Lincoln

Steven Spielberg: Lincoln (US 2012), starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Lincoln / Lincoln.
    US © 2012 DreamWorks SKG / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation / Dune Entertainment. P: Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg.
    D: Steven Spielberg. SC: Tony Kushner - in part from the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2006) by Doris Kearns Goodwin. DP: Janusz Kaminski - DI: Technicolor - colour supervisor: Michael Hatzer. PD: Rick Carter. AD: Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald. Set dec: Jim Erickson, Peter T. Frank. Cost: Joanna Johnston. Makeup: Lois Burwell. Hair: Kay Georgiou. VFX Supervisor: Ben Morris. VFX: Framestore Limited. M: John Williams. M excerpts include: "O nuit d'amour!" from Faust (Charles Gounod); Overture to Egmont (Beethoven), "Battle Cry Of Freedom", "They Swung John Brown To A Sour Apple Tree". S: Ben Burtt. ED: Michael Kahn. Casting: Avy Kaufman.
    151 min.
    Released by FS Film with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Janne Staffans.
    2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi 12, Helsinki, 19 Feb 2013.

Cast as edited in Wikipedia:

LINCOLN HOUSEHOLD
Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln
Sally Field as First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln
Gloria Reuben as Elizabeth Keckley
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln
Gulliver McGrath as Tad Lincoln
Stephen Henderson as Lincoln's valet William Slade
Elizabeth Marvel as member of the public petitioning Lincoln, a Mrs. Jolly

WHITE HOUSE
David Strathairn as Secretary of State William H. Seward
Bruce McGill as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
Joseph Cross as John Hay
Dakin Matthews as Secretary of the Interior John Palmer Usher
Jeremy Strong as John George Nicolay
Richard Topol as United States Attorney General James Speed

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Tommy Lee Jones as Radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens
Hal Holbrook as Francis Preston Blair
Lee Pace as Democratic Congressman and fiery orator Fernando Wood
Peter McRobbie as Ohio Democrat, U.S. Representative George H. Pendleton, leader of the Democratic opposition
Bill Raymond as Schuyler Colfax: Colfax served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1869.
David Costabile as Republican Congressman James Ashley
Stephen Spinella as radical Republican Congressman Asa Vintner Litton
Michael Stuhlbarg as Kentucky Democratic Congressman George Yeaman
Boris McGiver as Democratic Congressman, later Republican, Alexander Coffroth
Walton Goggins as Democratic Congressman Wells A. Hutchins
David Warshofsky as Congressman William Hutton, whose brother died in the war

REPUBLICAN PARTY
James Spader as Republican Party operative William N. Bilbo
Tim Blake Nelson as lobbyist Richard Schell
John Hawkes as Republican operative Colonel Robert Latham
Byron Jennings as Conservative Republican Montgomery Blair
Julie White as Elizabeth Blair Lee: Lee was the daughter of Francis Preston Blair, and wrote hundreds of letters documenting events during the Civil War
S. Epatha Merkerson as Lydia Smith: Smith was Thaddeus Stevens's biracial housekeeper.
Wayne Duvall as Radical Republican Senator Benjamin "Bluff Ben" Wade

CONFEDERATE STATES
Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate States Vice President Alexander H. Stephens
Gregory Itzin as John Archibald Campbell
Michael Shiflett as the third Confederate delegate to Hampton Roads, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter
Christopher Boyer (non-speaking role) as Robert E. Lee

UNION ARMY
Jared Harris as Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant
Colman Domingo as Private Harold Green
David Oyelowo as Corporal Ira Clark
Lukas Haas as First White Soldier
Dane DeHaan as Second White Soldier
Adam Driver as Lincoln's telegraph operator, historically Grant's operator, Samuel Beckwith

Technical specs (IMDb): Camera: Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, Panavision Primo and Super Speed Z-Series MKII Lenses, Panavision Panaflex Platinum, Panavision Primo and Super Speed Z-Series MKII Lenses - Laboratory: DeLuxe, Hollywood (CA), USA, Technicolor, Hollywood (CA), USA (digital intermediate), Technicolor, New York (NY), USA (dailies) - Film length: 4104 m (8 reels), 4119 m (Portugal, 35 mm) - Film negative format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision3 250D 5207, Vision3 500T 5219) - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (4K) (master format), Super 35 (3-perf) (source format) - Printed film format: 35 mm (anamorphic) (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema - Aspect ratio: 2.35:1.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PRODUCTION NOTES:

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
—Abraham Lincoln, in a letter dated December 1865 [1864? - AA]

In the final four months of Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency, the full measure of the man—his passion and his humanity—came to bear on his defining battle: to plot a forward path for a shattered nation, against overwhelming odds and extreme public and personal pressure.

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” provides an intimate immersion into the American leader’s most perilous and revealing moments, at a time when the dark shadow of slavery lifts and a country torn by war must be made whole.

A rich human drama plays out as Lincoln doubles down to end the devastating Civil War not merely by ending the war but by fighting to pass the 13th Amendment, permanently abolishing slavery. It will be an act of true national daring. He will have to call upon all the skill, courage and moral fortitude for which he’ll become legend. He will grapple with the impact of his actions on the world and on those he loves. But what lies in the balance is what always mattered most to Lincoln: to compel the American people, and those in his government of opposite persuasions, to alter course and aim higher, toward a greater good for all mankind.

Brought to life via a layered screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, Spielberg’s starkly human storytelling and the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis leading an accomplished cast, the film invites audiences directly into the heart and soul of Lincoln’s final achievements. The Lincoln who emerges is a man of raw paradoxes: funny and solemn, a playful storyteller and fierce power broker, a shrewd commander and a vulnerable father. But in his nation’s darkest hour, when the times demand the very best of people, he reaches from within himself for something powerful and everlasting.

Twentieth Century Fox and DreamWorks Pictures present in association with Participant Media “Lincoln,” a film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay written by Tony Kushner, based in part on the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The film’s cast is headed by Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones. The producers are Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy and the executive producers are Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King.

Spielberg joins with his long-trusted team behind the camera: director of photography Janusz Kaminski, production designer Rick Carter, costume designer Joanna Johnston, editor Michael Kahn and composer John Williams—whose talents combine to make the war-torn world that Lincoln irrevocably changed in 1865 a visceral, contemporary experience. (The introduction to the production notes).

FROM THE PRODUCTION NOTES: ON GOODWIN'S BOOK

"When it was released, the rousing reaction to Goodwin’s book revealed that she had hit upon a part of Lincoln that people were hungry to know more about right now: how he made profound national changes for the better in such fiercely divided times. The “team of rivals” in the title refers to the three opponents Lincoln vied against in the 1860 presidential election—only to invite each bitterly defeated competitor into his cabinet. This bold move would embody Lincoln’s most outstanding qualities: his talent for getting along with his opponents, his political genius and his steady compass always pointing to the universal truths of justice and civil rights and a more perfect union."

"It would also lie at the heart of perhaps his most singular accomplishment: moving the nation to support “the new birth of freedom” and end the unconscionable practice of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War—not just symbolically but via a constitutional amendment that would make abolition a permanent foundation of the law of the land."

"How did he do it? Goodwin says he was driven by understanding the unthinkable consequences of not succeeding. “I think it was key for Lincoln to get the 13th Amendment passed, because if it was part of our Constitution—and he so revered the U.S. Constitution—then he knew slavery would be undone in this country forever and ever. So he put all of his political skills, every bit of his human relationships, every bit of his ability to work his inner circle, into passing the 13th Amendment passing. Then, and only then, could he know that slavery had finally ended.”"

"She adds: “I think it came down to the belief he always had about this country—that it could be, as he often said, a beacon of hope around the world.”"

THE PRODUCTION NOTES ON THE CINEMATOGRAPHY

"Kaminski wanted a stripped-back sensibility, but also a texture and a palette that would transport audiences—not into something that feels historical but into scenes that could be happening right now. Observes Kathleen Kennedy: “Steven and Janusz discussed at length the use of color and light in ‘Lincoln.’ Steven didn’t want to make a black-and-white or sepia-toned film; rather, they used a rich saturation of color that has some qualities of black and white. We also have over 145 speaking roles in this film, so it was important to frame each scene so the characters are taking you to the next beat in the story and not necessarily the camera. That was a bit different for Steven.”"

"Though he and Spielberg pored through a plethora of historical paintings and photographs for reference, once on set, they keyed into a more instinctual approach. It became about finding the stark power in quieter moments—Lincoln and Grant talking on the porch while ghostly soldiers ride towards unknown fates; Lincoln standing in the hazy light of the window as he realizes the 13th Amendment has just ended slavery in America. “Steven is never afraid of strong imagery,” Kaminski comments. “He is very willing to use transcendent moments like these in his storytelling.”"

"Some of Kaminski’s favorite scenes came inside the chaotic House of Representatives. “Those scenes are all about the performances and the debate of ideas. There are some interesting dolly moves characteristic of Steven’s visual sensibility, but it is all very understated,” he explains."

"These scenes also electrified Kathleen Kennedy. “The camera never moves in these scenes unless it’s in the service of the narrative. Steven wanted to show the human intricacies of how a democratic government works, so it was never about cutting from one talking head to the next but about really giving the audience a sense of how the arguments were progressing,” she says. “More than anything, Steven wanted to capture the volatility of what was going on in this political battle.”

Throughout the film, Kaminski aimed for period naturalism in the lighting. “It’s 1860, so Lincoln’s world would be lit with gas and oil lamps,” he notes. “We used a lot of existing light sources, light coming through windows, light from lamps, but we also created light sources to better serve the storytelling. Smoke was also utilized to give the film a moody patina and because Lincoln’s environs would have been filled with it. There were constantly people smoking pipes, smoking cigars and there was no ventilation, so rooms all had that smoky atmosphere.”"

Recommended for history buffs: a historical drama of high quality.

Steven Spielberg's film is deeply and personally felt, and while it focuses intelligently on a crucial moment in Lincoln's life it has also a feeling of contemporary relevance.

The 40 single-spaced pages of the production notes are interesting to read. They confirm the personal nature of the film and the fact that it was Spielberg's idea to focus on a single month, January 1865, the last month of the Civil War.

The web discussions on the historical accuracy of Lincoln are exciting to read. I am not an expert and cannot comment on these matters. Reading the production notes it becomes clear that the film-makers, especially Spielberg, were very well versed in history. In a dramatization it is never possible to project the full complexity of what happened.  I think the makers of Lincoln have come a long way in dramatizing the contradictions and intricacies of politics.

Tony Kushner has done a great job, inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin, in creating this screenplay. But of the Kushner-Spielberg collaborations, I prefer Munich, my favourite of Spielberg's historical films.

The narrative of the Lincoln film is a unique race to the rescue: the Thirteenth Amendment on formally abolishing slavery must be passed before the war ends. Not quite "by any means necessary" but the means are sometimes far from noble.

I would want to like this film more, and I look forward to seeing it again. There is nothing wrong in any of the contributions of the artists; they are superb. The project is personal, yet it feels a bit too academic and polished, although the character of Lincoln is not idealized and although he is portrayed as a man of contradictions.

Daniel Day-Lewis rises to the occasion and his is now one of the best Lincoln performances. Yet I still slightly prefer Walter Huston and Henry Fonda.

Visually Lincoln is excellent, and the warmth of the photochemical 35 mm cinematography has been conveyed in the 4K digital intermediate very well.

Books on my table

André Gaudreault, Nicolas Dulac, and Santiago Hidalgo (ed.): A Companion to Early Cinema. Assisted by Pierre Chemartin. Editorial Board: François Albera, Jennifer Bean, Paolo Cherchi Usai, Jane M. Gaines, Richard Koszarski, Michèle Lagny, and Charles Musser. 631 p. Oxford / Malden: John Wiley & Sons / Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. - An essential opus on early cinema (the cinema before WWI) with 30 articles by top experts. - NB. Brise-glace en Finlande (FR 1910), p. 291-292.

Sarah Keller & Jason N. Paul: Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations. Amsterdam: S. Keller & J.N. Paul, 2012. The first extended English-language book on the great French poetic film artist and philosopher of the cinema. Many-sided and representative, with a fine selection of Epstein's own texts.

Giovanna Fossati: From Grain to Pixel. The Archival Life of Film in Transition. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. A basic study on digital restoration and archiving.

Petteri Järvinen: Kodin digitekniikka. Kuva, ääni, laitteet & mahdollisuudet. [Home Digital Technology. Image, Sound, Equipment, Opportunities]. Jyväskylä: Docendo / WS Bookwell, 2007. - A good general survey, extensive and detailed, on the situation of home digital technology six years ago. Everything has changed, but the basic questions about durability remain.

Matti Rinne: Yksitoista Tapiovaaraa. Tuoleja, tauluja, elokuvia [Eleven Tapiovaaras. Chairs, Paintings, Movies]. Helsinki: Teos, 2008. - The great man of the cinema Nyrki Tapiovaara belonged to a remarkable cultural family. This is their story with new information and insight about Nyrki Tapiovaara.

Jaakko Seppälä: Hollywood tulee Suomeen. Yhdysvaltalaisten elokuvien maahantuonti ja vastaanotto kaksikymmentäluvun Suomessa. [Hollywood Comes to Finland. The Import and Reception of American Films in Finland in the 1920s]. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, 2012. - Jaakko Seppälä's huge dissertation is a thorough study on the breakthrough of Hollywood films into Finland based on comprehensive archival sources. The Hollywood dominance in Finnish film distribution started in 1923.

Olivier Assayas: A Post-May Adolescence. Letter to Alice Debord. And two essays on Guy Debord. Translated and annotated by Adrian Martin and Rachel Zerner. Wien: SYNEMA, 2012. Olivier Assayas's key texts on politics and Situationism.

Olivier Assayas: Présences. Écrits sur le cinéma. Préface de Laurence Schifano. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Writings for Cahiers du Cinéma (1980-1985) and a "En marge de mes films" section (1993-2008).

Vesa Manninen: Halun ja moraalin maisemia. Psykoanalyyttista suunnistusta [Landscapes of Desire and Morality. Psychoanalytic Orientations]. Forssa: Helsingin Psykoterapiayhdistys Ry. - Includes Vesa Manninen's psychoanalytical study on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (p. 71-84).

Orson Welles: Rebecca (radioplay, 1938)

US 1938. PC: Campbell Playhouse / Campbell Theater / [The Mercury Theatre on the Air]. Broadcast by: CBS, 9 December, 1938. P: John Houseman. 

    D: Orson Welles. SC: Howard Koch - based on the novel (1938) by Daphne Du Maurier. M composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann. 

    C: Margaret Sullavan (Mrs. de Winter), Orson Welles (Max de Winter), Mildred Natwick (Mrs. Danvers), Ray Collins (Frank Crawley), George Coulouris (Captain [Sow?]), Frank Readick (the idiot), Alfred Shirley (Frith), [Eustace Wyatt?] (Coroner), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Van Hopper). 

    Total broadcast time including the Campbell Playhouse series introduction (Rebecca was the first programme of the series), other introductions, the announcement of the forthcoming Rebecca film adaptation by David O. Selznick, Orson Welles star profile, conclusion, commercial breaks, Campbell's Soup theme anthem (Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1), Rebecca theme waltz "Songe d'automne" (Archibald Joyce) here called "Spring Fever", end credit announcements and next week's announcement 60 min.
   In the conclusion there is a telephone interview from New York to Daphne Du Maurier in London. What is the name of the protagonist? Daphne Du Maurier: "Mrs. Max de Winter".

The Mercury Theatre online: "The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them."

"The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938. It ran without a sponsor until December of that year, when it was picked up by Campbell’s Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse. All of the surviving Mercury Theatre shows are available from this page in RealAudio format (some are also in MP3 format). There are several Campbell Playhouse episodes available here as well, in both RealAudio and MP3 formats; the rest are being added gradually." http://www.mercurytheatre.info/

Wikipedia: "The series made its debut with Welles' adaptation of Rebecca, with guest stars Margaret Sullavan and Mildred Natwick. Bernard Herrmann composed and conducted the imaginative score, and later used much of it for the film Jane Eyre. The radio drama was the first adaptation of the 1938 novel by Daphne Du Maurier; the author was interviewed live from London at the conclusion of the broadcast."

"The same creative staff stayed on, but the show had a different flavor under sponsorship. This was partially due to a guest star policy which relegated the Mercury Players to supporting roles. There was a growing schism between Welles, still reaping the rewards of his Halloween night notoriety, and Houseman, who became more like an employee than a partner. The primary writer, as during the end of the unsponsored run, was Howard Koch."

"Last night I dreamt I went back to Manderley again".

In the first adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's novel, Orson Welles's radioplay of 1938, similar words were uttered by Margaret Sullavan, the charming protagonist of the films of Frank Borzage, among others.

Rebecca is not the name of the protagonist of the story. The protagonist of Rebecca has no name. Rebecca, the ex-mistress of Manderley, is dead, gone before the narrative begins, but her memory reigns over Manderley and casts an overwhelming shadow over its new, shy mistress.

After the announcement of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll of the best films of the world I found it intriguing that both top films share an important credit - the composer Bernard Herrmann.

The current number one film, Vertigo, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and the current number two, Citizen Kane, by Orson Welles. Hitchcock had started his film career almost twenty years before Welles: Citizen Kane was released in 1941.

Yet Welles managed to influence Hitchcock's first Hollywood film, Rebecca (1940). David O. Selznick sent to Hitchcock to London a recording of Orson Welles's radioplay. Perhaps it was the first opportunity for Hitchcock to listen to the music of Bernard Herrmann.

Herrmann did not get to compose the film Rebecca. The task was assigned to Franz Waxman, who did a great job. Herrmann, in turn, adapted elements of his Rebecca score to the film adaptation Jane Eyre, with Orson Welles as Rochester, a quite similar tale, and perhaps an inspiration for Daphne Du Maurier. Joan Fontaine who had the leading role in Rebecca (and in Hitchcock's Suspicion) was also Jane Eyre.

Orson Welles, in turn, was influenced as a film director by Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, and Heikki Nyman has pointed out striking similarities in Rebecca and Citizen Kane: Manderley / Xanadu, the letter R / the letter K, the burning pillow / the burning sled...

Like Rebecca, Vertigo is also a story about the haunting presence of a woman who no longer exists. In the 1938 radio version of Rebecca we already hear familiar chords composed by Bernard Herrmann. They are sketches for a small live orchestra. In Vertigo some of those ideas grew and became a part of  a symphonic and operatic score which had a devastating force.

Tapsa – viiltoja reissumiehen elämästä / Tapsa

Peter von Bagh: Tapsa – viiltoja reissumiehen elämästä (FI 1980), a portrait documentary of Tapio Rautavaara (1915–1979), singer, songwriter, actor, athlete. In javelin throw, an Olympic gold medal in 1948 in London. In archery, a team gold medal in the 1958 World Championships in Brussels.

FI 1980. PC: Yleisradio / TV 1 / Viihdetoimitus. D+SC : Peter von Bagh. ED: Paavo Eskelinen. Featuring: Tapio Rautavaara. Telecasts: 20.3.1980 and 16.12.1982 YLE TV1, 16.6.2007, 17.6.2007 and 2.8.2008 YleTeema – vhs release: 1985 YLE Tallennepalvelu – VET A-25267 – S – 74 min – Orion 2013: digibeta / Yle Export. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (How My Films Were Made), 15 Feb 2013.

In the presence of Peter von Bagh. In the conclusion to his preceding lecture and in the introduction to this screening he commented that Tapsa was the incredible culmination of his career in the sense that there were 2,5 million viewers, half of the entire population. See my entry on Bagh's lecture for further comments.

A documentary film on Tapio Rautavaara (8 March 1915, Pirkkala - 25 September 1979, Helsinki), a wanderer and an artist. "The purpose of the film Tapsa was to reflect Rautavaara's personality. He himself as a character gave the keys. It has been tinged accordingly. From the material any kind of movie could have been made. It could have been in a deadly earnest register or entirely consisting of wisecracks. But as it is it is perhaps true to Rautavaara" (Peter von Bagh, 1980).

"For television Peter von Bagh launched in 1972 his huge project to cover Finnish popular culture, traditional and modern (in Olavi Virta, 1972, Paavo Nurmi, 1978, Tauno Palo, 1981, and in Suomi-pop – suomalaisen iskelmän historia [Suomi Pop - the History of the Finnish Hit Songs], 1-5, 1984–1985)."

"Inspired by Siegfried Kracauer Bagh coined into the Finnish vocabulary the expression about hit songs being 'a secret history of the nation'. Sinitaivas ([The Blue Sky], 1978) Repe (1979), and Tapsa (1980) were visionary works, and Vuosi 1952 ([The Year 1952] ,1980) was an early culmination of Bagh's collage approach. The high and the low, the sublime and the ridiculous were mixed like in John Ford's films. Along with the portraits of established stars of the Finnish popular music Bagh produced a remarkable series about the topical personalities of 'Suomi rock'. In the 19 episodes of the Lähikuvassa [In Close-Up] series in 1983-1992 the modern stars included Tuomari Nurmio, Remu Aaltonen, Pelle Miljoona, Juice Leskinen, Hassisen Kone, Eppu Normaali, Dave "Isokynä" Lindholm, and Rauli "Badding" Somerjoki." (Antti Alanen: Elokuvantekijät [Encyclopedia of Film-Makers], Helsinki: Otava, 2012).

Olaf Möller: "Tapio Rautavaara (1915-79) had it all: He was an Olympic Gold Medallist (javelin, London 1948) and master archer (world champion with the Finnish team, 1958), one of Finland's few chansonniers, as well as a mighty popular movie star. Tapsa, as he was called, is an honest-to-God Finnish pop-legend whose sheer appearance in a film still can make an audience go wild with joy. Difficult to imagine that this rugged-looking, unpretentious guy who ever so candidly shares his memories here with the audience was a man able to keep a nation spell-bound – yet what a wonderful certainty. Tapsa – viiltoja reissumiehen elämästä is driven by Peter von Bagh's admiration, nay: love for this axiom of post-war Finland, the nation's aspirations made flesh. Some of the material he had shot with Tapsa already found a place in Repe – sirpaleita Reino Helismaan elämästä. Not only for this, these two works should be considered as parts of the same project: Tapsa – viiltoja reissumiehen elämästä remembers the times, Repe – sirpaleita Reino Helismaan elämästä reconstructs them." (Olaf Möller: The Finland Inside, the Rotterdam 2012 essay expanded in 2013)

A documentary portrait on Tapio Rautavaara largely shot during his last months, shortly before he died in an accident. The foundation of the movie is a powerful and deeply felt interview, following in the same profound mood as the Tapio Rautavaara interviews for the preceding film Repe, on Rautavaara's close colleague and fellow wanderer Reijo Helismaa.

Intercut is Rautavaara's contemporary tour footage and excerpts from his appearances in newsreels, film performances and recordings.

Tapio Rautavaara is a born storyteller, and the movie is a chronological journey into his life and his times. The magic of this film is how it catches the spirit of Tapsa, his way and at the same time the entire stretch of the history of the independent Finland he covered and experienced: what it meant to be fatherless, how it was in the 1930s, during the wars, stardom after the war...

The essence of this movie is that is a documentary of a dream and of the spirit of a modern bard, Tapio Rautavaara, who was like a Woody Guthrie or a Johnny Cash of Finland, but entirely original.

Faaraoiden maa / The Land of the Pharaohs (1988) (in person: Peter von Bagh)

Mika Waltari: Sinuhe egyptiläinen / The Egyptian (FI 1945). A historical novel, a Bildungsroman, a picaresque novel, subtitled: "Fifteen Books from the Life of Physician Sinuhe, ca 1390–1335 BCE. Book cover art to the 11th Finnish edition (1974): Björn Landström.

FI 1988. PC: Yleisradio. D+SC: Peter von Bagh – excerpts from the novel The Egyptian (1945) by Mika Waltari – a compilation film made for television – based on Finnish fiction and non-fiction films from the years 1945–1946. ED: Pentti Kauranen, Risto Salo. 29 min – Orion 2013: digibeta / Yle Export. – Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (How My Films Were Made), 15 Feb 2013.

In the presence of Peter von Bagh. In the conclusion of his preceding lecture and in his introduction to the screening he commented: The Land of the Pharaohs is a film about the year 1945, about Finland which had lost the war. It is my nearly most unknown film. It has never been telecast again.

"Excerpts from Mika Waltari's classic of popular historical fiction, Sinuhe, egyptilainen (1945), considered as comments on postwar Finland. A lean work, clear in its conception, straight-forward in its execution, muscular in its movement, and deep in its thoughts. Splendid." (Olaf Möller, Rotterdam Film Festival, 2012)

A poetic, multi-perspective essay on the devastating year 1945 seen through two kinds of reflections. The first reflection is Mika Waltari's novel The Egyptian, one of the biggest bestsellers of all times in Finland, and a bestseller even abroad, including the United States, where it was the basis for one of the first CinemaScope films, unfortunately miscast. The second set of reflections is provided by the fictional and non-fictional films of the time. The images of the refugees (from Stalin's Eastern Karelia) and the devastation of Lapland (by Nazi German soldiers) are among the most poignant in Finnish history. Yet there is in the imagery a confidence of perseverance, survival, and a new start via reconstruction and a new political landscape.

Peter von Bagh: How My Films Were Made (a lecture)

Peter von Bagh: Miten elokuvani ovat syntyneet? Lecture in the series organized by the HYY:n Elokuvaryhmä / The Film Society of The Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 15 Feb 2013.

As a film-maker Peter von Bagh is a master of the collage, the compilation film, the essay film, the art of the interview, and giant surveys of Finnish history, cultural history and film history, including series of major production companies and film artists. He has been highly acclaimed in Finland since the 1960s, but his international breakthrough is a recent phenomenon. It started with the warm welcome of Helsinki Forever (2008) in festivals, and recently his retrospectives have been circulating internationally, especially prominently since the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2012).

Peter started by defining himself as belonging to the category of "from critic to film-maker", like it was customary in the 1960s, although such a road to film-making had, in fact, existed already for a long time, examples including Michelangelo Antonioni and Marcel Carné.

My elämänlanka ["life thread": thread, clue, central concept] has been the collage, pointing the camera towards the past. A turning-point of mine in fine-tuning this and finding the right balance was Vuosi 1952 [1980].

The cinema is a marvellous art. From a mediocre film one can find a moment which conveys in a flash for what Proust needed twenty pages. This has been my lifelong conviction.

When I recently viewed again my early short Pockpicket (made in 1967-1968, and starring Sulevi Peltola in his first film role) I discovered that my ohjelmanjulistus (manifesto, programme declaration) is already expressed in its first words, which are something like "the past is with us all the time, and figures of the past turn into history". ["Menneisyys on osa meitä... ja me olemme matkalla kohti menneisyyttä" = "The past is a part of us... and we are on our way towards the past".]

As a film-maker I promptly ajoin itseni seinään [hit the brick wall] with a movie called Kreivi / The Count, backed by Risto Jarva, which Jörn Donner urged me to do.

My first portrait film was a short of 30 minutes about Olavi Virta [the Finnish tango king] [1972]. Then there was a hiatus of seven-eight years. None of my proposals were accepted by Yle [The Finnish Broadcasting Company].

Suddenly everything changed, and I started to do films at full speed, in a fury, with an almost unnatural force, in fear that it may come to an end. Somehow I still feel that way. Paavo Nurmi [1978] and Sinitaivas [Blue Sky, 1978] were made simultaneously.

While I made them Risto Jarva died suddenly and shockingly [in a car accident in a taxi, on 16 December, 1977], which is why Sinitaivas is dedicated to him, and which explains a certain haikeus [wistfulness], a taivas putoaa atmosphere [an atmosphere of heavens falling - a reference to the movie Kun taivas putoaa / When the Heavens Fall, directed by Jarva, with Bagh as a co-screenwriter].

Sinitaivas was a declaration of a programme, a declaration of materials: Finnish entertainment, with a motto that became rather well-known: "the iskelmä [der Schlager = a hit song] is the secret memory of the nation".

In all what I have done there is a Utopian element: life as it could be (not as what it is). Elements that I tied together in Sinitaivas were essential for my entire oeuvre: - wartime Finland, and - certain key characters.

EXCERPT: SINITAIVAS. The ruins of an old outdoor dance hall. "It feels like the nature is crying." "This is the meeting-place of lost dreams, of a nation that experienced a big move from the countryside to the city." "Newsreels of the heart were heard here." ♪ "Sinitaivas", ♪ "Väliaikainen". "Hit songs are the secret history of a nation's emotions, its hidden memory."

Sometimes one can learn more from adversity than from success. We were requested to do a ten minutes preview of Helsinki Forever. That long film itself is my most complicated work, yet we did it with dream-like assurance. But in the ten minutes cut everything went wrong.

SCREENED: A DAY IN HELSINKI, a digest of ten minutes of Helsinki Forever. AA: It is a job of work, sur commande. There is nothing wrong, yet the magic is missing.

In Helsinki Forever, itself, I was after the pitkät kaaret = the big picture, covering long stretches of time, a century or a half-century. Such a big picture has always been lucrative for me. In the Sininen laulu [The Blue Song] series I was able to mobilize the ilmaisuvoima = expressive qualities of all the arts.

Chris Marker, who was there, has said that the Helsinki Olympics of 1952 were the last true Olympics. In the following excerpts there are homages to three artists: Armand Lohikoski, Jörn Donner, and Aki Kaurismäki. Jörn Donner has made the best Helsinki film, Yhdeksän tapaa lähestyä Helsinkiä [Nine Ways to Approach Helsinki]. From Aki Kaurismäki there is an excerpt from the conclusion of Ariel with music sung by Olavi Virta, a song the cost of whose music rights had meanwhile jumped into ten thousand Euro, but we found a substitute which Aki accepted.

EXCERPT: HELSINKI FOREVER. The Olavi Virta selection in the Ariel excerpt is "Estrellita". Jörn Donner's voice is heard as a narrator in his excerpt. Sacy Sand: "Hippaa ja hoppaa" in Pekka ja Pätkä sammakkomiehinä [Pekka and Pätkä as Scuba Divers].

The cast of the protagonists of my oeuvre includes figures such as Olavi Virta, Tapio Rautavaara, Tauno Palo, Mikko Niskanen, and Edvin Laine. Of Rauli "Badding" Somerjoki I managed to record the practically sole good interview on film. The starting point was often a commissioned film.

At the Yle they had for a year attempted to put together a film on Reino Helismaa (Repe). When they mentioned it to me I found the concept immediately. Repe is one of the few of my protagonists whom I did not get to interview. He was absent, having died fifteen years earlier. We had his records, his thousands of lyrics for songs, his circa fifteen film appearances. We had his contemporaries. I have never used experts. But we had Toivo Kärki, Esa Pakarinen, and Tapio Rautavaara.

All my life I have regretted that I did not contact Eemeli. He started the stand-up comedy in Finland, he was the only one. In Repe I was approaching the Lähikuvassa [In Close-Up] territory.

In Repe there is not a word about his childhood or youth.

Many quotes from Repe have become winged words. Timo Koivusalo took dozens of lines of dialogue from Repe to his film Kulkuri ja Joutsen [The Vagabond and the Swan] [a reference to a Tapio Rautavaara song, also a reference to Repe and Tapsa]. 

In this film I developed my interview technique. I have come to realize that in such an interview technique there is an affinity with the direction of actors. It is about creating the proper conditions. The questions need to be good. One has to be humble, and with a not too knowledgeable appearance.

I met Rautavaara only ten times. As a consequence of our work together Tapsa called me: "Haluan kiittää, että teit minusta jälleen ihmisen" ["I want to thank you that you have made a man out of me again"].

They warned me that Tapsa is a burnt-out case.

For me Tapsa is comparable to F.E. Sillanpää: who else can speak so eloquently to the Finnish people.

EXCERPT: REPE. Tapio Rautavaara's account about Repe's last year. The doctor's advice to Repe: eat, drink, make love, there is one year more to go. I kept meeting him: ten months to go... seven months to go... four months to go. Before Christmas Repe called me: could you please replace me, there is a harjannostajaiset = a topping out ceremony at a construction site. I feel so damn tired. Then there was a call from the Töölö Hospital, the internal medicine ward. It was three o'clock in the morning. I went every night between one and three o'clock. At times he was drowsy, at times he gained strength. He asked me to talk with him while he was preparing a radiohupailu = a radio comedy show called "Olihan joulu Jooniassa" [It Was Quite a Christmas in Ionia]. He had a sheet of paper beside him. I was asking myself whether Christmas was coming any closer. Not a single line emerged on that paper. That sheet of paper remained blank. - Excerpt from Hei rillumarei!: going to Lapland, away from culture and civilization. "Scarecrows like that are born in culture". ♪ "Lapin jenkka". With Repe, Esa Pakarinen, and Jorma Ikävalko. - ♪ "Rumarillumarei". - ♪ "Kulkuri ja joutsen".

Whenever a portrait film of mine is extended there needs to be a theme. In Repe the theme is friendship.

In my film about Edvin Laine the theme, the key was that whatever he did was autobiographical, and it had the dimension of a confession. I was making my portrait twenty years after the death of Edvin Laine. But in 1987 I had been making a film about the civil war and interviewed also Edvin Laine about the years 1917-1918. Thus I had filmed Edvin, but the material was not used at the time.

Then I was commissioned to make a film about Edvin, and his family were the ones who commissioned it. - The film on Tauno Palo I had made as three of his closest family members visited me and asked me to do it. - Edvin Laine had seen it, and in a way he commissioned me to do the film about him, via his heirs.

Edvin's films are uneven, but almost always there is more in them. As a person everybody testified that he was adorable, cordial, and supportive. - Once Edvin even called me out of the blue and asked me to become his assistant director on a film about Sibelius.

EXCERPT: EDVIN LAINE. - Home movie footage. - I: Veikko Sinisalo. - I: Helge Herala. - Excerpt: Seitsemän veljestä [Seven Brothers]. - I: Edvin Laine (1987). - I: Kaija Upton. - I: Jarna Laine. - I: Ensio Suominen. - Footage from the Pyynikki Summer Theatre performance of The Unknown Soldier. - Excerpt: Niskavuoren Heta [Heta from Niskavuori]. - Excerpt: Kirkastuva sävel [The Tune That Gets Brighter]. - Three sources: the play, the realism, and the imagination. - Excerpt: Sleeping Beauty. - Everybody in the cast and the crew was well fed. That came from Edvin's heritage in the 1918 war.

Those excerpts give an idealized view about Edvin Laine as a director. The film was a compilation of existing footage except the interviews with his two daughters. - Gradually I had created a personal bank of images of key people.

Sininen laulu [The Blue Song] was launched in 2000, and it took three to four years to make. It was a series the kind of which could no more be done. It consists of a thousand little bits, and the challenge with the copyrights to all of them was huge. It was thanks to Astrid Gartz that it could be made without big problems. It is based on the todistusvoima = cogency, the power of testimony of all the arts.

For it I returned to commentary. Before it, Sinitaivas was my only film with commentary, and for 25 years I had managed without. It is much more difficult to manage without commentary. In Sininen laulu commentary is important. After forty years I went after the elements of all the arts in order to study them with the means of television. The first interviewees, Juice Leskinen, Veikko Sinisalo, and Jouko Tyyri, were all gone after a few years.

EXCERPT: SININEN LAULU.

What I never became was a maker of fiction films. Kreivi [The Count] is the most terribly battered film in the history of Finnish film criticism. What I did was to take a subject appropriate to the scandal press. Kreivi and Kun taivas putoaa, in both of which I was involved, were shunned by Yle at a time when television saw itself as a cultural institution.

Kreivi is like a work from the primitive period of the cinema, it is ärsykkeiden elokuvaa = it belongs to the cinema of attractions. It is non-linear. It is about a man who was 76 times engaged to women and sat in prison for embezzling them. The bait came from Donner, and the project was almost frozen when I tried to figure out who could play the leading role. Until I discovered he could only be played by The Count, Pertti Ylermi Lindgren, himself.

It is a rarity in its mix of documentary and fiction. The excerpt we are about to see was shot in half a day. The reels in the camera of Lasse Naukkarinen were four minutes, and there was only that one single reel left.

The direction of actors was planned so that they would surprise each other constantly. This scene between Elina Salo and the count is all provocation. It is a rather documentary account about the relationship of a man and a woman.

EXCERPT: KREIVI. ♪ "Elämää juoksuhaudoissa" [Life in the Trenches]. - The count, posing as an archeologist, has planted bones in the landscape in order to impress the woman with his discoveries. - ♪ "Liljankukka" [Lily Flower] as a duet. - The woman confesses that she has not believed a word of the count's tales, but she wants to have some fun with the situation.

The shooting of this scene was perilous even to the sound engineer Paul Jyrälä.

Kooste-elokuva on henkilökohtaisinta. = Compilation film is the most personal way of film-making for me.

In the shadow of Sininen laulu remained my eight part documentary series on the history of Finland, Oi kallis Suomenmaa [the name of the series is taken from the title a patriotic wartime song, the name in translation is roughly My Beloved Finland], edited by Elina Katainen. It was never reviewed in the leading newspaper.

EXCERPT: OI KALLIS SUOMENMAA. The events in Kemi in 1948.

Although I'm a conscientious objector, in many of my films I have discussed the war, and many are entirely dedicated to it, like The Year 1939. Suomi-pop was my first extended series, made in the early 1980s. Five years later none of the key interviewees were alive.

EXCERPT: SUOMI-POP - the war. I: Ragni Malmsten. The original masters that were destroyed in the war, the records that survived in the sturdy desk in the house that was demolished in the bombing. - ♪ "ethän armaani konsanaan". - Veikko Lavi: the unity of emotion was unique. - Esa Pakarinen: aikansa kutakin [there's a time for everything]. - ♪ Harmony Sisters: "Kodin kynttilät" ("When It's Lamp Lighting Time In The Valley").

Q: INFLUENCES? A: Emile de Antonio was a good friend, and from him I got the model of not using commentary. - Humphrey Jennings: how a great wave of emotion can rise from old pieces of film. Listen to Britain is the film I have seen the most often.

My Chekhov Project: Reading Eino Kalima

Eino Kalima in 1965 rehearsing with Rauha Rentola (in the role of Masha) his 1961 production of The Seagull / Чайка / Chaika / Lokki by Anton Chekhov (1896). My screenshot from Yle Areena: Eino Kalima ohjaa Lokkia (1965).

Eino Kalima: Sattumaa ja johdatusta. Muistelmia [Coincidence and Providence. Memoirs]
. Helsinki: WSOY, 1962

Eino Kalima: Kansallisteatterin ohjissa. Muistelmia 2 [In the Reins of The National Theatre. Memoirs 2]. Helsinki: WSOY, 1968

Eino Kalima: Leo Tolstoi. Helsinki: Kansanvalistusseura, 1908.

Timo Tiusanen: Teatterimme hahmottuu. Näyttämötaiteemme kehitystie kansanrunoudesta itsenäisyyden ajan alkuun [Our Theater Finds Its Shape. The Development of Our Scenic Art from Folk Poetry until the Beginning of Independence]. Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1969.

Irmeli Niemi: Nykydraaman ihmiskuva. Analyyseja 1900-luvun eurooppalaisista näytelmistä [Modern Drama and Its View of Humanity. Analyses of European Plays of the 20th Century]. Helsinki: Tammi, 1969. - The Chapters on Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.

Last year I was bitten by an Anton Chekhov bug, and I realize that two thirds of his work I have yet to read, including some of his great stories which have never been translated into Finnish. I also have yet to read different translations of the plays and to read for the first time plays which do not belong to his "big four", such as Ivanov. And perhaps I should actually venture to the theatre and see those plays where they belong... !

I love modern performing arts but the situation with performing the classics has been weird during the last decades. Sometime in the 1950s and the 1960s it started to become de rigueur to interpret classics in estranged, customized ways, or in modern dress, or at least in sets and dresses other than that of the period of the story.

There seems to be a curse around the classics, a ban to perform them straight. For if a classic play is performed straight, the production, if it is any good, is always inevitably a contemporary one, with fresh insight in every detail. It is always a reflection of the present. And paradoxically, if you focus on modernizing it superficially, it may be remain less modern internally. Of course, nobody needs museum pieces without a fresh spirit and inspiration.

My first acquaintance with the phenomenon of modernizing classics was as a schoolboy when I saw The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1967 at the National Theatre in Helsinki. Tauno Palo was Falstaff, and I had the feeling that there was a wink in his eye: "we have been asked to wear these modern dresses, please bear with us". After the intermission I was hoping that they would stop fooling and start to wear to natural dresses. In a way I'm still waiting.

My first encounter with the work of Anton Chekhov took place in a performance of Uncle Vanya in 1966, which I know now was the last production of Eino Kalima (1882-1972) as a theater director. I had no point of reference, but now I read from Timo Tiusanen's history of the Finnish stage (he is referring to a study by Auli Wuorenrinne) that Kalima's Chekhov productions had an impact in the entire Finnish stage art in its development towards a less grandiloquent way and towards a deeper sense of interiority. This influence started in 1914 with Kalima's first production of Uncle Vanya, but according to our theater histories his late interpretations were the most masterful, symphonic, and definitive.

Having seen Joe Wright's whimsical film adaptation of Anna Karenina, interpreted in a musical style with a target audience of teenage girls, but yet with a strong screenplay by Tom Stoppard, I read Eino Kalima's short biography of Leo Tolstoy, written when the great author was still alive. It's a good compact overview about the writer whose influence in Finnish culture was great and who had personal friends in Finland. The only version of the novel Anna Karenina I have read is the Finnish translation by Eino Kalima from 1910-1911, a labour of love to which he devoted two years.

For fun I started to read Kalima's memoirs, too, about his happy childhood in the countryside around Lake Saimaa, school years in Savonlinna and Helsinki (Helsingin normaalilyseo) and university studies in Helsinki, and in 1904-1908 in Saint Petersburg and Moscow (Finland was then an autonomous duchy in the Russian Empire). Anton Chekhov died in 1904, and Kalima never got to meet him. The Russian performing arts impressed him tremendously: The Cherry Orchard, Woe from Wit, the art of Kachalov, Lower Depths, Nordic plays in Russia, Andreyev, Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird, Goldoni's La locandiera, Chaliapin in Eugene Onegin, Rimsky-Korsakov conducting Scheherazade, the unforgettable prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya he saw in Helsinki, and the art direction of Benoît and Korovin in the Alexandrinsky Theatre of Saint Petersburg.

Most of all Kalima was impressed by the Moscow Art Theatre. Kalima met Konstantin Stanislavski and the agreement was for him to start in his masterclass in the autumn of 1917... But then came the revolution.

In the same year Kalima was elected to be the theater director of the National Theater of Finland, to annual and much later to three year contracts which were extended for 33 years. Reading his memoirs from such a long career is a way to study the entire history of the theater in Europe and a bit also in the U.S.A.

There are film-relevant connections in every chapter although the cinema is never mentioned. Yet almost all of Kalima's colleagues worked for the cinema, starting with the first Finnish fiction film, Salaviinanpolttajat / The Moonshiners, made in 1907: its cast and crew were composed of talent from the Finnish National Theater. It is fascinating that one can imagine vividly the casting of Kalima's stage production of Marcel Pagnol's Marius (April 1931) because all Kalima's actors appeared frequently in films and are still well-known to lovers of the Finnish cinema. (The French premiere of the film adaptation of Marius was in October 1931. In Finnish cinemas Marius was seen in the Swedish-language version Längtan till havet, co-directed by John W. Brunius and Alexander Korda, in January 1932; its Finnish release title was Marius).

Following the Chekhov thread I also read Irmeli Niemi's superb interpretations about Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. Like Sophie Laffitte, Irmeli Niemi is puzzled by Chekhov's underestimating view of women.

My Chekhov project: Eino Kalima and Uncle Vanya

Eino Kalima started his career as a theater director with Uncle Vanya in 1914. Source: Timo Tiusanen: Teatterimme hahmottuu (1969)

Eino Kalima ended his career as a theater director with Uncle Vanya in 1966. Source: Otavan Suuri Ensyklopedia 7, 1979

Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino: Django Unchained (US 2012) with Jamie Foxx as Django.

Django Unchained / Django Unchained.
    US © 2012 Visiona Romantica. PC: A Band Apart. Distributed by The Weinstein Company (USA) / Columbia Pictures (international). P: Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin, Pilar Savone.
    D+SC: Quentin Tarantino. DP: Robert Richardson. PD: J. Michael Riva. AD: David F. Klassen. Set dec: Leslie A. Pope. Cost: Sharen Davis. Makeup: Heba Thorisdottir. Hair: Camille Friend. Special makeup FX: Gregory Nicotero - KNB EFX Group. SFX: John McLeod. VFX: Greg Steele - Rhythm & Hues Studios. Stunt team: very big. M editor: Robb Boyd. M supervisor: Mary Ramos. S: Wylie Stateman. ED: Fred Raskin. Casting: Victoria Thomas.
    Loc: Louisiana, Wyoming, California.
    165 min.
    Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Finland with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Timo Porri / Saliven Gustavsson.
    4K DCP screened at 2K at Kinopalatsi 10, Helsinki, 9 Feb 2013.

The cast as edited in Wikipedia:

Jamie Foxx as Django Freeman
Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz
Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin J. Candie
Kerry Washington as Broomhilda von Shaft
Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen
Don Johnson as Spencer 'Big Daddy' Bennett
Walton Goggins as Billy Crash
Dennis Christopher as Leonide Moguy
James Remar as Ace Speck/Butch Pooch
David Steen as Mr. Stonecipher
Dana Michelle Gourrier as Cora
Nichole Galicia as Sheba
Laura Cayouette as Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly
Ato Essandoh as D'Artagnan
Sammi Rotibi as Rodney
Clay Donahue Fontenot
Escalante Lundy as Big Fred
Miriam F. Glover as Betina
Franco Nero

Other roles include James Russo as Dicky Speck, Tom Wopat as U.S. Marshall Gill Tatum, Don Stroud as Sheriff Bill Sharp, Russ Tamblyn as Son of a Gunfighter, Amber Tamblyn as Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter, Bruce Dern as Old Man Carrucan, M. C. Gainey as Big John Brittle, Cooper Huckabee as Lil Raj Brittle, Doc Duhame as Ellis Brittle, Jonah Hill as Bag Head #2, and Lee Horsley as Sheriff Gus (Snowy Snow). Zoë Bell, Michael Bowen, Robert Carradine, Jake Garber, Ted Neeley, James Parks, and Tom Savini play Candyland trackers, while Michael Parks, John Jarratt, and Quentin Tarantino play The LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employees.

Technical specs from the IMDb: Camera: Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, Panavision Primo, E-Series, ATZ and AWZ2 Lenses - Laboratory: DeLuxe, Hollywood (CA), USA, EFILM Digital Laboratories, Hollywood (CA), USA (digital intermediate) - Film length (metres): 4532 m (9 reels) - Film negative format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision3 200T 5213, Vision3 500T 5219, Ektachrome 100D 5285) - Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (4K) (master format), Panavision (anamorphic) (source format) - Printed film format: 35 mm (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema - Aspect ratio: 2.35:1.

The action takes place in 1858 in Texas, Wyoming, and Mississippi.

Rough notes:

1. A saga about racism and slavery and the transformation of a slave to a fighter.

2. Another grand revenge fantasy by Quentin Tarantino, a Western set in the South before the Civil War. Tarantino calls it "a Southern".

3. A post-post-Western, a reinvention of the meta-Western mainly inspired by Italian Westerns of the 1960s and the 1970s.

4. The compilation score (with four original tracks) is magnificent. Luis Bacalov's "Django" anthem from Django (1966) strikes a note of bravado. The Italian flavour of the score (Bacalov, Morricone, Ortolani) brings an operatic feeling to the movie. Very often the feeling is sincere, also in Bacalov's "His Name Was King", and at its most powerful in Elayna Boynton's singing of "Freedom" (by Hamilton & Boynton) (one of the original tracks). Also Richie Havens's "Freedom (Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child)" is strong here. There is passion in the film.

5. I like the assured homage aspect in the credit titles and the intertitles (as in the MISSISSIPPI title referring to the Gone with the Wind title design). Also the whip zooms and the intentionally abrupt changes to a duped look in some process shots and flashbacks are nice, not too obtrusive. The nicest coup d'œil is the two-shot of Jamie Foxx and Franco Nero. "Andiamo".

6. Might this cut be slightly different from the U.S. first run version, for instance in the masked hoods sequence? In this version the sequence is linear and chronological.

7. The film has two parts, and in earlier times it might have been two movies: Django Unchained, and Mississippi. The first is about the apprenticeship of Django, his evolution from slave to bounty hunter. (It has the "Odyssey" format). The second is about the liberation of Broomhilda from Candyland. (It has the "Iliad" format).

8. The first part is brisk, and the second part is needlessly prolonged. The arrival at Candyland and the dinner sequence could have been shortened. Critics have remarked that this is Quentin Tarantino's first film without his ace editor Sally Menke (1953-2010).

9. Christoph Waltz had his international breakthrough as the Jew hunter in Inglourious Basterds. Here he has a parallel role as the bounty hunter. Waltz: what a representative name for an Austrian, but in this story he is a German from Düsseldorf. His Viennese accent and style again lend a totally misleading appearance to a callous assassin.

10. The operatic sense leads also indirectly to Wagner although his name and music are not present. The backstory is about Siegfried and Brünnhilde: Siegfried enters the ring of fire and liberates Brünnhilde from her rock in the German legend, and Django liberates Broomhilda from Candyland in this tale. (Wagner composed Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1848-1874). There is an indirect Wagner association also in the masked hoods sequence, parodying The Birth of a Nation. The music in Griffith's KKK sequence was Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries.

11. The violence involved in the account of slavery is repellent and dehumanizing, for instance in the whipping scenes and the most brutal scene in the story: the one where Candie orders his henchmen to let their bloodhounds tear the escaped Mandingo fighter D'Artagnan apart.

12. In Hegel's philosophy of the master and the slave nobody is free in the circumstances of slavery. Django Unchained is another demonstration of this.

13. Also the brutalization is ubiquitous. In the conclusion Django first emulates King Schultz's formula of blatant scam, and finally, in the bloodbath, Candie's brutal and callous smirk.

14. The Tarantino way of storytelling is paradoxical, sophisticated and layered with metanarrative. Yet there are lingering questions of sadism, glorification of violence and vigilante "justice" in this picture. All audiences are not as sophisticated as Tarantino.

15. The casting and the performances are perfect down to the smallest parts. Finally, this is a character-driven movie.

16. The final words in the diegesis are (Django to Broomhilda): "Let's get out of here". The last words of the movie, in the quick scene after the final credits: "Who was that nigger?"

17. The cinematography is rich and magnificent with both epic landscapes and extreme close-ups. Django Unchained is a powerful visual experience.

18. There are intentional changes in the quality of the image, but the dominant quality is excellent. The 4K digital intermediate from the photochemical 35 mm negative has been performed very well. The warm quality of the photochemical cinematography has been sustained. I'd like to see Django Unchained in 4K.

How My Films Were Made: Canned Dreams (a lecture: Joonas Berghäll, Heikki Färm, Timo Peltoja)

Katja Gauriloff: Säilöttyjä unelmia / Canned Dreams (FI/DK/PT 2012).

Miten elokuvani ovat syntyneet? Lecture series organized by the HYY:n Elokuvaryhmä / The Film Society of The Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 8 Feb 2013.

The director of Säilöttyjä unelmia / Canned Dreams, Katja Gauriloff, was unable to attend, and four men were needed to replace her: the producer Joonas Berghäll, the cinematographer Heikki Färm, and the editor Timo Peltoja, all interviewed by Jari Sedergren.

The documentary film Canned Dreams is one of the most acclaimed Finnish films of 2012.

Joonas Berghäll, the producer told how the idea was found as a can of conserved food was opened at the office of the production company, and the question arose how such an amount of food can be sold at such a low price. There must be something wrong. It took two years to find out.

The detective work was very complicated. Canadian grain in a French harbour becomes French grain, and so on. But it was Katja Gauriloff's concept that the film would be about people's dreams. She had been working in a sausage factory. Once every hour there was a break of seven minutes, and those were the finest moments because they were the opportunity to listen to the stories of older women.

The film was shot in ten countries, which is more than for any other Finnish film.

We called it "the mammoth". It was our burden for four years, and it was a special challenge for Katja Gauriloff as her first feature film. She had a tremendous pressure to succeed.

After Canned Dreams making a film in Finland is a visit to the sauna.

There was no pressure from the financers.

We needed pre-production in ten countries. We became sensitive to hoodwinking attempts, and one co-producer was fired. Our adviser in Brazil was Mika Kaurismäki, and his preparations were so good that the experience in Brazil was the best.

The film was an international co-production. The composer and the sound designer came from Denmark.

International co-production was also strived at. The subject is international, since the original products stem from different countries. The tomatoes are from Portugal, and the Portuguese were interested in participation.

Canned Dreams has been shown at 22 festivals, and the number would have been doubled if the director had been available more often. [She has had a baby recently.] Festival visibility is essential for distribution.

Heikki Färm, the cinematographer, told that the difference between shooting fiction and documentary is great. The cinematographer pays attention to lighting continuities, but in a documentary you have to go with the moment. The impact of the coincidence is big. There are happy surprises.

Canned Dreams was shot on 16 mm.

Shooting digitally costs in a way nothing. I keep the camera switched on as much as possible.

Katja has a very precise visual concept. She banned panning and favoured shots from a fixed position.

Models we did have, such as Glawogger's Our Daily Bread, but our film is different. It is not a film about the production process but the people.

There are strong images such as the focus on the dead animal. Slaughterhouses are beautiful and visually interesting.

We kept meeting people who are proud of their work. The crew and the people we record were on the same level.

We spent about a week for every target location. Katja had spent a week or two in every location in advance.

The people were not shy for the camera. There are ways to do it. Pirjo Honkasalo always keep the camera on her shoulder in order to make the people get used to it.

Timo Peltoja, the editor, told that his career started early by doing demo reels. Jouko Aaltonen says that a documentary film is born in the editing room. I don't think that the camera should be running incessantly. In Canned Dreams it was a blessing that so little had been shot.

You do not need a three hour rough cut. Here the first rough cut was maybe two hours.

With Katja we shared a way of thinking, a common approach.

A screenplay I don't think I saw. A screenplay in documentary film production is something with which you apply for money.

How the rhythm is selected? I am a composer, myself. In this case it was a struggle, and it did not help that the composer was in Denmark.

What about the style of the music? It is difficult to verbalize music. The possibility of using local music we soon dismissed. It would have been just repeating in music what we see on screen.

What about the digital transition? There is no big change, I edit like I have been editing before.

The effect of shooting on film is that the image is more thought out, it has been conceived during a long period of time. Digital cinematography is often just räiskimistä, blasting about. The camera is on all the time, which gives more possibilities. The rec button is always on.

The subject dictates the style.

With Arto Halonen the work process is quite different.

JS: Some documentarists shoot 20 kilometers of film and spend a year watching it.

TP: With me, the worst case was that I had 300 tapes, or, actually we were two editors to work with them. It was really heavy.

An editor does not learn all shots by heart. After the film is finished I forget all. Maybe it is a defensive mechanism. It is painful to watch any film. In each case I always think what I should have done differently.

The size of the crew was usually four in this film. There were Katja Gauriloff, the cinematographer, the sound recorder, and sometimes Joonas Berghäll, and local people, such as the camera assistant, a soundman, and a local arranger.

We spent some 40-50 days on location.

The lighting equipment? Usually we shot with available light, but in factories and butcheries we had also lamps.

The Jussi Awards 2012 Gala

Organized by Filmiaura. Kaapelitehdas, Merikaapelihalli, Tammasaarenlaituri 2, Helsinki, 3 February, 2013.

The Jussi Awards have been given since 1944 for achievements in Finnish cinema. The Jussi statue is based on the figure of Jussi, the symbol of the irrepressible spirit of pride and liberty in the popular play Pohjalaisia which has been filmed twice, in the 1920s and in the 1930s. The gala event was telecast live on MTV3. The host was Mikko Leppilampi.

The lifetime achievement award (the Concrete Jussi) was given to Anneli Sauli who had her debut in the cinema 60 years ago and is still active.

The audience award was given by the Minister of Culture Paavo Arhinmäki. The winner was Nightmare - painajainen merellä based on a daily soap opera. There was a sense of disbelief in the audience when the winner was announced. How did they rig the poll?

Suomen Elokuvakontakti and YLE gave the short film award, Kettu Elokuvapalkinto, to Hiljainen viikko, directed by Jussi Hiltunen. 

Favex gave the Hulda Export award to Iron Sky.

Filmiaura and Nordisk Film gave the Vuoden uroteko (The Derring-Do of the Year) award to 3 Simoa.

Laura Närhi sung live "Hetken tie on kevyt" in the adaptation heard in Vuosaari.

Many of the Jussi awards had the sense of voting against the expected winners which were Vuosaari and Puhdistus. I belong to Filmiaura and to the voters, and usually my favourite films are not even nominated. Such was the case also this year. Sinivalkoinen valhe was my favourite Finnish film of 2012, but it was not nominated even in the best documentary category. Instead, it got the award for the best poster.

The most memorable moments of the gala were the speeches by Ismo Kallio (as presenter), Liisi Tandefelt, and Anneli Sauli. It was nice to hear in Anneli Sauli's words the story of how she was discovered 60 years ago. Two days before I had heard Matti Kassila's version.
 
PARAS ELOKUVA / BEST PICTURE
* Kohta 18 / Almost 18 –  Maarit Lalli
Miss Farkku-Suomi / Miss Blue Jeans – Outi Rousu, Markku Flink
Niko 2 - lentäjäveljekset / Niko 2 - Little Brother, Big Trouble – Antti Haikala, Petteri Pasanen, Hannu Tuomainen
Puhdistus / The Purge – Maria Avdjuško, Kristian Taska, Jukka Helle, Markus Selin
Vuosaari / Naked Harbour – Pauli Pentti, Liisa Penttilä

OHJAUS
 / DIRECTING
Antti J. Jokinen  – Puhdistus / The Purge
* Maarit Lalli  –  Kohta 18 / Almost 18
Aku Louhimies  –  Vuosaari / Naked Harbour

MIESPÄÄOSA / BEST ACTOR
Samuli Edelmann  –  Tie pohjoiseen / Road North
Vesa-Matti Loiri  –  Tie pohjoiseen / Road North
* Eero Ritala  – Kulman pojat

 / Fanatics

NAISPÄÄOSA
 / BEST ACTRESS
* Laura Birn  –  Puhdistus / The Purge
Pamela Tola  –  Härmä / Once Upon a Time in the North
Pamela Tola  –  Kaksi tarinaa rakkaudesta / Must Have Been Love

MIESSIVUOSA
 / BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Peter Franzén  –  Tie pohjoiseen / Road Noth
* Santtu Karvonen  –  Juoppohullun päiväkirja / Gloriously Wasted
Juha Muje  –  Risto Räppääjä ja viileä Venla

 / Ricky Rapper and Cool Wendy

NAISSIVUOSA
 / BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Laura Birn  –  Vuosaari / Naked Harbour
Niina Nurminen  –  Kohta 18 / Almost 18
* Liisi Tandefelt  –  Puhdistus

 / The Purge

KÄSIKIRJOITUS / BEST SCREENPLAY
Matti Kinnunen –  Miss Farkku-Suomi / Miss Blue Jeans
* Maarit Lalli, Henrik Mäki-Tanila  –  Kohta 18 / Almost 18
Hannu Tuomainen, Marteinn Thorisson  –  Niko 2 - lentäjäveljekset

 / Niko 2 - Little Brother, Big Trouble

KUVAUS
 / CINEMATOGRAPHY
Tuomo Hutri F.S.C. –  Vuosaari / Naked Harbour
* Rauno Ronkainen F.S.C. –  Puhdistus / The Purge
Rauno Ronkainen F.S.C., Harri Räty, Ian Nyman – Kohta 18

 / Almost 18

MUSIIKKI
 / ORIGINAL SCORE
* Karsten Fundal – Säilöttyjä unelmia / Canned Dreams
Pessi Levanto  –  Rakkauden rasvaprosentti / Body Fat Index of Love
Stephen McKeon  –  Niko 2 – lentäjäveljekset / Niko 2 - Little Brother, Big Trouble

ÄÄNISUUNNITTELU / SOUND DESIGN
Ivo Felt, Seppo Vanhatalo – Rat King
Micke Nyström – Kaksi tarinaa rakkaudesta / Must Have Been Love
* Kirka Sainio  –  Puhdistus / The Purge

LEIKKAUS / EDITING
Benjamin Mercer – Vuosaari / Naked Harbour
* Riitta Poikselkä  –  Kovasikajuttu / The Punk Syndrome
Jenny Tervakari, Maarit Lalli – Kohta 18

 / Almost 18

LAVASTUS / PRODUCTION DESIGN
Mikko Pitkänen – Niko 2 - lentäjäveljekset
 / Niko 2 - Little Brother, Big Trouble
Sattva-Hanna Toiviainen – Vuosaari / Naked Harbour
* Ulrika von Vegesack – Iron Sky

PUKUSUUNNITTELU / COSTUME DESIGN
Tiina Kaukanen – Vuosaari
 / Naked Harbour
Anna Vilppunen – Puhdistus
 / The Purge
* Tiina Wilén – Miss Farkku-Suomi / Miss Blue Jeans

MASKEERAUSSUUNNITTELU / MAKEUP
Marjut Samulin – Miss Farkku-Suomi / Miss Blue Jeans
Marjut Samulin – Vuosaari / Naked Harbour
* Riikka Virtanen – Puhdistus / The Purge

DOKUMENTTIELOKUVA
 / DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
* Kovasikajuttu / The Punk Syndrome – ohjaajat Jukka Kärkkäinen, J-P Passi
Säilöttyjä unelmia / Canned Dreams – ohjaaja Katja Gauriloff
Venäjän vapain mies / Russian Libertine – ohjaaja Ari Matikainen



The Master (2012) in 70 mm

Paul Thomas Anderson: The Master (US 2012). Joaquin Phoenix (Freddie Quell), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lancaster Dodd) and Amy Adams (Peggy Dodd).

Future Film special 70 mm preview together with KAVA (in the context of our Paul Thomas Anderson retrospective) at Bio Rex, Helsinki, 1 February 2013.

Bio Rex, seating 687, was sold out for the special 70 mm preview screening of The Master of which I have blogged already on 14 December when I saw it in 2K DCP.

The Master is a strange subject for 70 mm (the negative is in 65 mm) since it is largely based on close-ups and interiors.

The Master begins with exteriors, to be sure, but shot towards the sun and with a lot of distorting effects, reflecting the deranged state of mind of Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix). Would it be much different if the beginning had been shot in Super 16 mm?

I watched for 15 minutes and have to confess that I did not discover a special advantage in the 70 mm version in comparison with the 2K DCP. (The 2K DCP has been processed very well.) There are, however, scenes with a feeling of grandeur later on in which the 70 mm might come into its own.

My points of reference, genuine 70 mm masterpieces of which I have a clear and present impression, include Playtime and The Agony and the Ecstasy.

Matti Kassila: How My Films Were Made (a lecture)

Matti Kassila: Miten elokuvani ovat syntyneet? The opening lecture of the lecture series organized by the HYY:n Elokuvaryhmä / The Film Society of The Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 1 Feb 2013.

Inspired by the lecture and book series legendary in Finland, Miten kirjani ovat syntyneet [How My Books Were Made] (five books in 1969-2012) the Helsinki Students' Film Society launches a lecture series with ten film-makers: Matti Kassila, Katja Gauriloff (who cannot come and is replaced by Joonas Berghäll, Heikki Färm, and Timo Peltola), Peter von Bagh, Anssi Mänttäri, Maunu Kurkvaara, Jari Halonen, Katariina Lillqvist, Jörn Donner, Jukka Virtanen, and Timo Koivusalo.

Matti Kassila (born 12 January 1924) is the only Finnish veteran of the film business who has started in the 1940s and is still active, for instance in making screenplays. He drives his own car and is available for introductions, interviews, and long sessions, as today.

It all goes back to the childhood. I was over-sensitive and timid and had panic attacks, for instance, when I was seven, my school burned to the ground in Haapavesi, which was a railroad junction, and a wailing sound of the engines was the fire alarm. Another bad panic attack I had at the time of a severe thunderstorm.

But I was living in a secure home village, and soon I changed to the opposite direction, and I became hyperactive. I was active in sport and in the boy scout activities. I was also interested in acting and participated in arranging iltamat (soirées).

This hyperactivity is still going on. I was active in many ways, and this became useful in the profession of the film director. In the boy scout activities I was sometimes in charge of three scout patrols (vartio), totalling 30-40, which was about the size of a film crew, and it came naturally that I was boss.

During the war I landed into a hospital due to a heart nerve failure, arrhythmia. By day I served at the drawing office of the tank force, in the evening I acted, and we had theater shows on Saturdays and Sundays.

After the war I spent all my free time in the movies. The range was awesome - American, French, Swedish movies. The entire 1950s were awesome, and I admired the great film-makers.

After the war I had the opportunity to become the continuity supervisor (kuvaussihteeri) for Valentin Vaala in Loviisa at the Suomi-Filmi company, and I also had tasks of a production assistant (järjestäjä). I realized immediately that film-making - this is for me.

I followed through with the editing and with the sound mixing and proceeded to the short film department of Suomi-Filmi. I got acquainted with Ritva Arvelo and the poet Kullervo Rainio and got mixed with radio play arrangements. Edvin Laine believed in me and took me to T.J. Särkkä at the Suomen Filmiteollisuus company: "this boy gets things done". Edvin had a good nose, and Särkkä hired me at once. I was cutting, mixing, selecting music, and reading commentaries for short films, now for Särkkä.

Aaltoska orkaniseeraa was a Särkkä production starring child actors such as Veli-Matti. Edvin launched it, and let me do much of the directing. Särkkä saw that I can manage, and gave me the chance: "you have demonstrated that you can". There was a bound screenplay for the feature film Isäntä soittaa hanuria. "Take it or leave it". We went to Loppi, to the Seppälä house, and the next day we hunted locations. Two days later later we started principal photography. 1 July 1947 wes started to shoot, and 12 August 1947 was the premiere. There was a week's delay since it rained five days. "Not sooner than that", said the cinematographer Osmo Harkimo. "Sittenhän ei ole mitään kiirettä (Oh, then we are in no hurry)".

Professori Masa was a movie starring Tauno Palo and Ansa Ikonen. I found an excellent rhythm.   When I was appointed professor h.c. myself the film was screening on tv that day. [Masa is a nickname for Matti.]

Maija löytää sävelen was a movie based on a screenplay bought in Sweden from a married couple of Austrian Jewish screenwriters who had exiled in the 1930s. First there was the song by Ahti Sonninen, "Unohtumaton ehtoo", then there was an orchestral arrangement. Leena Häkinen and Martti Katajisto starred in a story about amnesia. When the woman hears the song on the radio her memory is recovered. Jouko Tolonen played the piano.

I had made three feature films in a year. Särkkä sent me to Pohjanmaa to make a fourth, Lakeuden lukko. Aku Korhonen was outstanding. Särkkä had finished the script.

There was a famous radio journalist at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Usko Santavuori, who staged a burglary and used hidden microphones to record the arrival of the policemen. The policemen were not prepared and they actually hit Santavuori. That was the way of the police after the war. Radio tekee murron was my fifth feature film project. Särkkä said "good, that one we'll do". 

Hannes Häyrinen and Ritva Arvelo were fast-talking, modern Helsinki people. Frank Capra, Ernst Lubitsch, and Alfred Hitchcock were among my models.

Särkkä was impulsive and abrasive. It was his way to hide his shyness.

With Aarne Tarkas and Osmo Harkimo we established an independent company called Junior-Filmi. For it we made a sequel, Radio tulee hulluksi, which was even funnier. Its a parody about the journalist who gets into a madhouse. It remained a property of Teuvo Tulio. Tulio became a hermit and he did not sell the rights of the movie. After his death the government inherited the property.

After the downfall of Junior-Filmi I returned to the SF. I had carte blanche, I could do what I wanted. Tyttö kuunsillalta was based on a radioplay by Hella Wuolijoki, the structure was based on five long telephone calls, starring Ansa Ikonen and Joel Rinne. You can make a movie from any material. I would have become mad if I had not discovered the cinema.

Sininen viikko was a summer love tragedy. The female critics Paula Talaskivi, Greta Brotherus, and Valma Kivinen resented it immensely. We made cuts into the swimming sequence. They wanted to make a distinction between swimming and love-making (uinti ja nainti). Jerker A. Eriksson was a critic with more understanding.

Hilman päivät: Edvin Laine was fantastic. The role was like Edvin himself. He starred even in Pastori Jussilainen.

Isän vanha ja uusi was a play which I opened up. All the actors were from the Kansanteatteri except Tauno Palo and Ansa Ikonen.

About Särkkä I realized that an old man is unable to change his way to produce.

Edvin Laine helped me in matters of the theatre. There were positions of theater directors opening in Kotka and in Pori. "Let me call". Aino Mantsas, my wife, was expecting a baby, and she did not want to return to Pori. I got out of the frying pan and into the fire. I directed six plays within a year, it's a horrendous amount. I had a summer holiday of one month.

Then Mauno Mäkelä from Fennada Filmi called. Their house director Roland af Hällström had died. "Would you come to us?" I had just read the novel Elokuu by F.E. Sillanpää. I said: "On one condition: if you let make a movie of this". I re-negotiated the salary. I am fast whenever I find the key (juju). I hunted locations in Ruovesi at the Kauttu canal but learned that the Murole canal is in quite a different league. I cast the movie already as I wrote it. We moved into Murole on 15 June. We shot about one month.

Critics liked Elokuu, but it was not successful with the audiences. It was selected for Cannes. There everybody was world famous. William Wyler won the Palme d'Or. Bergman, Fellini, Wajda, and Bresson were there. I got acquainted with Grigory Chukhray who was there with The Forty-First, about the doomed love affair with a Red Army sharpshooter girl and a bourgeois prisoner. When the ship arrives at the shore, the man runs towards it, and it's a ship of the Whites. The girl shoots him. Well, I can say that olin siellä minäkin (I was there, as well).

Another visit to a festival was with Tulipunainen kyyhkynen to Berlin, also there among 30 competitors.  I had also visited Moscow with Punainen viiva. It's a tragedy, and it ends with a bear killing the protagonist. It was pessimistic and had no chance in the competition, but I believe I ended up among the top five. I remember the big palace of the Kremlin. Jarno Pennanen was the interpreter.

Ihmiselon ihanuus ja kurjuus participated in Rouen and won many awards; the leading actor Lasse Pöysti was among the winners. But my child was sick and I had to leave before the awards were given.

In the 1980s I made Niskavuori combining two Niskavuori plays by Hella Wuolijoki, the story of Aarne Niskavuori. Rauni Luoma was magnificent as Loviisa, the old mistress of Niskavuori.

Jäähyväiset presidentille was based on a novel by Väinö Kirstilä. Tarmo Manni who played the president knew Urho Kekkonen, and he succeeded in the role. He was a a born storyteller. And he had come out of the closet a long time ago.

Kaikki pelissä was shot at Haapavesi. The produced was sentenced to pay back 3,9 million marks of the funding. A few years ago he told that it is now 16,5 million.

The screenplay for Ihmiselon ihanuus ja kurjuus was finished early, but I heard that "Kassila - Sillanpää is no longer a relevant combination". Then I got some advice and managed to fit the schedule with Lasse Pöysti. Ensio Suominen was the art director, and he brought his daughter-in-law Minna Santakari as well. Kari Sohlberg was the cinematographer.

There were two women at the board of the Finnish Film Foundation who were my enemies, whom I had insulted. Donner was disqualified and stayed out. Four voted for it, two against it.

It was an all-out period film of the 1930s, and it was spot-on. But there was not a single day to waste since Pöysti had booked a trip to China.

The score by Jukka Linkola was outstanding.

The minister of culture in the Mitterrand government was Jacques Lang, and he sent me a personal letter of congratulations for a big and beautiful film. It only cost 5,5 million marks, which was a regular budget.

Kaikki pelissä was butchered at the starting line. It was a desperate situation in the early 1990s. There was an economic depression. The film was released with four prints only and given only a second rate cinema. I bought the film from the estate after the company went bankrupt. I also possess split rights.

Films of my weaker period include Natalia which was a satire on the Soviet Union. It had an audience of 200.000.

Tea Ista received the Jussi for best actress for Tahdon rakastaa, Peter.

Helsinki is an elegant and active city. Two thirds of my films are set in Helsinki. The Inspector Palmu series takes mostly place south of the Esplanade-Boulevard line since the young Mika Waltari lived there, at Neitsytpolku, and visited the Norssi [Helsingin normaalilyseo]. I did many Mika films.

When I screened Kaasua, komisario Palmu to Mika he was depressed and suffering from a writer's block. I asked whether he would have new stuff about Palmu. He said: "Call me in three weeks". I did, and he said "Now it is finished". He had finished a new novel, Tähdet kertovat, komisario Palmu. The writer's block was gone, and a project in a lighter vein had helped him. Soon he sent me a copy of his new huge historical novel Ihmiskunnan viholliset with his dedication.

With Komisario Palmun erehdys I returned to Särkkä. My independent production Lasisydän had no success. Särkkä gave me the old screenplay for Komisario Palmun erehdys. It was not particularly good. There were a lot of interrogation sequences. But you can make a movie from anything. The art direction was superb.

Last year the news department of the Finnish Broadcasting Company arranged a poll about the best Finnish fiction film, to celebrate the centenary of Finnish fiction cinema. Komisario Palmun erehdys was the overwhelming winner.

At the time, suspense thrillers, detective stories and comedies were not that highly regarded. Yet nothing is as difficult as comedy.

I have also received a Pro Finlandia. And the award from Suomen Dekkariseura. A female inspector guided me to equip the award with my fingerprint.

THE Q & A SESSION

Films of mine that have not been released on dvd before are now being processed to be released on dvd by VL-Musiikki among others.

Mr. Kassila commented on details of the locations in Ihmiselon ihanuus ja kurjuus and how Elina Ylivakeri wanted to see the film on vhs as the last thing she did before she died. Lasse Pöysti was playing King Lear at the time. He sensed the Sillanpää smell in the production.

Mr. Kassila commented on how he took advantage of all the means of the cinema in Komisario Palmun erehdys, and he was very happy with the composer Osmo Lindeman also with his sense of quick music effects. "Here we have four seconds". Lindeman took a coin from his pocket and let it glide on the strings of the grand piano, made a glissando. "I intervened in everything". The auteur is the one who is behind it all. We perused the fashion magazines of the 1930s. Chaplin was an auteur. Even during the studio era there were auteurs such as Hitchcock.

Billy Wilder who made Sunset Boulevard said that 80% is in the script. I agree with him pretty much. It is safe for the actor. With actors I always work privately. An actor is vulnerable. He is exposing his feelings. He needs to trust in the director. They always look at me. I nod and smile.

I have a screenplay for a historical film about the fatal hours of Finland. President Kallio dies in the arms of Mannerheim. It has been regarded too expensive. Olli Soinio is working on a more budget-conscious version with more interiors.

My own film favourites include Vertigo and Citizen Kane. They are mysterious, enigmatic, with multiple layers.

Mannerheim: Ermei Kanninen contacted me and I regarded Renny Harlin as the director who could pull it off. Heikki Vihinen would be the screenwriter, he is a good Mannerheim connoisseur. As are others, such as Veijo Meri.

There was a honorary commmittee with Paavo Lipponen as the chairman. The screenplay grew to 252 pages. Every film professional knows that one page equals one minute of film. And at that point Mannerheim had not arrived in Finland.

I know how it should be done. The old Mannerheim tells the whole story. Also how he committed mistakes, how he was vain, desperate.

Joel Rinne was my Mannerheim in Päämaja, but Jussi Jurkka received the Jussi Award. It was based on a play by Ilmari Turja. Turja and A.F. Airo were pals, they were two of a kind. I met Airo. They were both curt, to the point, drinking buddies.

At first Jussi Jurkka had no grip on the role. Then I told him to act like a master of a farm, how he swaggers about in his boots (kuin maalaistalon isäntä, saapastelee). He respects Mannerheim but wastes no time in standing in attention.

The black Mannerheim is the biggest blunder in the history of the Finnish Broadcasting Company but it is not an insult to Mannerheim. The final wreath on the grave is the ultimate breach of style.

We (with Mikko Sirenius chairman of the HYY:n Elokuvaryhmä, Pietari Kääpä, and Mikko Pihkoluoma) took Matti Kassila to dinner, and he went on for two and a half hours with more fascinating stories. Then some of us had to leave for Bio Rex, for the 70 mm screening of The Master. Otherwise who knows how long we would have gone on.

Mr. Kassila told a lot about his experiences in the theatre. Among the plays he has directed he remembers most fondly The Cherry Orchard, The Iceman Cometh, and Antigone (Anouilh).

Eino Kalima had a special, understated way to direct at the theatre. It was largely about presence, with him playing the piano in the background.

Aku Korhonen was an unforgettable theatre player.

Matti Kassila also told the story about how Anneli Sauli was discovered and how Kassila directed Anneli Sauli's screen test for Särkkä, with Matti Oravisto, during the preparations of Sininen viikko.