Molle's People Behind and In Front of the Camera (symposium)

Mollen ihmisiä kameran edessä ja takana. Organized by Molle-seura at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 22 May 2010.

Rauni Mollberg or Molle (1929-2007) was a top Finnish actor and theatre, television and film director. Molle-seura is dedicated to his heritage. Markku Varjola opened the symposium.

Mollen viimeinen reissu [Molle's Last Trip]. FI 2010. D: Hannu Peltomaa. 18 min. Dvd preview of a portrait of Rauni Mollberg directing his last television film called Reissu [The Trip] in 2002. Video footage and original location sound convey the intensity of concentration on location.

1. Tuula Mehtonen, editor, was the moderator of the symposium. An editor in Milka (1980), she told how Molle asked her to avoid convention in that film. Yet Molle believed in gut feeling and in the eye blink theory of cutting.

2. Veikko Aaltonen, director, worked eight years with Molle, his first task being to edit a compilation of Molle's work so far. - Veikko sees Molle as a true auteur with a recurrent theme: how the pure and the innocent are trampled and oppressed. - Molle as a person was basically shy and sensitive, covering it with foul and offensive behaviour. - The acting styles in Molle's The Unknown Soldier are more modern than the current ones. - Molle could venture both a slowed-down poetic style (Milka) and an exaggeratedly hand-held camera style (The Unknown Soldier), even to the point of personally shoving the cinematographer Esa Vuorinen to achieve a rougher look. - According to Molle, the camera sees more than the eye, exposing the beauty and the ugliness of life. All Molle's television works were shot on 35 mm or 16 mm film. - In Molle's films, a lot of attention was paid to the production design, to the whole visual world. Seppo Heinonen was the art director in four of Molle's films. - The fellow students Mikko Niskanen and Rauni Mollberg competed in everything, including car brands. Molle was irritated when he sensed that Niskanen had Ilta-Sanomat the leading tabloid in his pocket.

3. Tuomo Kattilakoski (born 1933), sound editor / mixer / or recordist in Molle's all cinema films. His last work was Reissu. Molle provided good conditions for sound recording on location but too little time for sound editing. - It was an error from Molle to make Paratiisin lapset, his final film, [hardly any of his collaborators present had seen it].

4. Risto Salmi (born 1941), actor, Molle's friend acting in his productions since 1969. Molle always respected actors, being an actor, himself.

5. Raili Suominen, journalist and Molle's friend since 1972, when she first met Molle on the hippodrome, both being fans of horse racing. Molle was very sensitive to criticism, and Raili acted as a lightning rod when Molle raged half an hour against critics.

6. Pentti Peltoniemi knew Molle for 20 years. Pentti told us about Molle's unfinished projects: a) Marian rakkaus [Maria's Love] based on the novel by Paavo Rintala, b) Jääkärin morsian [The Yagher's Bride] remake of the popular musical play, and c) Legioonalaisteatteri [The Theater of the Legionnaires], a story of drug addicts. - Veikko Aaltonen mentioned other unfinished projects such as Molle's 1970s plan to film Kivenpyörittäjän kylä [later filmed by Markku Pölönen, the English title being The Last Wedding], and even the plan of the remake based on Mika Waltari's epic Sinuhe egyptiläinen / The Egyptian.