German filmmaker Wim Wenders says he stands by his comments about the separation of politics and filmmakers at the Berlin Film Festival this year.
“I could repeat the same thing I said then. I could be more explicit,” said Wenders in the press conference for his new film From Inside Out – The Architecture of Peter Zumthor, which has its world premiere today in Venice Open (formerly out of competition). “What I said then is that filmmakers, we are the opposite of politicians. We have empathy. Politics works without empathy. That’s all I said.”
”We have a very different thing,” said Wenders in response to a question from The Guardian on the issue. ”We are not working with the mindset of politicians. We are working with the mindset of empathetic people, and we are into changing things. Politics are into confirming what is, and that’s what I said, and it was quoted as ‘we have to stay out of politics’, which was clearly not what I said because it’s not what I said now, and I said the same thing then.”
”The frame of filmmakers is a different mindset than the mindset of politicians, and we should not work with their mindset. We work with a different set of rules. I say that again, and I hope you’re not misquoting me, and saying ‘we have to stay out of politics’ because we do the opposite. We are the antidote.”
The issue arose following Wenders’ discussion of politics in the context of his new documentary, which explores the work and philosophy of Swiss architect Zumthor.
”Politics and architecture are linked in many ways,” said Wenders. “Today most buildings are prefabricated, because it’s easier, faster, more efficient. Peter’s buildings are the opposite – they’re handmade. Every one is unique; they are all prototypes of an architecture that didn’t exist before. So politics does not necessarily agree with that idea.”
Wenders cited a building Zumthor was going to make on the site of a former Nazi headquarters in the middle of Berlin for the Schutzstaffel (SS). Wenders said Zumthor had begun work on the project before it was abandoned by the city of Berlin, supposedly for cost reasons.
“In hindsight, you realise they didn’t stop it because it was too expensive,” said Wenders. “They stopped it because they felt it was no longer necessary, because they already had the Holocaust memorial and the Jewish museum, and they figured they had served history enough.”
”The political act was to make the place invisible,” said Wenders. “The place doesn’t speak anymore, and politics doesn’t want places to speak; politics wants to control what they show.”
The German filmmaker also discussed the similarities between Zumthor’s flexible style and his own filmmaking processes.
“I’m convinced that a movie is not something that is done when you have a script,” said Wenders. ”Most movies today are a product, and the product is defined by the script. In my book, the script does not define the product, the script is a suggestion. The truth of the story of the movie only appears in the act of shooting.
”I demand that whoever helps me make [a film] accepts that it may be different, and I can only work it out in the making. A movie and story is something I can only believe in if I live it. If any changes happen, so be it.”
”The whole purpose of having movies is to explore; i realised that was Peter’s approach [to architecture].”
From Inside Out is produced by Karsten Brunig and Wenders for Road Movies, with Marc Schmidheiny, Christoph Daniel, Dario Suter, and Joel Brandeis for DCM. HanWay Films handles world sales.
Venice Film Festival runs until Saturday, September 12.