With “Film Ist. a girl & a gun”, another of Gustav Deutsch's fascinating found footage collages is coming to the cinema. His producer and long-time friend and companion Manfred Neuwirth talks about their work together.

“Film ist. a girl & a gun” is chapter 13 of Gustav Deutsch's work on the fascination of moving images, which he began in 1998. “Film ist. 1- 6” dealt with scientific film, ‘7 - 12’ (written in 2002) with the ‘fairground, the variety show and the studio, as the cradle of cinematography’. What is new about “a girl & a gun” is a kind of narrative structure with five acts and short commentary texts by Hesiod, Plato and Sappho. And it is about nothing less than the elementary theme of cinema: Sex and death/violence. “A girl and a gun”, a quote often attributed to Jean-Luc Godard, but actually coined by the controversial American film pioneer D.W. Griffith, is a formula that runs through 93 minutes of images that are clearly recognizable for their different origins, ages and artistic quality. But this is precisely what makes the compilation so visually appealing. Like in a long video clip, albeit one that never gets boring, images come crashing down on you, accompanied by music, some of which was composed by the three renowned Austrian musicians Christian Fennesz, Martin Siewert and Burkhard Stangl, and some of which is external material contributed by them. As always, Deutsch does not put forward any theses for discussion, but thanks to meticulous research work, which he carried out together with Hanna Schimek, and thanks to a furious montage, opens up a fascinating cosmos in which the historical images are all the more impressive in their new context. Manfred Neuwirth, co-founder of Medienwerkstatt Wien, has been working with Gustav Deutsch for over 30 years. The following conversation is also a kind of homage to the great idiosyncratic film artist Deutsch.

How long have you known Gustav Deutsch and where did you meet him?

We got to know each other at the media workshop. He came to us with a project he was doing in the Weinviertel region. At first, it was purely an organizational thing because he was editing his film here. Slowly, however, a friendly and artistic relationship developed.

You were very early on when it came to working with video.

Yes, the Medienwerkstatt was founded in 1978. But we had already started working with video at the Journalism Institute in 1972, with very shaky equipment. And of course we had a kind of social work approach back then, i.e. working with people who had no access to media. So we went to farmers, for example, and gave them a camera so that they could film their everyday lives. You would often come back three weeks later and find that the camera was still where you had put it. That was a bit draining and exhausting in the long run. The project in Luxembourg, which we then did together, was a welcome return to artistic work, so to speak.

But basically you already had political aspirations?

Yes, Gustav came from architecture, and I remember there was a severe earthquake in Friuli and the architecture students went there to help, to quickly build makeshift shelters for the victims. But the general zeitgeist was that as an artist you also had to be politically and socially anchored somewhere. I came from journalism, and the Arena movement in 1976 was the initial spark for me, a lot of things came up. For the first time, it was possible to shoot with direct sound, and there was something like an early form of local television, in Vienna, but also in Graz, for example. There was a lot of work with children's groups, with women's groups, with all kinds of emancipatory approaches, including in architecture. The Amerlinghaus was one such project that I remember, from the initial planning to the creation of the communication center.

Did you also film in the arena?

A group that later founded the Filmladen was mainly active in the Arena. But there was the first approach to film work. We as a media workshop only really became active in 1978. Falter didn't exist back then either, this whole “alternative public sphere”, if you like, was only just emerging. I remember we had a “video bus”, which was a real sensation at the time, when a television was set up on the street. The HOSI (= Homosexual Initiative, note), which had just emerged at the time, had an information stand on Reumannplatz, you have to imagine that. Of course, that was a thorn in the side, and the district leader stopped it. But it was a good campaign, because with the activists and passers-by who were attracted by the television, there were of course discussions and interaction. It was topical, almost a kind of alternative newsreel. And it was then shown in the Z-Club in Kirchengasse, for example.

Your first joint work was Asuma, that was this film in Luxembourg, right?

Yes, that was a 35-minute film. We documented a project that artists and disabled people did together. We basically only got involved in the last week of the project to film the objects that were being created and the work situation. There was a bit of panic that the whole thing wasn't documented, so we were given the opportunity. Gustav then stayed there for another six months and joined the project himself, so to speak, as an artist. Our next film was Wossea Mtotom, which was made during this time, together with Gerda Lampalzer, who was also there. During this time, Gustav was also actively involved in the media workshop.

After that, you developed somewhat apart artistically or in different directions. Can you put it that way?

I was and still am the classic documentarist, so to speak, who always wanted to go out into the woods, into the bushes. Gustav, on the other hand, began to focus strongly on film history, on “old” images, also with the argument that there were already enough images anyway. He wanted to deal with that. But we stayed in touch over the years, he was always here and I produced his films in the media workshop or at loop media. He didn't stick with film, he also did other things, travel projects, exhibitions, installations. I stayed with film, with producing. But I don't see that as a divergence, they are simply different artistic positions that have always come together. And you incorporate other artistic positions into your work, as in the case of a girl & a gun, the three musicians who don't necessarily always work in a film-related way, but who have certainly acted associatively with moving images here. Hanna Schimek, who has been working with Gustav for a very long time, has a background in visual art. So it radiates in different directions. That is also very important to us.

How can we imagine working with the musicians? Do they first see the finished sequence of images and then work from there?

No, they were involved very early on. All the work on a project like this is very time-consuming. Material was brought in from eleven archives and institutions. Then rough cuts were made, about three or four hours long. The musicians saw this and were sharpened up, so to speak. This time, the musicians were also asked to include material from other musicians that they found good and suitable. They also contributed a lot, some of which was used, some of which had to be dropped again because the rights could not be clarified or were too expensive. The music was created from these building blocks, together with the musicians' own compositions. Fortunately, they are so familiar with each other that Christian Fennesz was able to do the final mix. He might then add his favorite noise over parts that seem too smooth.

How difficult was it to technically process the archive finds?

Enormously difficult. A production like this means, above all, that you are involved in processes that are not “normal”. The archives, for example, have very different conditions for accessing material. We had to process the found footage digitally for the first time because there is no longer any company that does it analog. We worked in 2K quality and went back to 35mm from there. In terms of content, that was very good because we were able to match the different color tones of the original material, these very different colorations, which of course holds the film together much better.

How does that work? It's not like you go to the archives and say: “Hello, we're making a movie about sex and death or violence, what material do you have?”

No, of course not. That goes back further. The biggest repository for images is Gustav's brain. Or his and Hanna's, because they do the research together. It's been ten years since the first movie, and there's a lot of material that you can start from. The archives have card indexes, computers and have organized their material, but that's no use. You can see in the end titles how many consultants are listed there. And that's the quality of Gustav's work: that he has three or four people in the archives who know his work and have understood his artistic position to such an extent that they stand by his side. There are people like that to whom you can say: “I need scenes with dogs”, and they find it, even though it's not in any box of notes. These are also cooperation partners who invest a lot of time in such a project. It's not in any calculation, but these are people who enjoy being involved. And they trust Gustav. You can also see this in the fact that the Kinsey Institute, for example, has released film material from its archive for the first time ever because Gustav met one of the heads of the film department at a symposium and convinced him of his work. Incidentally, that was particularly costly - we had to send someone there to film this pornographic material with a special camera, otherwise it wouldn't have been technically possible. But in any case, something like a network develops over the years from which you benefit.

I assume that the material is then viewed on site. What happens next?

It's a multi-stage process. First we view the footage there, then we can usually get some form of playout from the archives, from which we make a rough cut, although that was very difficult and expensive with the 2K exposure. Then Gustav has to go back and mark out the scenes very precisely on the film material. Then we get maybe 20 percent more than we need and then finish the film precisely.

I read in the press booklet that there was a script for the first time. How can one imagine a script for a found footage film?

It was pretty clear this time - if only because of the five-act structure, which was clear from the start. So you could assign images to the five chapters.

Now there are chapters 1 to 12 of Film Ist in two shorter films. Where did the idea of dedicating an entire chapter, a feature-length film, to this theme come from? Does it have to do with the fact that sex and violence are so fundamental to cinema?

Yes, of course. A girl and a gun is probably the central theme of cinema. There was also the consideration that an uncommented sequence of images, as is the case in the first two films, could be dangerous or even counterproductive here. Dealing with images of sex, but also of violence and war, is a very delicate undertaking, so it became clear that a little more form would be needed here. Gustav wanted to offer a kind of orientation through the five acts and the sparingly commenting interpretations.

What exactly is the role of the producer in such an unusual project? You said yourself that nothing was “normal” here.

In our case, I'm just one of several people trying to bring the project together. It's clear that the producer puts up the money, and the rights were very expensive. What I really struggled with this time were the technical issues. I'm sure that made up 50 percent of the work this time, getting these different formats under control so that there was a finished product at the end. But the division of roles between producer and director is not as clear in a film like this as it usually is, because there were always technical and artistic issues that we had to tackle together. But I'm not “the producer” who makes films just for the sake of making films, anyway. These are at most two or three projects a year, which are created on a great basis of trust, out of a friendly relationship.

You mentioned the rights. I imagine that clearing the rights for so many film excerpts is an almost impossible task.

Yes, there are clips from over 300 films and we have contracts with around 15 rights holders. There are many excerpts for which we don't know where the rights lie. But the archives we've been working with are very fast, so the rights were cleared surprisingly quickly this time. But I would say that the rights costs make up around a third of the budget.

How high was the budget?

Around 350,000 euros. That doesn't sound too bad, but it's very difficult to put together for a project like this.

What do you think is the appeal of these archive images for you, for the viewer? You feel drawn into the maelstrom of these images, naturally in harmony with the music, in an almost psychedelic way. Do you see it that way too?

I think the important thing is the value of these images. We are so pasted over from all sides, so surrounded by images of all kinds. I feel that these images - let's leave aside the few clips from sound films - have a different value, you can tell. Images certainly had a different significance at the time, precisely because they weren't inflationary. The acting style was different, the editing work was different, that's what makes them so fascinating. Today's images are much more arbitrary, more serial. And the montage of such images also creates a fascination, because you are constantly encouraged to concentrate on what comes next. You get involved in a stream of images, and the music naturally adds to this.

Why did you limit yourselves to the first 45 years? Is there anything more to come? At the end of the movie we read: “To be continued”.

There was a discussion about whether we should go beyond the end of the silent film era. The fact that there are now also sound film excerpts certainly has to do with the topic, because the exchange between the sexes naturally also and above all takes place through dialog, as in the one scene in “Symposium”. This ultimately gave rise to the idea of moving a little closer to our time. And I do believe that something will follow, perhaps in three years' time, which is our normal rhythm. In the end, it took us two years to make a girl & a gun - from the very first research to completion.

This is perhaps a difficult question, but in summary, what do you think is the quality of Gustav Deutsch's cinematic work?

I think what motivates me to take on this journey as a producer is the quality that his work gives these images. When I came to Vienna, there was nothing academic about these questions, apart from a lecture at the theater studies department in the former rooms of the film archive. That was totally fascinating, you learned how images can work, in excerpts that were similar to those here. So for me, it's like a return to that phase when I learned to be fascinated by images. There is a connection between the sensual and the scientific. And in fact, something new is created after each of Gustav's films, because he organizes and saves the images in an image database. Working on this is also a way for him to collect and condense this, and the films and the screenings for an audience are, so to speak, only a high point of his artistic activity.

Andreas Ungerböck, ray film magazine