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Panel on Resistance in Film
Contributed by Sara Schieron
Tuesday, 17 January 2006
There
is a German Proverb that reads: "As fast as laws are devised, their
evasion is contrived". So appropriate is that proverb in light of
today's panel discussion on the issue of Resistance in Film.
Put on by the Goethe Institute as part of it Berlin & Beyond film
festival, this panel was moderated in the Goethe Institute's Auditorium
at 530 Bush Street, and boasted standing room only attendance. Manned
(and womanned) by notable directors, this panel included the filmmaker
receiving the festival's lifetime achievement award, Michael Verhoeven,
Marc Rothemund, director of the festival's opening night film and
German Oscar sensation SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS, Ben Heisenberg,
director of this year's "Best 1st Feature Award" NETTO and Berkeley
based documentarian Deborah Kaufman, director of THIRST, BLACKS AND
JEWS and SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY.
Emphasizing the role of the activist in resistance, Verhoeven said,
"Resistance is about having a strong sense of self and a strong sense
of your surroundings." Rothmund added to this, "I feel it's the people
who love life that are not afraid to give theirs up for others." But
not all of the filmmakers on the panel dealt with the act of resistance
as an act of unobstructed heroism. Some, particularly Kaufman, took to
discussing the issue of resistance as an action either "acceptable" or
"unacceptable" to capture or broadcast. "If we look at the work of
Michael Moore, who is our most recognized activist filmmaker, and then
compare that to a narrative film like Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, we
can see the effects of film as a mode of resistance. Lee's film mostly
relies on the engagement of the audience to make its message. While
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN isn't a film about resistance, it accomplishes a lot
of the same goals and may ultimately effect greater change because of
this engagement with its audience." Making note of the bans of
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN from theatres in Utah, she commented upon the film's
ability to tap into this "acceptable resistance", as well as the way
this brand of resistance plays out in documentary film. The need to
acquire distribution is always a pressing issue to filmmakers as the
life of the film depends upon it. To draw distribution, a documentary's
capacity to salaciously capture sensational "real life" resistance is a
trait that filmmakers must yield to in order to attract the attention
they require to draw audiences. "We've all seen the image of the
student standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square," Kaufman
said, "but what we haven't seen is the image of Rachel Quarry standing
in front of a tank, demonstrating against house demolitions in Guiza.
Perhaps we haven't seen that picture because it's appropriate
resistance."
Relating to the issue of appropriateness, I asked a question about the
restrictions of film form on storytelling and character, and whether
those restrictions hinder or benefit the goals of resistance.
"Necessarily", I said, "characters undergo some mythologizing or
romanticizing in the process of being depicted. How much mythologizing
do you think happens in stories of resistance and do you feel such
mythologizing undermines the goals of resistance?"
Shamefully, I immediately felt that I offended Marc Rothemund. Having
used an example of such mythologizing from his film SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE
FINAL DAYS, I may have appeared to direct my question to him. Sensing
this, he responded that he had no intention of mythologizing his
protagonist Sophie Scholl. His goal was to bring to light new
historical evidence. So, though he was avoiding mythologizing, I felt
he did represent Sophie Scholl as a heroin. She's a martyr after all,
and any film dedicated to the story of a woman unjustly punished is
simply bound to depict a heroin. By the rules of form alone this should
be the case. Rothemund said, "The structure of filmmaking tends towards
the heroic model. The critics in Germany said that the sunlight in my
film was ridiculous and that one man can't overturn the government."
And Kaufman added: But the idea of being heroic in a situation like the
Third Reich is double pronged: Hitler is singular and demonized and the
problem calls for a single hero to take him down."
Appealing to this, Ben Heisenberg, winner of the Best 1st Feature award
at the fest, added, "I would think that to create a film that was
completely resistant, the form would have to resist emotionalizing. I
would think the form would have to be resistant as well as the
content." To which Verhoeven added, "In France if you make a film
that's hard to watch, a million people attend. If you show that film in
Germany, ten thousand come." And finally, Kaufman, bridging the gap,
said, "It's the Sword of Damocles in Film. Who will distribute the film
and who will come to see it." In the end, if the film isn't seen, the
seeds of resistance can't be spread.
Asserting once again, the motive for the agenda of resistance,
Rothemund chimed in. "Resistance is also the resistance to passivity.
Resistance happens in one person too, when that person resists
laziness." To which Heisenberg included, "one can also resist in the
manner of Gorbachev. He worked his way into a powerful, political role
and once he was in the center, he began changing things." But the
veteran of the group sounded the final bell. Verhoeven, identifying
part of the goal of resistance as an historical model said, "When I was
going to school, there was never any talk of resistance. And when the
Gestapo recorded all of the acts of resistance, there were thousands of
acts during the Reich, of people resisting the Reich. The Gestapo
didn't write the acts down to persecute, only to know what the people
were doing. Why didn't we talk about that in school? It would have made
all of us feel so much better."
Festivals 
