Philip Gröning
is a happy man. His French-titled road movie L'Amour
l'Argent l'Amour (" it would have sounded like sociodrama in German"
he remarks) won his lead actress Sabine Timoteo a Bronze Leopard at Locarno
2000 and has been screened in quite a few festivals so far, not least Sundance
and Rotterdam. Gröning tells us the story
of three characters: Marie, a prostitute, David, an impulsive freebooter, and
Kurt, a German shepherd (a dog, not a sheep guardian). Together with
the dog, they set off in an old car looking for true happiness. On the way,
their love is put to the test in all manner of ways... "I wanted characters
who still had a lot of innocence in their heart" says the director. "And
who never lose their inner strength, their innocence..."

Maybe you could
start by combing out the present situation of German cinema for us?

Well, I don't go
to the movies so much, so I am not an expert on the subject. I think there are
interesting things being done right now in Germany. I'm thinking of Romuald
Karmakar, for example, though I didn't see his film Manila
(which got a Special Jury Mention at Locarno 2000). I think there's a big change
in production right now, there's a lot of money afloat because many people have
dabbled on the stock exchange (smiles). And German films have started to go
for the box office again. But it's not as successful as it should be yet. For
my part, I tend to remain aloof, I do things in my own way.

Was the film
difficult to finance considering you had a difficult outdoor shooting?

I can't really
complain. It was a bit difficult, because we had to wait one year before we
could actually shoot, but I have to say that I found the money rather quickly,
and the fact that we had to wait one year was a rather positive thing, because
it allowed me to find my two leads. Had I shot the film one year before, I would
still have had Sabine but another actor for David. And I think things are better
the way they are now.

Let's go back
to German cinema. Didn't a film like Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run help boost
things up?

Well, Run Lola
Run is a special case, it's a very stylized film, like a comic book. Personally,
I don't like the film too much, because I think the way the director deals with
emotions is a bit too cynical. And since it's a comic book movie, it doesn't
help German cinema so much, because it remains an isolated movie. But on the
other hand, what is very typical for German directors is to have personal styles.
So if you see Tom's, Romuald's or my movies, they are all different in style.
Whereas French cinema has more identifiable currents.

What attracted
you to the characters of David and Marie?

The idea for the
characters came very fast. Marie was a prostitute, David was injured with an
arm in a cast, and there was also a dog. I think I was attracted to their purity.
I wanted characters who still had a lot of innocence in heir heart, and compelled
to deal with extreme situations. But they never lost their inner strength, this
innocence. I wanted to make a film about that, and also about the power of wishes,
when we believe in what we imagine and never lose our faith in our beliefs.
Also, I was very excited at the prospect of making a film with a happy end!

Was it your
original intention?

Well, at first,
the end was different. David and Marie were arrested and Marie resumed prostitution.
But I thought the scene with the pimps was so hard that the audience wouldn't
have understood such an ending, so I changed it.

You boost the
sound track quite a bit at the beginning of the film. The fireworks sound like
a war...

Well, I admit it's
a bit too loud at the beginning. But in the movies, sounds are never natural
sounds. The things we do now with digital are incredible, and sometimes it's
all a process just to have a sound adapted to the image. Also, what David hears
has nothing to do with reality - although New Year's night in Berlin is something
incredible, people really throw fireworks at each other, it's almost war! I
tried to put the audience in David's place, there are too many impressions around,
too many things happening at the same time.

What is great about
cinema is that you can really hold people's attention for a while. You can even
make them hold their breath with the editing and the soundtrack. For my part,
I always try to match form with content and characters. In that film, I wanted
the camerawork and the use of Cinemascope to show very clearly that this wasn't
television nor any soap opera here. At the same time, I wanted to have a certain
roughness because the characters are incomplete beings. Their world is not finished
yet, they are still very young, making a world for themselves. That's why images
keep coming from all directions, and it is left to the audience to organize
them.

Why did you
pick a French title for a German movie?

First of all, because
the characters are heading for France, where they hope to live a happier life.
As it is their wish to achieve this goal, I thought it would be wise to give
a sign of this in the title. And German is a rather harsh language to pronounce,
"Liebe Geld Liebe" wasn't so great to pronounce, moreover it sounded
like sociodrama. Had I chosen a German title, I thought I would have opted for
something like "Man Woman Dog."

Does David's
arm in a cast symbolize anything for you?

I knew from the
beginning he would have an arm in a cast. For me, it was a symbol of his strength.
He doesn't mind having a broken arm. He even believes he can work all the same.
He even forgets about his broken arm. He promises Marie that he will find a
job, because he's good. That's the main thing about him. Whenever he falls to
the ground, he's back on his feet a moment later.

The way you
found the dog is quite funny...

Well, if you choose
a normally trained dog, it will move a few steps and then stop, looking at the
trainer for some reward. And I thought that if I was going to handhold the camera,
the dog had to react in a natural way during the shooting. So what should we
do? I asked the actress to find a dog. She went looking for it in Germany, Poland,
and finally in a kennel where she found that dog, skinny as death. She brought
it back, it was really sick and undernourished. But it was like a young dog
in a way, and it very quickly became attached to Sabine. And that's why it reacts
so naturally in the film, it was well used to Sabine. That was fantastic. What's
more, a dog makes things easier for the audience. A dog always provides you
the emotion you're looking for and also helps the actors on the set. Because
it's like a random thing thrown in what might otherwise become a predictable
machinery. A dog always plays with the imagination of the actors. Because what's
worse for an actor is to have preconceptions about the scenes to play. Let a
dog skip between their legs while they are playing and you've got something
there!

Did Sabine find
it easy to deal with nude scenes?

Well, it was not
that difficult. She knew she had to embody a prostitute, she knew I was against
conventional or voyeuristic cinema. So it was clear that working on a character
involved in prostitution implied a kind of Andy Warhol-like attitude. And it
was clear that a prostitute's work uniform was her skin. And that, if she was
gonna be filmed at work, she would have to be naked. If you take a clear stand
on that, then you don't need to discuss the nude scenes so much. What annoys
me as a spectator is those love scenes where the characters get out of bed with
their underpants on. When I make love, I'm not wearing underpants! (laughs)

In the press
kit, you say that the greater part of the film that a director has in mind disappears
once the film is made. What do you still have that we spectators didn't see
in the film?

Well, I have a
bio for every character. I know that for his eleventh birthday, his mother gave
David a walkman, that he hated one of his teachers at school, that his mother
was called by the school to talk with that teacher because he had tremendous
difficulties. So David thinks: "It's OK, she's gonna stand by me."
But when she comes back, he discovers that his mother and his teacher have become
very good friends. And every evening, the two women get together at home and
talk for hours. So he wants to know what they are talking about, because he's
sure it's about him. So he puts the walkman behind the sofa to record their
conversation, and the next day, on the way to school, he discovers that all
they ever talk about is men and sex. They are two single women talking about
their love life. And after that, at school, David no longer pays attention to
what his teacher says, because all he can hear inside his head is what he has
recorded. That's why he's all rage and frustration, working at a at a scrap
dump. He has never learnt a thing, he has no future, just because he couldn't
listen anymore to his teacher. That's among the things I am the only one to
know.

Would you like
to make a sequel with the same characters?

Well, I never thought
about that. I'd rather make a book out of several little stories, like the one
in the press kit about how Kurt met Marie and Marie found the dog. If I do a
remake of this film, I think I'll begin with that story. I don't want to continue
this story, I think I'd rather do a remake.

Christophe Pinol
& Robin Gatto