As critics ourselves, we’re always pleased to celebrate filmmakers who started out as critics, like the director Christoph Hochhäusler. After helping to found the influential German film magazine Revolver, which he is still involved with, Hochhäusler started making shorts and then embarked on a career making features starting with 2003’s In This Very Moment, a formally austere debut that used a fairy tale framework to explore new political realities on the German-Polish border. His next two films played at Cannes and his reputation grew as part of the Berlin School, a critically lauded group of aesthetically rigorous young German filmmakers. His style has continued to evolve, as his last two films have brought formal experimentation and a fierce critical spirit to more genre-inflected stories. His latest film, The Lies of the Victors, (read our review here), played as part of the Kino Festival of German films, and we had the opportunity for a long talk with Christoph, presented here in a slightly condensed form.

It seemed that, in The Lies of the Victors, compared to your earlier work, you were using more “Hollywood” devices, to lead the audience, but then a lot of those expectations are subverted, by the journalists’ failure to effect any change. Was that a deliberate strategy?

I think it’s true, in a way I always try to find a mode that is both leading to heighten the tension and is seductive in a way. In a way every film is a reaction to the others, to the last one, and I had the feeling that I needed to make a film that is much more fluid and much less easy to capture. I was trying to find a mode of representation that was more fleeting and seductive. And it plays with a genre that is basically a Hollywood invention - it’s this kind of conspiracy thriller. So yes, it’s absolutely true that it’s based on an American story model and employs a lot of Hollywood stylistics. But at the same time, I wanted to do a personal film that expresses my worldview, so it’s a film that doesn’t lead to a conclusion that you can “solve it.” (Laughs)

Yes, considering that ending, would you say it’s a cynical film?

Not at all, hopefully not! I don’t see myself as a cynic, but it is skeptical, a skeptical ending. My hope will be that it inspires you to, deconstruct narration that is around you, that is, political narration, journalistic narration…

Or even film?

Or film, absolutely. The dream will be to empower the audience to become storytellers themselves, or to use (narrative) in a way that’s confident.

I was struck by how much camera movement you used, especially compared to your first film. Can you explain that change?

One reason is what I said before, that I wanted to do things differently, and evolve. But the main reason for me was that I wanted to make a film that has a very contemporary feel, and contemporary for me means that you don’t have the oversight, and you don’t really know the whole picture. And so to emulate this experience, it’s more subjective and really, you don’t have a clear picture of what’s happening – it’s moving and you can’t stop it…

I guess to put it in film terms, there’s no real establishing shot, you’re always in a point of view…

Right, although point of view is misleading, because most of the time the camera is rather, is superhuman, it’s a machine’s eye almost, because the movement is not connected to what we are used to. Usually the camera serves the story and in a way has the authority to push the actions in a certain direction. You know that things unfold for the camera. When the camera passes things, we are not sure if we see the decisive moment, the eye is no longer the privileged eye, it’s more like by accident we see things.

So would you like the audience to view the camera skeptically, as you said earlier of narration?

Yes and no. I don’t want to have an audience that views the film only in analytical terms. It should be a very broad experience, for all kinds, which is emotion and affect and intellect. I don’t want to narrow cinema to what you can understand. And it certainly has emotional effects to see the camera do what it does.

Often in ways we can’t really put into words.

Right. I mean it’s a silly objective, but you should make films in the zone where there are no words, I think.

Otherwise just write a book.

Exactly.

Speaking of camera movement, I know you spent time studying architecture, and the camerawork makes the architecture in this film very prominent. What do you think this adds to the experience of the film?

Well one of the topics of the film, I would say, is how systems and institutions, and buildings are part of this, or structures, let’s put it this way, are informing our lives. And those structures can be invisible, they can be fiber cables, they can be architecture and I think the usual cinema, is always trying to (naturalize) the camera and the architecture. It’s all serving the people. And I don’t experience life this way. I don’t think the buildings mostly are serving us. A lot of times we serve them, because they force us to cross the street here, or use the bathroom like this, you can’t sit properly, or whatever. It’s full of imperatives. They speak to you and say “don’t” or “do” or whatever. It’s like in the fairy tale, the bread in the oven says “Pull me out, pull me out.” In this way I think things communicate with us, and not like the internet of things, but I mean that form always comes from a certain ideological position. Someone has an idea of life and this idea is being built. Architecture is always crystallization in way of the powers that are. … In a way we are subject to the building and object at the same time.

Can you think of any examples in the film of settings imposing their will on people?

The (all glass) office space for the rehearsal of the manipulation of the minister, this transparency is kind of a burden. We can see them from outside and they have to behave, because we can see them. We are used to this notion that glass is transparent, and transparency is democracy, and is good. But this equation can be doubted in every step. First of all, does transparency mean democracy, or does it mean control, and self-control.

Its very much more ambivalent than what we are being sold all the time by architects. It’s always both ways. You’re outside, you see yourself, you see that mirror image of yourself and a mirror is always a means of control. It means, are you properly dressed, check your tie. If you imagine a society where there are no mirrors around, the only way to know what you look like is through other people, through interaction.

Let’s talk about the economics of the film. In the film capitalist forces lead to both a huge injustice and a subsequent cover-up. But the film takes pains to show that it’s not just the chemical companies and lobbyists acting out of economic self-interest, but it’s also the journalists, the supposed heroes. Can you discuss this?

Absolutely. Basically it’s all a big market for stories. They are all competing storytellers. And of course they have some extra means, to you know, to get those stories out. But I don’t really think that journalism can be neutral, and can be only serving, and can tell the truth. That’s impossible. And that’s a good thing – to know how constructed stories are. I mean, look closely at how news stories are being made, it’s totally construction. Usually, in television for example, you have writing over image, meaning first of all, you write a text saying “in the morning, blah blah blah, Mr. So and So met So and So”. This is the leader of the audiovisual message and then they find images and in these images you see, for example, a car pulling up, and someone shaking hands, which has no relation whatsoever with the contract they are signing in the text. So this might be a good example why news is always a construction and the same thing is true for journalism in newspapers of course.

I saw a relationship in the rehearsal scene between the lobbyists, who craft a narrative and are almost coaching, or directing, the executive, and film directors. Do you see a relationship between cinema and this activity?

Absolutely. First of all, I think cinema is responsible for a certain way to approach life, as a performance.

A way of interpreting life.

We have become more performative as a society, through cinema. Because we are used to seeing arranged life, in cinema, we try to imitate that. In a way, the ethical question, if I, as a storyteller, am allowed to arrange and omit certain things, is the journalist allowed to arrange and omit certain things? It’s an ethical conflict. Of course, there is no truth, or there is truth but we can’t tell it. So we have to connect dots, and this connecting is necessarily, to a certain degree, an ideological doing. You say, because of this, this happened.

And that very action is ideological, you’d say?

I’m not against ideology, what I’m against is pretending that there’s no ideology involved. In a way, ideology is like software, we think along certain terms and along certain assumptions about life and about humanity, what’s human, what’s good for us and so on. And of course these assumptions can be questioned. But if you pretend there are no assumptions, that it is the truth, then you have a problem. So I’m all for a debate about it.

Could you talk about how the personal elements of the film, like the relationship between Fabian and Nadja, relate to the overall message of the film? I thought it seemed like they had these human weaknesses, love, gambling, etc., and the lobbyists were coldly impersonal.

Well, that’s also a question of screen time. The lobbyists have much less screen time. I’m not saying that lobbyists are all bad people, but I was interested in them as functionaries, whereas the journalists have a little more private sphere, there’s a little more focus. But I wouldn’t say the lobbyists are any less human. I think they’re all the same, they have basically the same job! They probably have the same education, (the journalists) probably make less money, but that’s the major difference.

How did you intend for the audience to feel about Fabian? He’s given these traits of a romantic hero, but ultimately fails.

He fails, yes. I think he’s, to a certain degree, our avatar. We think, for a long time, that we are smart, we are good looking, we are in control, and ultimately, we are not (Laughs). But I think the film detaches itself from telling only Fabian’s story, it’s a bit wider, and in the end, he is being played, as we are being played, and his mistake, which is ours, is that he didn’t question certain things that he should have.

At the end of the film, he’s the only one who still cares. Nadja has moved on with a new job, the editor just wants to protect the magazine’s reputation…

The brand.

Exactly.

So there is some hope (Laughs).

How did you conceive of the film, were there real life influences?

Yes, basically everything that happened in the film happened in some form in real life, in Germany. But of course the whole thing together is totally fiction. But the hacking, the scandal with the poisoning, the cover-up, it all happened, it all happens all the time. The only thing that might be unrealistic, is the level of love that lobbyists put into this cover-up (Laughs).

It’s very in depth, it’s not always so competently done.

A lot of times they don’t care much. They know once you have achieved something, it’s not being undone only because people learn how it was achieved. Mostly they wouldn’t be so afraid of newspapers. So in that way, it’s a bit idealizing the role of the press, because in real life they wouldn’t be so afraid.

Let’s step back a bit. How would you say the state of German film has changed since you started both making films and writing criticism?

I think it’s more diverse than ever. There are all kinds of cinemas, but that’s both a quality and a problem, it’s much too small of a film community to do everything. For example I’m trying to do this thriller, and genre filmmaking to me means that there are a lot of models in a similar mode. You can’t single-handedly establish a genre, you have to build it upon a certain subconscious basis in your culture and on similar films. It’s very diverse, but it’s not…

Once you get inside these niches, people have a very strong idea of what they want from a film, and don’t necessarily want to be surprised, or have a film deviate too much from these expectations. Once you say, “this is a thriller,” people get angry if it doesn’t meet those expectations.

Absolutely. But I really don’t know how to talk about how German cinema is developing. There’s always this feeling, probably since the beginning of filmmaking, there’s always the feeling in Germany, that something lacks. In hindsight, a lot of interesting films are made, but it’s a different tradition. In the U.S., it’s always the tradition of success, if you look at the 200 or some films that are being made in the U.S., or 400, or I don’t know, of course 95% is bullshit, like everywhere else. But you have the feeling of a tradition of success and that’s very good. It’s a necessary approach to say, this worked before, we can build on this, whereas the German film culture is always starting anew, and that’s a problem. There’s a lack of positive tradition.

Although that feeling of lack can probably foster innovation in some ways.

That’s true. For a certain kind of film, certainly. But for films that are in the widest sense, popular, it’s a problem.

I liked that The Lies of the Victors almost fit into this Old Hollywood model of a genre film, where there’s a superficial level that anyone can enjoy and then there’s much more to delve into under the surface that might speak to different people.

I totally agree, it was great times when cinema was able to play to so many audiences at the same time, like John Ford.

Exactly.

To make a very basic, emotionally satisfying adventure story, or Western story, and then it’s also, on another level, a very interesting critique of what’s going on politically. Or at least it can be used as a device to discuss other things. Like The Searchers, as a prime example, which is on the one hand, a Western, for all ages, very gruesome, but such a rich film in terms of ideology and one of the most ambivalent Westerns there are. I totally agree that it’s such a shame that it’s so fractured now. With blockbusters, I mean some blockbusters are made by very smart people, but they rarely make smart films.

In a way, it’s like what you mentioned earlier about structures influencing us. You can have a brilliant filmmaker as the nominal director of one of these superhero movies, but they’re still being shaped by a thousand other things, that they have no control over.

Right

We spoke earlier about how instrumental films are in how we see the world, with that in mind how powerful do you feel as a filmmaker in relation to society? Not in terms of direct influence, but in shaping how we see narratives?

I mean, cinema used to be much more powerful, but at the same time cinema always over and underestimated its power.

I guess what I was trying to say is it’s powerful, but not in the ways we think it is.

Yes, you can never calculate the impact of cinema, which is actually beautiful. I don’t want to have a cinema that is Important, or…

Didactic.

Yes. But if you look at it, did you see the interview that Obama did with David Simon?

I did.

It’s almost surreal that this happens. I have a friend who knew Francis Coppola quite well in the 70s, and he told me that Coppola worked on the campaign of a Democratic presidential candidate, I think Brown, and that was at the height of Coppola’s powers, after Apocalypse Now. And (Coppola) had the feeling that he could make a president, so he designed his campaign and it was the first time they used a video stream at a convention. And everything did not go as planned, it was a big disaster, and I’ve always liked that story, because Coppola flew in this friend of mine, and asked him about Leni Riefenstahl and how to use all the power of cinema for the good! (Laughs) And it’s interesting, because as you said, it will never go the way you expect it. There’s this beautiful line by Jean Debuffet, that “art will never lie in the beds that you make for it.”