Stefan Grissemann

How do you see your book ? I interspersed my text with original statements from Seidl, which do not always go along with my opinion. Within two years I made twenty interviews with him for the book. There were no other interferences from him : you cannot write a discerning study about a director if you share the script. There was even a period in which I panned his work. I do not like some of his movies so much. Ulrich Seidl does not fault criticism. He actually draws energy from conflicting opinions.

What is Ulrich Seidl’s connection with the characters he presents in his films ? He loves the people he shows and spends weeks and months with them before the shooting. Seidl does not want to “exploit” anybody, which he sometimes gets accused of. That is actually a delicate issue, because there will always be voyeurism in cinema. You cannot escape that problem : whatever you are looking at with your camera, you are using it for your own purposes.

In his films he often uses amateurs. Big parts are portrayed by professional actors, but he also uses amateurs, who are playing themselves to a certain degree. Naturally he tests them carefully in his castings, to see if they can provide the style he wants. There’s a lot of preparation work as well : you will find a costume person and set designers, whose work will change any location. It is all staged, but still shows a lot of reality. That is probably why the audience is so fascinated by his work.

Why do we find such strong reactions to his work ? Seidl is looking for the point where it starts to hurt, he shows cases of social hardship or the process of dying – nobody is eager to look at these things. No one really wants to see what people at the end of their life look like, and where we will all end up.

Zsuzsanna Kiràly & Christian Ruthner