A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

To come back to the issue of sex for a moment, in a lot of public discourse sex is defined as something anarchistic and divisive. The sex drive is what ideally unites two people in a very intense way, but it creates a great discord in the world at large, in the form of jealousy, hysteria, whatever. Sex is allowed to function in people's lives when they're young, when they don't have responsibilities; but once responsibilities set in, somehow it gets put on the back burner. Once people are married or coupled, sex with a person outside the marriage creates a terrible problem. I think the church is very aware of that and controls it. It knows that if it were to say that God loves sex as much as he loves anything elsego right ahead and enjoy yourselfit wouldn't be as successful in convincing people to live in strictly monogamous marriages. This idea is implicit in the film. You have this one woman who is part of a coherent community where becoming sexual puts her at great risk. You don't see a context for the other woman so you can never be sure whether she's just picking this nun up or whether she's looking for love and romance and a life happily ever after. That they come together at the end and that sex is what unites them doesn't mean the problem is solved. Although the end is very celebratory within the context of the film, there's still the possibility that in the long run sex will create the same problems for these women that it's created for other people.

MacDonald:

There's something almost sad about the fact that it takes so much conflict and self-questioning for this moment to happen. The bells going off at the end not only celebrate their union, but seem a campy way of laughing at our difficulties with sex: why is it so

difficult

all the time?

Friedrich:

Right! [laughter] Actually, some people have said, "Well, that nun sure looked like she knew what she was doing." I guess they feel she should have looked more awkward or innocent. Obviously, it would have made the scene much less erotic if I'd shown her fumbling around and complaining and saying, "Oh, don't!" I wanted that final scene to be beautifully choreographed. But I think there's some truth to their lack of awkwardness. All of the stuff that leads up to the moment when you're finally in bed with somebody is where most of the awkwardness and hysteria happens. A lot of times, once you're there, you only think, "God, what a relief! Let's go!"

MacDonald:

It's interesting that we see

Black Narcissus

within your black-and-white film. You may know that

Black Narcissus

won an Academy Award for best color.

Friedrich:

Oh really? I didn't know that, but the color is beautiful.

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The nun (Peggy Healey) is undressed by her lover (Ela Troyano)

in

Damned If You Don't

 (1987).

MacDonald:

Your critique of the film in

Damned If You Don't

doesn't allow the viewer to experience that film's sensuous levels.

Friedrich:

Well, that's not completely true. Or I hope it isn't. The way I frame the imagery, very close, is to me a way of appreciating the really high drama of

Black Narcissus

. A lot of narrative films seem to have some very exciting moments connected by a lot of filler, and it was fun to pare

Black Narcissus

down to the bone, to string the exciting moments together and really focus on the sexual hysteria at the core of the film. Powell and Pressburger used lighting to such great effect and created a lot of expression in the faces, which is all you have to work with when you're dealing with characters who are completely covered. I tried to bring some of that out.

Some people have reacted negatively to the roll bars that happen when you film from a TV screen. They think the roll bars are there because I had no control over the technology. When I saw

Black Narcissus

in London, I thought, "This is a fantastic film; I'm going to use it," and the next day I set up my camera and shot it. I came home, developed the film, and there were the roll bars. I thought, "Okay, I can either go back and work it so that there aren't roll bars or I can keep going the way I've begun." Once I had decided that the roll bars were part of the image, it became really interesting to edit for the rhythm of

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gestures within the shot, combined with the rhythm of the roll bars, combined with the cadence of the speech at the moment. It became an elaborate game to play, though my eyes were on the floor when I was done.

MacDonald:

One of the things that draws me to your films is their precise rhythmic control, which I connect with a certain tradition of sixties filmBrakhage, for example.

Friedrich:

Actually, a long time ago when Marjorie Keller first showed

Daughters of Chaos