Martina's comment about the shooting
In a television interview Michael Caine once compared an actor's
accurate work with that of a surgeon. When performing in a theatre
the actor has to be like a surgeon with his scalpel, when standing
in front of the camera he has to be like one with laser.
I learned the meaning of this during my tango-stairs-scene: Ricarda,
my role as alcoholic member of the cucumber troop, was meant to
run from A to B, driven by her thirst for revenge, to denunciate
the rest of the troop through phone calls. In order to do so she
has to pass all stairs made available by our location. As a tango
scene, accompanied by music, it was meant to look funny. So together
with a choreograph I settled down to work and started with practising
tango steps to that music. After some time, however, we were supposed
to start thinking in a more scenic way which soon led to the end
of our co-operation as we did not have any ideas except for placing
tango steps on stairs.
The next choreograph and I, we produced ideas and figures en masse,
yet we did not get beyond the first stairway. When showing it
to Clemens he criticized that the narcissism of this scene rested
unbroken. After one short moment of losing herself in her figures
Ricarda had to wake up again and to remember what she had meant
to do: to make phone calls as fast as possible. Before ending
our co-operation this self-assured choreograph made a revealing
comment: she did not understand anyway why a character in such
a hurry is dancing tango when she wants to make a telephone call.
Anyone who does not understand this will hardly understand the
whole movie.
The third choreograph invented wonderful professional figures.
Unfortunately, being in the first place an actress and not a dancer,
I was not able to realize them.
With the fourth choreograph at last, humorous, flexible and patient
Romi Schmidt, we managed to amputate the amount of figures to
a level bringing the essentials on the spot. Laser-precisely.
