A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

Well, it took me a lot of time to figure that out. I think part of being a teenager is that you're so interested in forming your own identity and not being identified with your parents that you only see their bad side. One night when I was making this film, I was talking to Leslie [Thornton] about it, and said, "It just occurred to me that I learned some really good things from my parents." I was developing a better sense of myself; I was respecting myself more as a worker. I was proud that I could support myself, and I thought, "You know, this came from something; somebody taught me how to do this for myself, and it must have been them."

MacDonald:

You said at the screening tonight that you edited

The Ties That Bind

section by section, for seven hundred hours. The subtle interconnections between the imagery, the text, and the sound make it an easy film to see again and again.

Friedrich:

I was really scared about editing sound and picture. It was completely unknown territory for me. The temptation was to have this strong sound carry the image, but I was afraid of the image getting lost. I started with a forty-five-second bit (when she says she feels so horrible that she's a German) and inched my way along from there, going to a two-minute section, then to a five-minute section, and finally I could work on a ten-minute section comfortably.

I think part of my process as a filmmaker has been to start at a point where I think nothing is allowed, where you have to work with the barest minimum. I've needed to see what I can make from that minimum and then move in the other direction. I find I'm letting more and more things into my films now, and sometimes it worries me. I'm afraid I'm going to get to be too indulgent, too entertaining and engaging.

But I always want my films to be very sensuous. I want the rhythm and the images to be gratifying. I think it would be foolish, and false, for me to make a film simply in order to be "difficult," to respond to a certain part of the film world that expects that of a film. I enjoy going to films that are both sensual and entertaining, that engage me emotionally as well as intellectually. I'm so bored by most of the films that are made in response to current film theory, and I've never felt obliged to use that sort of language in my own work. I'm perfectly aware of all the pitfalls of the identification that happens when we watch narrative films, and I think that's an issue worthy of serious discussion. But I'd never deny the

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necessity and pleasure of storytelling, because I've learned so much from being engaged by other people's stories of their lives. I've always wanted to make films that are as emotionally honest as they can be, and then I hope that other people will learn something from seeing them or feel that a part of their own life is being honored in the films.

MacDonald:

While I understand the resistance of some filmmakers to the idea that watching films should be a pleasure, I sometimes have a suspicion about the "moral purity" of this stance. I mean, if you're against sensuality in film, you don't have to go through the painstaking process of learning how to create a sensual experience.

Friedrich:

Right, right. It's the same thing with humor. I really envy people who can make funny films. That's a great talent. I would love my next film to be funny to a certain degree, but that's very difficult to do. I think there's a difference between humor that you laugh at, and wit, where something is clever and surprising and pleasing in a more subtle way. I think there are witty moments in

Gently Down the Stream

and in

The Ties That Bind

.

MacDonald:

One of the things I found really interesting about

The Ties That Bind

is your mother's perspective on the arrival of the liberating allies. She goes into some detail about how they destroyed her house; you can feel how violated she felt by that.

Friedrich:

When I talked to my father about it, he said that as far as he was able to observe (and he was never in combat; he came in at the end of the war to work in the denazification program), the first soldiers to come in were the combat troops who had seen a lot of action and were just sick and tired of everything. They came through and went home. It was the service and supply guys who hadn't been in combat, who were looking for some kind of action, that caused trouble. The combat troops had probably gotten rid of a lot of the aggression they felt toward the Germans, but the supply guys were doing it this other way. My mother told me a story about two friends of hers, neighbors, who were raped and killed by American soldiers. I was going to use that story in the film, but I decided that what I had was strong enough. She had many stories about being harassed by American soldiers. She was almost raped one time but got away.

MacDonald: