Lars Rudolph: “Resisting means to focus on the beauty of humans, nature, culture”

 

Based on László Krasznahorkai’s multilayered novel The Melancholy of Resistance, the iconic film Werckmeister Harmonies by the prematurely lost Béla Tarr is being re-released in Greek cinemas.

On this occasion, we speak with its male lead, the acclaimed German stage and film actor Lars Rudolph.

A relatively inexperienced film actor back then, you were chosen as the male lead in Béla Tarr’s masterful Werckmeister Harmonies. To this day, this role has probably been your most accomplished and definitely most memorable.

First of all, who János Valuska actually was?

Thank you for your interesting questions.

On the one hand, János Valuska is a man delivering mail and newspapers in a small town.

On the other, as you delve into László Krasznahorkai’s beautiful novel, he becomes a sort of an angel.

I don’t know if he even understands humanity, but he nevertheless is a very innocent, young, good person.

He’s in conversation with the music professor György Eszter -played by the late Peter Fitz- about the German organist, music theorist, and composer of the Baroque era Andreas Werckmeister and the chromatic system that he had invented.

He’s also a very passive human being, not actively engaged in politics.

To what extent has incarnating him shaped your outlook on acting?

After Werckmeister Harmonies was finished, I had the chance to travel to festivals and to participate in castings, even for Hollywood films. I was still a very young, inexperienced actor, though.

I had nevertheless worked with other directors in theatre, such as Frank Castorf. I had also received the prize for the Best Young Actor in Germany for my debut film, Jan Ralske’s Not A Love Song.

I learned a lot about acting step by step, through workshops with American film coaches. Later on, I also played in theatre in Berlin and in Zurich under the direction of Christoph Marthaler.

So, little by little I somehow became an actor.

How would you describe Tarr as a director on set as well as outside it?

I’d like to tell you how I initially met Béla.

He was teaching in the Film School in Berlin. I was a young actor at the time, working with many colleagues in the School.

During the shooting for a scene in a film, there was in the script a brutal fight between the character played by me and the one impersonated by a woman actress.

By accident, I hit her very hard and broke the membrane of her left ear. She had to go to the doctor. All of the other students blamed me for this. I was very sorry.

Béla was in the audience and he was the only person who told me that it wasn’t my fault and that she was in part responsible because she was very stiff as an actress. “If you are a good actor, you can play with an accident,” he explained me.

He was in fact watching me the whole time during the shooting. I could tell from the way he was watching that he wanted me to play in this student film.

Maybe two years later, he called me and told me: “Lars, I have a script for you. The day I found you was when I knew that I could a write a film with Krasznahorkai. You are Valuska,” he concluded.  

When we started filming, I didn’t know anything about Béla and his films.

The shooting of Werckmeister Harmonies actually commenced on a cold winter day in Budapest with the hospital scene, where the mob beats up the elderly patients in a psychiatry ward.

According to Béla, there weren’t enough film rolls for the shooting. “Glue these rolls together!” I urged him. “Lars, don’t you know my movies?” he asked me. “No, I don’t,” I responded honestly. “We cannot go home!” But we went home. I was very angry.

Before resuming the shooting, I watched Sátántangó. Then, I understood his films.

It took us a few months to start over and the whole process lasted three years because of several issues: many camera people were drunk, one producer committed suicide. I think I flew to Budapest around forty times.

After my initial anger at Béla, we didn’t fight. He was a kind person and always nice to me and to the rest of the crew. He had a lot of patience. “Just walk, Lars, don’t do anything. Just be Valuska,” he was instructing me. I tried to, and made it.

Lars Rudolph

The film is based on László Krasznahorkai’s novel The Melancholy of Resistance, “a comedy of apocalypse, a book about a God that not only failed but didn’t even turn up for the exam,” according to James Wood.

How did you read the book at the time and to what extent has this reading evolved ever since?

I first read the novel during the preparation and loved it very much. After Béla died, I participated in some readings of the book with my music group in Berlin. The opening passage was incredible, as were the many colors the lead character has.

May the novel -as well as the film- be approached as a critique of authoritarianism and the pitfalls -even failure- of revolution?

I think it’s a critique on that. Béla, Krasznahorkai and Valuska believed in individual responsibility.

See how Valuska cared about the old men in the psychiatry ward or about his newspapers, was terrified by the aggression of the mob and ended up powerless and locked up in a mental institution.

Béla loved Thomas Bernhardt’s world and Valuska believed in the relationship with one’s family, friends, those you can talk to and also with the audience.

Béla also loved teaching, especially during the last fifteen years of his life. “Watch what’s there, watch the slow movement,” he used to teach his students. He launched the “Film Factory” program in Sarajevo in 2013.

His funeral was held in February in Budapest. Eight gravediggers shoveled the coffin into the Earth. Time didn’t exist for, maybe, ten minutes. You just heard the sound the Earth while receiving the coffin.

On the same night, we had a celebration only with his students. I wasn’t acquainted with all of them, but it was very beautiful to get to know them on that occasion.

From an existential, historic and political perspective, why may resistance be melancholic?

In Krasznahorkai’s novel there are all these weird, aggressive men following a secret order for destruction. Resisting to that, it’s just a melancholic and sad way of being and eventually becoming crazy.

As you read in the news, in Europe there’s still a right-wing, conservative and anti-foreign sentiment. You go crazy if you listen to the news all day long, especially in these times of psychotic politics.

Europe has, nevertheless, always been a mix of people who come and go, and change. That’s the interesting thing about people, art and ideas: they evolve and change.

Resisting means to focus on the beauty of humans, nature, birds, animals, culture.

At the moment I’m in the Alps with friends, walking all day until we are drained of our powers.

Hanna Schygulla, Lars Rudolph

To my mind, the whale is an unbearably sad -and probably infinitely wise- creature. What does it signify, according to you?

The whale contains a spirit that somehow changes the people, the town and the country. In one respect, this change is deadly and destructive, in another it signals the birth of new ideas.

The whale itself is a very peaceful animal, though, and symbolizes the beauty of a strange, unknown nature. So, a whale found in a town creates a more intense sensation compared to the one it would create if living by the seaside.

How do you define “arthouse cinema” in the era of AI both in European context, and on a global scale? Is controversial AI a tool of liberation -or experimentation, at least- or of submission?

There’s a lot of beauty in the movies, in the history of men and women. The art of storytelling is so incredible, almost as perfect as a beautiful flower.

I sometimes use AI to ask things. I know there’s a million of jobs going down the drain because of it.

The human race will probably die one day in the same way it was born. We will not live forever. As I’m getting old, I’m lucky that I will not witness the end happening.

You’re, nevertheless, turning 60 in August. Looking back on a modest career spanning more than 4 decades, what have you enjoyed the most, what has -perhaps- eluded you and what would you wish to explore more fully in the future?

Being a trumpet player and a musician myself, I do a lot of improvised music these days. I’ve also joined a theatrical group in Berlin which starts in September.

I’m still engaged in film and TV series, as well, when I like the role, the character that I’m offered. Luckily, I like the characters most of the time.

Heartfelt thanks to Lars Rudolph for his time and for granting me the permission to use his photograph.

Béla Tarr’s film Werckmeister Harmonies is being screened in Greek cinemas starting July 16, in a re-release by the newly established distribution company “Amarcord”.