Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

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Movie
Original title Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
Country of production France , Netherlands , United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 2010
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Sophie Fiennes
production Émilie Blézat
Sophie Fiennes
Kees Kasander
camera Remko Schnorr
cut Ethel Shepherd
occupation

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is a 2010 documentary by Sophie Fiennes about the German artist Anselm Kiefer . The film is not a biographical film, but a documentary about the " total work of art " that Kiefer has been creating since 1993 on the approximately 35 hectare site of the former La Ribaute silk factory in Barjac , southern France. From 2008 Kiefer moved his studio and part of the installations from La Ribaute to a former warehouse of a department store in the Paris suburb of Croissy-Beaubourg . Sophie Fiennes documents the state of the factory before Kiefer finally left Barjac and relocated to Paris and no longer interfered with the structure or the landscape.

content

The film begins with a tracking shot of almost twenty minutes, which is only accompanied by music and in which no word is uttered. The camera moves through deserted corridors and rooms of the abandoned factory, through underground shafts, grazes over concrete walls, poured glass, over stacks of old lead plates and curled steel chips, over shards and demolition material, and repeatedly catches the light that comes through window slits or from falls into the rooms above. Gradually, the dimensions of the site with its ruins, trenches, labyrinthine passages, tunnels and caves, with its tower structures made of old shipping containers, glass houses and now and then water surfaces and light groves open up . Occasionally the camera lingers on Kiefer's installations, such as B. the women of the revolution . Employees who assist Kiefer and who follow his taciturn instructions are shown, including Kiefer himself, who is at work with a welding machine or other tool. The viewer witnesses the completion of a huge painting on the subject of the forest, a motif that Kiefer has played through in many variations.

In the middle of the film there is an interview with Klaus Dermutz. Kiefer and Dermutz sit across from each other in the La Ribaute library and talk about a wide variety of topics that Dermutz addresses and from which Kiefer digresses.

production

Remko Schnorr worked a second time for Sophie Fiennes as a cameraman after The Pervert's Guide to Cinema . Some passages of the film that the attachment from the bird's eye view show were a Flying Camera included so that - in the words of Sophie Fiennes - the impression of a "disembodied gaze" ( disembodied view is created). In addition to a digital camera, part of the film was also shot in analog format, since, according to Fiennes, the film material "responds very differently to light".

The music was selected for the film at the suggestion of Kiefer. The French cellist Siegfried Palm plays excerpts from the first movement of György Ligeti's cello concerto . This piece was previously used by Stanley Kubrick in the films Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey . "Free Pieces for Ensemble: Number X" by Jörg Widmann was performed by Ensemble Modern under the direction of Dominique My. Kiefer and Widmann already knew each other from their collaboration at the Opera Bastille . The title of the film refers to passages in the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament .

publication

The film premiered on May 16, 2010 in Cannes in the Special Screenings series . It was shown for the first time in the USA at the 2011 Film Forum in New York from October 9-23. It was released in theaters in the USA on October 27, 2011. In the same year mindjazz pictures produced an original version on DVD with German subtitles and a booklet.

criticism

“This brilliant film by Sophie Fiennes is less classic documentary than a cautious approach to the work of Anselm Kiefer. Hardly any words are needed, only the pictures speak about Kiefer's work and working method and enable the attentive viewer to immerse himself in a fascinating oeuvre. ”( Programmkino.de ).

At Rotten Tomatoes , the film achieved a 79% rate among critics.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sophie Fiennes as Ethel Shepherd, IMDb
  2. ↑ Interviews: Sophie Fiennes artforum.com, accessed on September 3, 2018
  3. ^ Sophie Fiennes - Conversation on the film Interview in KulturKinoRuhr, accessed on September 4, 2018
  4. ↑ Conversation with Sophie Fiennes HTN ShortFilmContest, accessed on September 3, 2018
  5. ↑ IMDb
  6. ↑ Am Anfang / In the Beginning, Opera Bastille presents Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Widmann, accessed on September 5, 2018
  7. ↑ Isa 34 1-17
  8. ↑ Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, Cannes Festival , accessed September 3, 2018.
  9. ↑ Interviews: Sophie Fiennes , accessed on August 27, 2018.
  10. ↑ Quoted from mindjazz-pictures.de
  11. ↑ Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, 2011 , accessed August 27, 2018.