise, I would go into endless detail.      

John Boorman:

I make films to explore. If I don´t know what a film is about, I go on to make it. Whereas if I know exactly what it is about, then I will loose interest in it. So it is the excitement of exploration which appeals to me, and the danger that’s involved in that, and you always hope that it’s going to lead to something really fresh, new, and original. The only moment when I know what a film is about is when I see it with an audience. And there is always surprises. When I made Hope and Glory which is about my childhood memories, it wasn’t until I saw it finished that I realized that my obsession with the Arthurian legend could be explained by the fact that my father’s best friend was in love with my mother.

Sydney Pollack:

I wouldn’t say I make films to tell stories, though. Not really. My principal interest is in relationships. To me relationships is a metaphor for everything else in life: politics, morality… everything. So basically, I make films to learn more about relationships. But I don’t make films to say something, because I wouldn’t know what to say. I think there are basically two kinds of filmmakers: those who know and understand a truth they want to communicate to the world, and those who are not quite sure what the answer to something is and who make films as a way to try and find out. That’a what I do.

Had I tried to second-guess what the audience wanted to see, however, I’m sure I would have failed, because it’s like trying to solve a very complex mathematical problem. So i make movies about things that fascinate me – about relationships, mostly, as I said earlier. I try to make films that raise questions more than give answers, films that might not really have a conclusion to them, because I don’t like it when one person is right and the other person is wrong. I mean, if that’s the case, it’s not worth making the movie, really.

For me, the interesting question is, how do you make a decision when both people have a valid point? I have no preconcieved ideas. I might have preconcieved ideas about certain moral acts, but not when it comes to the relationship between two characters. And the harder it is to determine who is right, the better the film, I think.

”Piker og pistoler” er en blogg av regiduoen Christoffer Lossius og Lars Åndheim.Tittelen refererer ikke til NRAs årlige kalenderutgivelse, men til nybølge-pioner Jean-Luc Godards definisjon av hva man trenger for å lage film. Bloggen vil ikke i særlig stor grad handle om Jean-Luc Godard. Men den vil handle mye om hva man trenger for å lage film.

Lossius og Åndheim er utdannet fiksjonsfilmregissører fra Film &TV-akademiet på NISS og jobber til daglig med reklame og musikkvideo i produksjonsselskapet Go Happy. På siden eier de og driver sitt eget selskap Filmfaktisk, hvor de for øyeblikket utvikler kortfilmer og sin spillefilmdebut.

Tidligere innlegg:

Se, han snakker

En filmskapers intuisjon