 The sunk church 36 KByte |
Vivi: I was born in Bucharest, both my father and mother come from Transsylvania. This is the reason why I speak Hungarian ... at least as far as I do. One of my grandmothers, the mother of my mother was Hungarian, my grandfather was Romanian. And, as it was, my parents got divorced and I was raised by my grandparents. When I was a child, my grandmother talked to me in Hungarian. After that, for some thirty years I have not spoken Hungarian... there was no place and nobody to talk to. In my first Hungarian films, when I made a Hungarian production, I could see how much I understood and began to talk myself. That's how what had gone into the computer in my childhood came back. This is how it goes that I speak a little Hungarian. My grandmother used to say that any language can be learnt and once you have it, you have read one more library. So you graduated from the Film School in Bucharest? Is this the place where you teach also? Vivi: I have, for 24 years, until 94... but its not for me. I want to learn on. I am not for teaching. I am not the kind of man who stands still for a long time. This was enough, this experience. Let's say, there is a promotion now, I have to take one more class of cameramen, even though they are more or less colleagues... somehow. There is a foundation which I manage, it is called: Foundation for Visual Art. It is like... a professional video-studio, camera, editor and everything, this is what we can offer to the youth, who want to make something else in the television or such kind of work. It has been operating for the last five years. We also lease the equipment for ads or any other purposes who needs it and take the money to help the youth making further films. And this is how it goes on. How did you get into Péter Gothár's film, the Section? Vivi: I got into this film after another one. It was Ábel in the wilderness, by Sándor Mihályfi. Before, I made many many more. But it was all Romanian. Vivi: Yes. Ábel was in '92. And before that, I made forty odd Romanian films. This does not mean that these films were good. This is merely their number. I really don't know, how I got into this film. Somehow Sándor Mihályfi came to Bucharest, it was also a Romanian production, he kept on watching films and I don't know why he chose me. Gothár knew about my being in Budapest, working for the laboratory. He wanted a Romanian, he strongly wanted to shoot with a local cameraman. I know that he has seen the last Romanian film which I made and then we met in a small pub in Pest and after three hours of conversation it turned out that we are in great coincidence, both born in the same year, month, day and even the hour. It was not the most important thing, yet this is somehow very strange. Not only the same day, but the same hour! When he put the last question: what time were you born? I said at 12, he said,"no, you are kidding"... It was just another town. How did you meet Kántor? Vivi: Well... I really don't know, either. He came... how many month ago? Kántor: A year. Vivi: A year ago. I do not remember exactly, but at the foundation the word went around that it will be made by someone else... Kántor: We knew each other by sight, because we met before in Budapest at the Film Review. In Bucharest, we went up the foundation because it has a big archive. All the Romanian actors are filed there... Vivi: Oh, yes, because we not only make videos, but we also made a cast... of all the Romanian actors, all the 1300 of them. Alumnis have made the photographs and all the rest which is needed for it. Kántor: You recommended, whom to have a look at. Why did you take a Hungarian film made at the Film School? Vivi: Why, what it is? Film school or not film school? There are two categories of films, good and bad. The problem is, you do not always know first, which one is which. I do not even know, whether I shoot for a student or not. However, it somehow looks nice because I feel young. So I don't know what it is, a film school film. I have never worked like a student. I think I worked seriously. Just like a big American production. But it seldom comes. It is not really important, whether it is a big production or a small production. Sometimes a short film such as this might be more important than ten other feature films which I shot before... you never know. I never know at the beginning of a film, how it will turn out at the end, good or bad. This was my first Super 16 film. It also has to be made, it does not really matter, how big is the frame. It should be a frame however, not a video... it's better for me. Kántor: He never worked on video. Never. Vivi: No. I don't know, I don't like, it's a different world. Some might know, they would know or like... I don't. What did catch your eye in the script? Vivi: There was lot to be liked and another lot not to be liked. First of all, he told me the story and I could see in his eyes that he was entirely into it, that he was fallen in love with it. He is the type of man who believes in something. The second thing was that when I read it I felt this was not a classical tale and the things are not black and white. It is possible to search and explore it through and through. There are shadows, not everything is explicit, the potential for play is there. The third thing is very important as well, I like Maia Morgenstern very much and since long, she made her first film with me long ago when she was a student, I also like Petre, I know both of these actors. So if such people are coming and play in the film that I felt I have to be there somehow as well. It is true that I like actors and they also like me a bit. I have always been good friend with them. I kept on looking for the possibilities for the actor that they could work under good circumstances and in good condition. I only can show myself through them. But not only for this reason... I really have a lot of good friends among actors. Much rather than directors. In Hungary, the case is reversed, directors are good friends with cameramen. Then I heard that György Selmeczi will make the music. Well, if he is there how can I miss it!? And if you really want to do something and you have a handful of good reasons to do it, what then? My students ... well, they are not students any more, they are colleagues, yet they remain students for me, so they laughed at me when I told them that I make a student movie. I told them not to laugh because this only means that I am still young and you still have to work with me a lot before you will be able to step on me and send in pension. How did you like the work with Kántor? Vivi: I don't say it was easy. I did my job quickly and I soon put him in the situation where I asked "well, you want to take it from here?... do you want it or you don't?" But I never felt the answer on his face. He talked to me a lot about how he wants, why he wants that I felt his silence was yes. Once or twice I could not see in his eyes whether he likes it or not. I don't like when I work with someone and I cannot tell yes or no. It's the same old story like the man and the woman, when you want to know that they both like what the other does. This is somehow a lovely thing... but the film is about love as well. It is true that if he hadn't like it, he surely would have told me so. But it was an easy thing just like anything else. It seemed to me, I don't know if this is true, that we didn't have to talk either in English or Hungarian, because we simply understood each other. There was a lot of difficulties during the shooting, mostly of financial nature. The team was extremely small which was also a difficulty... yet at the end we put it through. Finally anybody who came from Hungary or from Bucharest said we looked like a family. And then Laci worked quite quickly on the editing board as well. Two months, three months, let's say, and the film was ready. Kántor: The film was made in two and a half month. Vivi: He was in a hurry because he wanted it to be seen at the Film Review. So far, you worked with three Hungarian directors. What is the difference? Vivi: Everybody is different. I don't want to answer such a question. I have worked with 18 or 19 Romanian directors as well. A different culture, different artistic objectives... It is the curse of being a cameraman to be the wife of someone else all the time. And if you want this marriage to work, you have to understand the director at once otherwise it will not function. What was the technical novelty? Vivi: For it was Super 16. This blow out was my first experience with it. The cameraman has another great lover, and this is the light controller. I made all the three Hungarian films with Mrs. Tamás Deimanik, Baba. I told to my Romanian light controller whom I have been working for years with that I will be a little unfaithful to her now. I was secured with her all the time... I felt safe because I knew if something was O.K. for I could see it on her face. Baba also belonged to the team, to the family, because she also made film enthusiastically. One thing for sure: whether a film is good or bad, it will be judged by God, by the audience, the critique. And surely, everybody made this film with full heart. Anybody, who worked on it, be it Hungarian or Romanian, they all liked it to do. Certainly, this does not mean that if we make something enthusiastically, the result will definitely be good. It was an extremely difficult task, to make the blow up from 16 size negative. To make a copy without fading. Without Baba, we would have run into serious trouble. Everything had to b done quickly. But as I saw it, it is not too bad... I can tell you... the film looks rather good. The laboratory has a method which deletes colours. I have used it in the Section as well, you simply can't see what colour it was. Kántor: He experimented with the silver-omitting method at the Hungarian Film Laboratory when making the Section, which means that you leave the silver in the material when blowing up the positive copy and due to this the entire colour set-up will be changed. This was an experiment for the lab as well since they have never tried it before to blow up from 16 mm to 35 and leave it there. This is another twist in the process. We made the samples, on a new material. It was an interesting experiment for everybody, for him as well for the lab. Luckily, the samples turned out to be excellent. Of course, we had to control the light totally differently. Since the material is hardening twice, we had to use softer filters a lot and sepia as well. We also had to tell the scenarist and costume designer how it will work what we made up. They have chosen the colours of the dresses accordingly. We hoped that red will become deep purple during the selection. Everybody had to think differently. The Film Laboratory helped a lot when agreed to this experiment, especially by giving discounts. Once we told them our ideas, the managers Jenő Pajzs and László Aradi were very helpful and assisted us. Do you like the film? Vivi: This is a such a question that I made more than 40 films... 90 % of them is surely bad. But if you have 40 children, can you tell which one is more clever or the nicest? I never answer this question, for I made all of them, they all are my children. If an author writes a book, a painter paints a painting, a composer composes music and you ask them whether they like it, they would say they do. They would never tell you that they made something bad. I like it when I can see that at least someone else watches it, and I can see that he or she also feels what I felt when I made it. Then I feel good and I say, well, something has happened. I do not believe in objective judgement of the author. When you read a script, what interests you first? The story or the possibility that you might be able to make it? Vivi: The story, but truly, I really search in the story whether it has an emotional charge. What I do, is not so important, more important is the emotion to be expressed. It is not so important that I can make a dunnowhat kind of lighting. For me this is just a techno-freak rubbish, showing off how great I am in the film, yet the film might be totally wrong. I rather say - to myself- that what I wanted did not really worked out, but luckily the film is great. When I say true I mean not the story to be true but the emotions which it transmits. It has an influence on emotions. The story does not have to be natural, the emotions, which it carries, have to be true. The Section has no true story, either. When I ask you to tell me what it is about?, why?... A woman takes a trip but what this trio really is, you can't tell. Yet Péter Gothár managed to do what did Laci here, because both are the kind of films that if you want to see it you will accept the play and you like it, but if you don't, you will leave the movie in a minute. And you say that the movie was bad. It's a very delicate issue. I am mostly interested in things like this, how you can make a movie from this. The American story is very nice, you also have to do it, because you have to earn a living, I don't say no, yet these films are more enduring. I can see that what has become of the 40 films I was involved in and I know which you can still see. It is really good if the viewer is not an outsider, when he or she really co-exists with the film. What will happen to the film? Kántor: This short feature film is my last work at the film school, this will be my diploma as a director. It was presented at the Film Review in February and since both the Hungarian Television and the Duna Television have sponsored it, these two channels will definitely broadcast it. We also try to nominate it to different feature film festivals. In April at the Mediawave at Győr, in July in Munich, at the Festival of Film School Students. We, who made it hope that many will see it. |
 Vivi Vasile Dragan (left) 67 KByte |
