TAKING SIDES

Director's Statement

The screenplay TAKING SIDES offers two great challenges to the director. The first stems from the premise of the story. Two kinds of human behaviour, both quoting higher moral principles, collide. One — represented by Major Steve Arnold — condemns every single beneficiary and stow-away of a dictatorship built upon a murderous and sinful ideology; at the same time Arnold also defends military intervention from across the ocean. The other — Furtwängler — argues that a whole nation cannot emigrate and those who remain among the depraved must try to defend themselves. He also believes that saving a culture and cultural values is a higher mission which allows for compromise. One of them accuses from the outside, looking at everything in black and white; the other defends himself from the inside; claiming pressure. Who has truth on his side?
In filming this story, both arguments must seem valid, otherwise we end up with a monotonous story in which we know within the first 10 minutes on whose side we stand. But if through careful handling of the scenes and through the glowing humanity of the actors, sympathy and antipathy can both be evoked; if the viewer can identify with one protagonist and then with the other and finally convince himself of his being wrong — then we can create a tension which will deliver a form of truth discovered by the audience through doubts, perplexity, reflection.

To achieve this good casting is essential.

Both lead actors must be capable of creating empathy and both of them must be capable of be-having in a way that creates antipathy at certain moments.

lt is also crucial, that the two main supporting actors, Emmi and David, who follow the story all the way through should represent the audience's reaction i.e. their behaviour must be understandable and natural for everyone.
It's very important that the story of the conductor collaborating with the Nazi's should not be-come a period drama from a previous century. The audience must be able to pick up on the con-temporary dilemma in the conflict of the American officer and his adversary, the German conductor; the moral issues raised by a particular situation. Is it right and justifiable to survive a dictatorship by compromises? The expansion of the story in this direction is aided by another character: Dymshitz, the Russian officer. To make him a believable character is crucial to maintaining the delicate balance.

The other challenge is offered by the aesthetic possibilities of the film. The story we have is capable of leading us into the dark tunnels of human self-justification, self-delusion, searching for excuses, selfish realisation of ambitions, anxiety and fear. The human eye expresses these flickering movements of the soul. In their expression we can follow the changing feelings; thoughts and arguments are Born and collapse right in front of us. This story is the story of human glances in continuous change and transformation. If we are lucky we shall be able to follow these changes from one second to the next. This film should rely on the greatest achievement of the moving picture; close ups of constantly changing emotions, charged energies, the relationship of faces in attack or in defence. And naturally we can show the relationship of these faces to the world in the wide shots. The story demands a strict and clear manner of presentation based on the smallest changes in the expressions of the protagonists: this will make it possible for the audience to defeat their momentary emotional attitude or prejudice and judge for themselves as far as the moral questions are concerned.
As the film is set in post-war Germany and Berlin, the sets need to be built credibly and carefully. The sets must perfectly match the documentaries made by the cameramen of the Allied Forces occupying Berlin: these films we already have at our disposal. The exteriors have to follow these films too.