- 5 weeks ago
Director Agnieszka Holland chats with THR's Lily Ford to talk all about her Toronto-premiering biopic, 'Franz,' during a THR Frontrunners conversation.
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00:00You mentioned when you were working on the trial, you were arrogant to think you knew Kafka as well
00:04as you did then. Do you still feel that same way now? That I'm arrogant? Absolutely.
00:17Such an honour to be here with you and talk about what a masterpiece of a film, France, is. We're
00:24going to get into the weeds of it all in the next half an hour or so, as much as I can do. But I feel
00:31like the most natural place to start is your introduction to Franz Kafka. You read him as a
00:38teenager? Yeah, I read him as a teenager. Many teenagers read Franz Kafka. After growing, the
00:46people normally are less and less intelligent, as we all know. So rarely I met somebody who started
00:54Kafka at age 35 or 40, maybe some of you. But I read him for the first time when I was
01:0240, between 14 and 15. And it was the trial, which was some kind of the shock to me because
01:10it was so different from that psychological, realistic, great literature like Dostoevsky,
01:17Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hugo, Stendhal, I read before. And it was understandable. Everything
01:25was logical. It was, you know, it was accessible. And then I read the trial and it wasn't the
01:33fairytale, it wasn't the horror story. It was coldly realistic, but at the same time it was
01:40completely different. And the kind of psychology didn't exist there. And, but it was about the
01:47human condition so much that after I started to read another short stories and after the
01:53letters to Milena and after his diaries, and when I decided to become a film director and
02:00go to the film school, I picked Prague, Czechoslovakia then. And one of the reasons, not only, but one
02:08of the reason was the city of Franz Kafka. And I felt that I understand him, that I am some
02:16kind of his sister or something, that I can take care of him. And in 1980, I directed together
02:25with my ex-husband. I adapted and then we directed the trial for Polish television. And that it
02:33was very interesting experience, artistically, creatively and intellectually, because we had
02:39to deconstruct it and reconstruct it in with the new key and for another medium. And I think
02:49the trial is possible to adapt, not all of his writing is possible to adapt, very few actually
02:56of his stories are adaptable. But the trial is, and I had the impression that I found the key.
03:03So I was very proud that it's much better than what Orson Welles did. Fortunately, you cannot
03:13see if I'm right or wrong, because it's not accessible. It was shot in the 80s for Polish
03:18television. So you can watch it on some obscure DVD eventually. But it was it was very important
03:27experience for me doing that. And finally, you know, when I started go to Prague and shoot the film
03:36there, which had been produced by Czech producers. And Prague became my like second place again.
03:48And I met that new presence of Franz Kafka in Prague, totally different, you've seen it on the film,
03:56it somehow triggered in me the desire to look for him. And to I didn't know if I can find him,
04:05but I wanted to really make that process of looking for France, which have been
04:15have been somehow buried by, on one hand, a lot of very important and very intelligent and very
04:24scientific books, biographies and analysis and so on, especially with the incoming anniversary of the
04:31one hundred of his dead. It was so many of them again, that I had the impression that that fragile
04:39figure of that man just disappeared. And on another hand, became the main tourist attraction
04:45in Prague. And every place you can find the names of Kafka, the cafes of Kafka. Burger doesn't exist anymore,
04:56now it's falafel. But still you have plenty of that over present kitsch, but in the same time also some
05:07very, you know, spirited inventions and monuments like the turning head. So I started to ask myself
05:18the question, if Franz will wake up and see all of that, what will be his reaction? Because he was so shy
05:28and he didn't want to survive after he's dead. He didn't want to ask his friends to burn his writing,
05:36his manuscripts. And suddenly, every place he became the brand, the mark, the icon. And
05:42I'm not sure what will be his reaction. I'm pretty sure that he would like that sculpture of David
05:51Czerny, that big turning head, because he loved the new technology and cinema. And I was sure that his
06:00father will be the happiest man on the planet, if he sees it. Because finally, you know, his son,
06:08and what was the sorrow of his life, that his son is a failure. And suddenly he sees that he's a huge
06:15commercial successor. I'm sorry that Herman cannot see it. So we want to bring him back as well.
06:24It's so good. It's so good. And it's so clever that sort of those contemporary scenes, this jarring
06:31commodification of his legacy, you know, interspersed with his life and what actually happened.
06:37A lot of actors, quite a few actors have played Franz Kafka on screen over the years.
06:46Where did Iden come from? Because he is just magnificent and relatively unknown before this.
06:52Completely unknown, actually.
06:57Yeah, you know, my friend and mentor, great Polish late director, Andrzej Wajda,
07:05used to say that the good director, you recognize if he has luck with the weather. It means on the day
07:12when you need sun, you have sun. It means you are a good director. And second, if you have the luck with
07:18the cast. So Idan, because you pronounce Idan, he was in some experimental theater. He made some short
07:32films with his friends from the film schools. And that it was practically. And when we decided with the
07:44screenwriter Mark Epstein to try to have that kind of narration, like layers, puzzles, you know, fragments.
07:53And it took quite long, it was quite a long process till we came to the moment when we thought
07:59it can work. And I felt that it can work eventually, if we will find the believable and
08:12not only not only physically relevant to the image we have about Franz Kafka, but also some kind of the
08:20soul of Franz Kafka actor. And frankly, I didn't believe, sorry Josef, that the actor can have it.
08:29But mostly actors, I love actors, by the way. And I know that they, that they are very generous and
08:37that they can give you a lot of their soul. But I was thinking here, it's not the regular acting,
08:47what I imagine. It is, it is the presence, it is some kind of the charisma, it is some kind of the,
08:54of the quiet sincerity and the mystery, which is. So I was thinking that the casting directors have to
09:02look for the poets, musicians, somebody, you know, from the area of art, but not the comedians.
09:10And our German co-producers hire the most famous, the legend of German casting, Miss Simone Barr. And
09:25after a few weeks, she sent me the first video. It was three actors and Idan was there. So I was thinking
09:35it's not possible. Just that guy not only looks like Franz Kafka, but also he has that kind of the
09:43something specially different. And I wrote to Simone to, and asking to organize the meeting because
09:51she was in Berlin, he was in Germany, I was in Prague, I think. And she didn't answer me for one week,
09:59two weeks. On the third week, I became a bit nervous and also a bit angry that, you know, that what it
10:05means we are in a hurry. And so I called German producers and they said to me that she just died.
10:14She was, yeah, she was sick. She had cancer, but no one knew. And anyway, the people didn't in the,
10:21in the industry didn't know. And so her collaborators took over and organized the meeting with Idan and
10:31other actors after it was normal casting process. But I told to myself there's something like slightly
10:38metaphysical that Idan was her last gift to us, to the German cinema and to the cinema.
10:47Yeah. He was so wonderful and such a testament to everyone involved. His performance.
10:55I just hope for him that he will not have Franz Kafka glued to his face forever,
11:02which is a dangerous, but maybe he will survive it. I hope he will.
11:06What kind of conversations did you have with him about building his Kafka? What was, what was fact and
11:13what was interpretation? Or he read some Kafka in, you know, in the school, but he was not very knowledgeable.
11:23And, and he told me that he will be preparing himself. And after it was actually six months before
11:31we started the shooting, when he was cast. So he had six months to think about it, which was not
11:37very healthy, I think. So he decided that he will lock himself in the apartment and read Kafka starting
11:44from the first work, after, you know, the novels, after the longer novels, after the letters and after
11:52the diaries. And during that period, he will not be leaving his apartment in day. He will be working only
11:59in night. I, I found it quite silly. And I told him, I have a better idea. You have, you know, to,
12:05you have to watch the tennis player, Rafael Nadal, when he plays tennis. It's perfectly Kafka. It's like,
12:16but he did what he wanted to do. And apparently it helped him. I was a little worried because I told him,
12:23you know, there is some kind of the stereotype when you are showing Kafka, when you are thinking
12:28about Kafka, you have that expressionistic black and white, dark, gloomy, foggy presence. And
12:35somebody who has like a little crooked, crooked body. And I wanted to put the light on him and give
12:44him the colors and bring him to life and show that, that life is more colorful and complex and,
12:51and, and rich actually that only that very, you know, one dimensional image.
13:01But, you know, it was, after it was very much instinctive work, it means from him and from me,
13:07I tried, it's a question of the trust with the actors. I'm not giving a lot of notes, not normally.
13:15Josef played the main role in my previous film,
13:19Charlatan, and he, it was your first, actually, no?
13:24Future film.
13:27Second one, yeah, but you have been, you've been very young, so
13:32it was first really good, right?
13:36That's a really good one.
13:37I mean, this is a beautifully fragmented film. And as, as we've discussed, has those, those
13:44current day scenes interspersed with his letters and his life. And then also, as you've just seen
13:50this, this dramatization of in the penal colony.
13:55Why, obviously, you've, you've, you've done the trial, why this short story and not the metamorphosis
14:01or any, any of the others? Why that one?
14:04It was three reasons.
14:07One, it was that it's practically only one you can really dramatize visually.
14:15I think so.
14:17Second, it was one of the first novel he read in public, and the reactions have been like that.
14:25And I really had the ambition to recreate the same feelings from the, among the audience in the theater,
14:31as the people listening to his lecture had 100 years ago, 110 years ago.
14:41And it's much more difficult for me than it was for him, because the people are terribly blasé
14:47with the violence.
14:50You felt uncomfortable when watching it?
14:53Yes?
14:54Yes?
14:54Yes.
14:54Yes?
14:55Yes.
14:55Yes.
14:55Good.
14:57When we, we showed the cut for the television, the co-producers from the television and the
15:03distributors, they asked us to short it or maybe cut this scene. So I was really,
15:09felt very happy that it means it works. But of course, it's, it's a bit risky. But you know,
15:14the main reason was that, that novel somehow was extremely important, especially in German,
15:23after the Second World War. Actually, it was one of those pieces which made Kafka after the Second
15:30World War globally famous as some kind of the prophet. That he, like, imagined that he was a
15:38visionary who've seen that dehumanized and legalized in the same time society of the cruelty and, and violence. And so I, I thought that it's important in the film, which is, it's not speaking about politics or about today, openly, at least not directly,
16:04to show that, that, that boldness and that despair, which, which, which you can feel from that piece.
16:15This word that's, I mean, Kafkaesque that we see a lot, I actually, in preparation for this, I wanted to look at the definition of Kafkaesque and instead I just found lots of think pieces slamming our overuse of the word Kafkaesque.
16:28the word Kafkaesque. What does that word mean to you? And, and how is it captured?
16:33Kafkaesque? Kafkaesque. And how is it captured?
16:34Well, it means everything and nothing, you know, it means, because it, it, anything which is bizarre or anything which has to do with the bureaucracy or anything which is surreal or anything which is unpleasant, you can put that label on that.
16:52That, which is a great success of Kafkaesque. And in the same time, it's his failure, you know, because the people are somehow, you know, are simplifying him using the term and for everything practically. But, you know, it, it, it, it's a success. It's a brand.
17:11And it helps us maybe a bit to, not to understand the reality, but to speak about it.
17:18What do you think the cliches about Kafka miss about the man and his work?
17:26You know, the cliches are changing a bit. I was talking already about the visualization of Kafka and, and his word.
17:39And I think that it, it's something about Kafka's writing, which is impossible to grab, frankly. And I read a lot, a lot of, of the interpretations and the, I had my own opinions with, in slightly changing with the time, but not too much.
18:00And I know that the actualizations of the meaning, the reading of his, of his, of his meanings is changing with the time we are living in.
18:09It was different in twenties. It was different in thirties. It was very different after, after the second world war and the Holocaust.
18:18It was, in fifties, it was very much about existentialism. It was very much about the alienation.
18:26He became the, the Pope of the alienation for the existentialist, like, like Jean Paul Sartre or Albert Camus and others.
18:37Uh, after it was the long period when he was some kind of the classic, a little boring, you know, and actually when, um, Donald Trump won the elections for the first time, it was few books, which suddenly pop up on the cells of the Amazon, American Amazon.
18:57It was, uh, it was Orwell. It was Philip Roth with plot against America and it was Kafka.
19:03So suddenly he became like, uh, dystopic writer, which, uh, he, a bit is, but in the same time, I think actually that today some of his, uh, novels like The Trial especially are extremely relevant because, um, we've been believing for the quiet long time in the success of liberal democracy and state of democracy.
19:26And state of law and, um, human rights. And now we see that it's over so that state and especially the system institutions of the law, which are again, arbitrary and, and dehumanized when the, uh, anyone can be, um, accused and anyone can be guilty.
19:52And he even doesn't have the full name. Uh, so it, it, it, it becomes very relevant, but again, to, to, to, to, to, to putting him into that only dimension, it's, it's wrong.
20:07It's betraying. It's betraying something which is behind. So it is a bit also like a poetry and it's a bit like the religious writing, uh, in the same time without religion.
20:19Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh
20:49through the generations Talmud I will never find the answer to the meaning but
20:55they you know it's a bit like that but I wanted really to look into his eyes
21:00frankly I've so much to ask about everything you just said and I put to
21:08your point about about politics obviously as you said this isn't an
21:11openly political film but it's so hard to have conversations about film and art
21:16in general now nowadays without talking about our political landscape and maybe
21:23this is just you elaborating on your last point but I know you can answer this
21:27with with an abundance of personal experience as well how can Kafka help us
21:33deal with artistic oppression and the rise of authoritarianism today I don't
21:42know you have to ask him he had he had very unexpected reactions to some things
21:50you know to also to other literature or something or to the movies I shown him
21:55watching Max Linder I think and he loved and that kind of the cinema so we don't
22:00know really but what what was in characteristic about him it was his
22:07totally like fluid identity that he was no place home really even if he spent
22:15practically entire life in Prague but he was born in Austria Hungarian Empire and
22:22he was a citizen of Emperor Franz Josef but he wasn't Austrian he wasn't Hungarian he
22:29was he lived in Prague but he was not Czech and for the Germans he was Czech Jew for the
22:35Czechs he was German Jew for the Jews he was bad Jew so I love that kind of
22:43identity you know and I share it with him so totally and and you said this at the
22:51beginning but just to ask a bit in maybe in a bit more depth you don't think that
22:56Kafka would enjoy the level of fame that he has reached today well you know when
23:02he was alive he would not but maybe you know after spending hundred years is some
23:07kind of the abyss maybe now to come out and see all that fame who knows I
23:17remember and I I was a friend with another Czech great writer Václav Havel who
23:27became the president of Czechoslovakia the first free Czechoslovakia and after
23:33Czech Republic and he was before he was a dissident and he was
23:37quite like shy man and he didn't want the fame but when the revolution came and
23:43the wall the communists fell down the Czechs who didn't know him too much
23:50before he was a writer some knew him as a writer some knew him as a dissident but
23:55he didn't have that fame global fame and suddenly he had it he became the like
24:02rock star from one day to another and in that moment I in and it the decisions
24:08had to be made if he will be the president or not and I spent with him
24:15two days and two nights when we've been going from one place to other with the
24:20group of his friends and everybody recognized him suddenly everybody he
24:25never had it before and I I I've seen that he's enjoying it really and he told
24:33me well if I will be president I will be only for six months to make the passage
24:39from the from the communists to the democracy and after I will resign the
24:46writing I said no you like it too much already and I was right yeah which wasn't
24:53good for him actually it was probably good for the country and but not for him
24:58personally I think but but it was that fame has something you know maybe France
25:03will enjoy it who knows I read that you mentioned when you were working on the
25:09trial all the way back in in the 80s that you were you were arrogant to think
25:14you knew Kafka as well as you did then do you still feel that same way now that I'm
25:19arrogant absolutely absolutely not what it keeps me alive and going what was the
25:29budget and what did you how did you shoot it now what the budget the budget was
25:33around seven seven and a half millions euro mm-hmm not not not pounds we've been
25:43shooting in Prague and and in Berlin over 42 days what camera no it was video it was
25:57video about some special you know lenses and some special special also camera a
26:05little different like it has different look than when the cinematographer and me
26:11we wanted that it looks a little more like VGS then you know the the the
26:17contemporary thing but we didn't push it too far I am you know it's several like
26:22tricks like stylistic tricks or stylistic storytelling some ideas which can in
26:30some point to this distance the viewer from from the story from him and then
26:36actually we had more of that and after we take it away because we tried to find the
26:40balance between kind of intelligent essay and the sensual and you know emotional storytelling
26:49does anyone else have any questions yeah can you speak about the screenwriting decision
26:57of having different characters speak to camera looked into the camera
27:02mm-hmm well when in it was sharkas who is present here in idea and and mine the
27:15conversation came that we maybe can try to make the film about France and and I got
27:21very excited and and you know and then and scared a bit and we decided to go to
27:26Marek Epstein who is a screenwriter who wrote our common previous film the
27:31charlatan and he's very skilled very sensitive very good writer but quite
27:35classical in his you know approach so I I told him that I see it differently and
27:41he tried to you know when you are doing the biopic it's like two ways so of doing
27:47the classical biopics all it will be all the life practically sometimes linear
27:52sometimes with the flashbacks and choosing the most important moments of
27:57course and trying to fulfill you know the gaps with the informations which are
28:02necessary or you choose one particular period and you try to like reflect in
28:09that period everything in both cases about 50% of the energy in my opinion and
28:17they made some also biographies are going into the staging and dramatizing the
28:23informations and I wanted to avoid it I didn't want the informations and some
28:30will have been necessary of course especially if you are speaking about the
28:34genius you need to give some info and we've been thinking I when Marek when he
28:40started to write his first ideas was very classical and he wrote some kind of
28:46this sketch and I told you through the garbage it's really not not good it has to
28:52be punky you know so he said punky okay I'm but he said okay but you know I'm not
28:58talented and I'm not intellectual and I know nothing about etc is this kind of the
29:03guy and but after he you know started to go into that and we've been we've been
29:10saying that maybe we'll do a bit like the fake documentary that some informations or
29:17some opinions or some points of view it will be not staging it and not putting
29:22to the dramatize scene but just straight into the camera which is very effective
29:27and economical way of passing the info so it was that idea after watching watching
29:36the camera no I was directly also house of cards you know where the guy is
29:43watching the camera after it was in the office so the TV series are using that for
29:48breaking the fourth world thing and I was not sure if it's not you know too much
29:56but from from Kafka from France that he's watching the camera but after you know when
30:04we had it in plan when in discussions with the cinematographer and the production designer
30:11we've been spending quite long time you know to watching also the references and
30:15watching the biographical films and telling that all they are not good which was arrogant and pretentious
30:23and and after we watched just by chance Peter Watkins
30:31have you seen it? Peter Watkins is British director who was a genius he just died in 90s few weeks ago I think
30:44and I was like flabbergasted you say flabbergasted flabbergasted yeah that is the word I cannot remember
30:53and we've been watching it for very bad quality because no one made the remastering of his work
31:00and after I watched everything he did and so Peter Watkins watch his work Mike agrees with me
31:07I screened his the one about the common common yeah so anyway he used that in Moon the
31:17like fake documentary about Edvard Munch the painter and and so it was in the synergy we didn't
31:28stole it from him because we had it in our you know script but it proved to me that it has
31:34incredible force strength if you are using it in the right way so we shot more of that and after
31:42we balanced yes just leave on that I will show you know what inspired you to have so many different
31:51styles because you have the characters looking at us you also have Kafka looking at us you have
31:55thought in a modern setting people in the world in setting where Kafka is in there I mean there's so
32:01many styles what inspired you to have all of them well I thought I I I felt that it's relevant to to that
32:09character that you cannot tell him in just one way and we had plenty of ideas so yeah it was very
32:21inspiring you know when we've been shooting or also we've we've been improvising or something happened
32:27you know which inspired us so we say why not to shoot it so we shot it so we shot the things which
32:33wasn't in the script and after the film became what it is in the editing process very much and the best
32:42was an energy coming from the crew I love working with the Czech crew and they are very good professionals
32:48and very like nice people mostly but this time that script was really difficult for some people who
32:56didn't do something like that before and so they not understood everything what we are really doing
33:05but it was extremely joyful for them they said that they have impressions that every day they are
33:10shooting different movie so thank you so much everyone for being here and thank you Agnieszka thank you
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