INTERVIEW: Director Jessica Hausner brings 19th century Berlin to screen in ‘Amour Fou’

Filmmaker Jessica Hausner, director of Lourdes, Hotel and Lovely Rita, is set to premiere her latest film, Amour Fou, at New York City’s Film Forum. The German-language movie stars Birte Schnoeink, Christian Friedel and Stephan Grossmann, and depicts an infamous suicide pact between Heinrich von Kleist (Friedel) and Henrietta Vogel (Schnöink) in Berlin in the early part of the 19th century.

Amour Fou premieres today, March 18 at the Film Forum, but it had its origins at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and First Look 2015 at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Hausner about the new film. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.

What drew you to the story of these two people? How did you first learn of them?

I was looking for them! By that I mean I start a film with an idea, that is in the beginning very simple, abstract: double suicide out of love. Then I start to look for stories or persons that provide me with the original events that only reality can invent — such as Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel. I read that von Kleist that he had asked different people he knew if they would want to die with him — but none of them agreed, until he found Henriette Vogel, who thought she would die anyway of her illness — so she preferred to die with von Kleist than alone. … I was fascinated by the inversion of what you’d expect from a melodramatic love story that ends in double-suicide. … It was the story of a banal and even ridiculous reality that ruins every great idea — also the idea called “love.”

How difficult was it to recreate 19th century Berlin?

I didn’t recreate anything. I created something, as every film (that i find interesting) does: a new reality is created that corresponds to the emotions and psychology of the story and their characters. To do this, I of course used details from that period (early 19th century), but only to make the audience believe what they see — not to be just or true to neither the 19th century nor von Kleist’s biography: Also here I took what I needed and left out what wasn’t necessary for my story — which is not a story about von Kleist, but about love.

What can modern audiences learn from Amour Fou?

Is there something to “learn” from a film? I don’t know. If I make a film, I try to enter hidden places of the human soul — I try to find the secrets that we are eager to hide from each other and from ourselves — those secrets open our eyes to see the absurdity and ambiguity of existence. Maybe I can learn from it, that it’s no use worrying — everyone will die one day.

Were you impressed by the performances you were able to capture from the lead actors?

I was very happy with my actors, and think that they were exactly the right ones for the roles they had to play. The process of casting takes a long time (for me always), because I look for individuals, who themselves are close to what they perform — we don’t rehearse very much — and if I find the right actor, it’s very easy … most of it then goes by itself. Maybe that is why I don’t have the feeling to “capture” a performance: it is more that everything that my actors offer will be right, because they ARE the character themselves.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Amour Fou is currently playing at the Film Forum in New York City. Click here for more information.