Cristian Mungiu Interview, Part 2
Much like a Mungiu movie, my conversation last time ended in
the middle of something unfinished. We
were discussing a dinner scene in “4
Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days” in which the protagonist, Otilia, is stuck at a
torturous dinner party with her boyfriend’s crass bourgeois parents at a time
when she would much prefer to be somewhere else, however awful. Naturally I
took this as an opportunity to gratuitously name drop some famous film directors
PK: The way the
dialogue overlapped and you had so many things going on at the same time this
was like something Robert Altman would have done. Is he an influence of yours?
CM: As I was saying,
I’m trying to copy and imitate and understand the principals of life. I’m not
trying to get inspiration directly from films. So for example, I started
directing that scene with a very stupid communication. I told people, ok so you
need to speak at the same time, because I wanted to recreate that feeling you
have if you are participating in a dinner like this, where everybody is
speaking at the same time and you don’t, you know, nobody really listens. But
of course when I said this, you couldn’t understand anything. So we had to had
to learn to hear the words speaking at the same time in filming, and little by
little, I had to teach the actors to start their own lines on the last syllable
of the person who spoke before them, and it was, I don’t know, like music in a
way, like conducting an orchestra because it’s a very detailed script, nothing
is improvised. But yes, I like Altman, I have to say it, it’s not like I
watched any Altman films before this one, but I like Altman, he’s one of the
important directors that I like.
PK: I read, that one
reason you decided to become a filmmaker is because you had been watching these
Soviet socialist realist films when you were growing up and you saw how phony
they were so you said “I can do better than that.” Were there any other
influences, more positive influences, in your developing as a filmmaker?
[The call is dropped. I should note here also that each
question and answer is followed by a delay of several seconds like on those CNN
stories transmitted by satellite where the correspondent looks like he or she
has narcolepsy]
PK: [the connection is restored]I was asking you, when you
were growing up you saw these Soviet social realist movies, and you said, “oh I
can do much better than that, this is so phony,” but did you have any other
influences that weren’t negative, that were positive influences, other
filmmakers that inspired you?
CM: Well yes, there
were a lot. But I wasn’t involved with one specific director or period , but,
for example, I discovered Milos Forman in a
very special way. First of all, I saw his American films and I liked them a
lot, only to discover later on that what is really very close to me are his
Czech films, the films he made before he left in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. And
then during that period I think I also discovered Kieslowski. It’s never that I
liked everything he made, his methods entirely, but there are things that I
always felt, you know, are really close to what I wanted to do. Then later on,
but still before film school, I’ve seen lots of Italian neo-realism and it was kind of close to what I wanted to do, but
at the same time you know as a filmmaker and especially when you’re young, your
taste will evolve and will vary a lot. I was a big fan of Fellini when I was
twenty, but I can’t watch Fellini now. It’s not that I don’t appreciate Fellini
but it’s too complicated and too heavy for me to watch now. Now I prefer to
watch simpler things and I’m trying to learn the most difficult thing for a
director to be simple. And today, for example, from the people that live today,
I prefer to watch, I don’t know, Jarmusch, from the States. I watch very
different films. I enjoy a small, I don’t know, Argentinean film as much as a
Korean film or anything else.
PK: Yeah, the
Kieslowski influence really struck me, and the Jarmusch, the long track – well,
I guess you don’t use a track or a dolly, do you?
CM: We have a mobile
camera to avoid using the tripod, but not to have, for example, a steadycam,
because we felt like a steadycam is too smooth, too nice, and the whole purpose
of this film is not to be necessarily likeable, not to be spectacular, not to
be beautiful, not to be commercial like. And then we found, we discovered
something which was really very useful for us. It’s not necessarily hand-held,
there’s something called an “easy-rig,” it’s a way for the cinematographer, for
the cameraman to have the camera right in front of him standing on a rig.
PK: How did you go about recreating the sense of time and
place?
CM: We didn’t have snow, so we had to add all the snow you
see in this film. But we wanted to shoot at the time for the light. There’s a
different light, and the whole purpose of recreating the atmosphere of the time
was to make people experience the feeling of living then, not to give
information about the period, because I really don’t think films should be
history lessons, and 90 minutes of a film are not the right place to inform
people about what’s happened. This is for a different kind of media, not for
film. But we wanted very much to recreate the atmosphere and the feeling, and I
think you get this lack of hope that people experienced, and this kind of
permanent fear and this feeling that you are being aggressed all the time by
somebody who’s abusing his authority.
PK: I’m assuming that
things have improved since then.
CM: Well it depends
on to who you talk. (Laugh) No, I’m joking. Yes, very much yes. It’s a big
change, and especially it’s a big change because it’s a free country, and
everybody can decide upon his own fate in life, so in the early ‘90s, for
example, a lot of people have immigrated or just decided to work someplace
else, which is also happening now. And that little by little people got this
feeling that it’s not that easy to necessarily get adapted someplace else so
they just leave to work for a while so they will be better paid and they just
get back home.
PK:Filmmakers are heroes now in Romania. Didn’t you get a medal?
CM: I think they are more heroes if you watch from across
the ocean. We are not at all regarded as… heroes here. There are people
appreciating how much we influence for the better the image of the country but
it’s not like we’ve been given any kind of extra attention when we got back
home. After Cannes, everybody thought that the whole environment, the way in
which we make our films here is going to be influenced by the success, but
actually nothing much happened.
PK: You’re probably
tired of questions about the so-called Romanian new-wave but it’s hard to deny
that there’s a rise of filmmakers of a certain age that make films that have
certain qualities that are common: that they all take place in one day,
generally, they’re very realistic, and they deal with people in ordinary
circumstances. Do you think this is all a coincidence, or has there been some
sort of movement gathering?
CM: It’s always this
is happening, it’s just that I’m not seeing so many common things in these
films. It’s always that it’s a generation, biologically, because we’re all
people in our late-30s early-40s, and we got this international recognition at
the same time, and it’s always at a bad moment in the history of the Romanian
cinema. And we share some values, if you want, in common, but I don’t think we
share enough values to mention this as a school. This the only thing I am
saying. Maybe it’s a wave, because a wave is something that’s not necessarily
very clear and precise, but it’s not necessarily a school, and I think that
there are a lot of differences at the same time between these people. And this
is something very good for me regarding this Romanian new wave, that it’s quite
diverse, and apart from the three films that everybody has seen in the last
year, there are a lot of other interesting films that do not necessarily
respect this idea that they happen in the same day, or something like this. And
we’re really very appreciated at the same time. So from my perspective, apart
from the language, and from a certain sense and sympathy for realism and a kind
of simplicity, it’s very difficult to find common traits which are – you can
take in all these films.
PK: The three you’re
talking about include “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”
CM: Right – and “12:08 East of Bucharest."And there are some films which
try to be as simple as possible and follow a very short simple narrative which
happens in a couple of hours to one day, but it’s just part of this way.
PK: You’re also
against the use of metaphor…
CM: It’s not that I’m
against – I don’t use it, I don’t need to use it for the moment. I think that,
and you know, it depends how you use it. For example, if you consider “The
Death of Mr. Lazarescu,” it’s a film about death in general, and his name is
“Lazarescu” coming from “Lazar,” that’s a metaphor that I can understand. And
for me, it’s not a film about the health care system in Romania by no
means. And it’s such a subtle metaphor in that film that people won’t
necessarily get it. What I’m talking about is that kind of metaphor, that when
you go in Romanian filmmaking in the late-80s, early-90s, where, I don’t know,
a fish drawn on the sand would mean Christianity, this is…. You know, I don’t
get this. And we had some films in the early 90s with a very metaphorical style
trying to talk about dictatorship and communism, but you know I don’t understand
this. It’s not my taste, you know. They were very intricate, complicated,
difficult to say what they were speaking about. They were just complicated.
PK: My editor
insisted that I ask you this question: he saw “Juno” and your film in the same
week and he noticed that in both films, orange Tic-Tacs play a prominent part,
or at least they come up in both movies. Can you explain that of uncanny
coincidence?
CM: Orange
Tic-Tacs?
PK: Yes. She buys
them at the commissary.
CM: Yes…unless, you
know, pregnant women crave for orange Tic-Tacs, I don’t have any other
explanation.
PK: Ah, that’s a good
point… I was surprised that Kent
cigarettes are chosen over Marlboros, which is like the signature cigarette of
the French new wave. Were you making a point about Jean-Luc Godard?
CM It’s not coming from the New Wave. It’s coming from the
Romania in ’81, if you can imagine even today, the cigarettes are still special
and they remained as a gift for the doctor, especially if you go, even if today
they don’t mean anything, it’s like two-dollars-a-pack. But it’s more than a
pack of cigarettes during that period, they were like social signs during that
period saying that you can afford the service that she was asking for. And it
was inconceivable for somebody to go to a doctor unless he was giving him
something, and very often this. And the same thing with the hotels. I can’t,
you know, nobody really knows what it was about Kent cigarettes but probably
because they look a little bit, the front, aristocratic. They are white, they
are different than any other kind of regular cigarette you can find on the
market. Finally between a Marlboro or a Camel and the Romanian cigarettes, the
apparent difference wasn’t that big. But we never had completely white
cigarettes. I don’t know if this is explanation or not, but anyhow it was much
more than the scent or the taste or anything like this. And the cost was
similar, it’s not about the cost. It’s the way this brand presents itself as a
sign of wealth.