Redatelj Rajko Grlić u antikvarijatu Ex Libris

Redatelj Rajko Grlić u antikvarijatu Ex Libris

Good evening everyone. I was given the pleasure and the honor to greet you first, before I give the floor to Rajko and Professor Božana. Thank you, and good evening, for coming. I will not, of course, abuse this time, which we will certainly spend much more interestingly talking with Rajko Grljeć.

Let me just say that I am really, both as a rector, but also as a citizen of our rare Rijeka, satisfied and happy that Rajko came to us from Zagreb, that he took the time, after some time that he devoted to shooting his film, about which we everyone read,

“Everything comes to an end”, as he himself says, with a significant title, but we are sure that as far as Rijeka is concerned, it will be, or is going to be, a new beginning. In fact, Rajko, after his great journey, still in America, in Zagreb, everywhere, somewhere, somehow finds

His place in Istria, all of which is close to Rijeka. We somehow find ways to attract him to Rijeka. I say that one rich career, one rich life, as a director, I would say also as a public intellectual and professor, is there. In a way, we believe that

Rijeka will be a new interesting destination for Drago Rajko. Here, allow me to say that I also thank the Academician, that I thank the president, our dear Jasna Krstovića, that I thank Professor Božana Kneževiš, who will actually guide us today through this whole, this whole

Story of ours today, this conversation of ours today . I thank you because it was actually their initiative, the initiative of our Academician who is really almost unbelievable. I have to say it clearly this time here, in front of this audience, which recently

Invited so many interesting people and now, here, at the end of this year 23. Rajko, I am looking forward, I will not, I say, abuse this time and this welcome speech, what is actually being said, I welcome of course Rajko, I welcome all of you on behalf of the university.

We are celebrating 50 years. This is one of the activities in which we end, thanks to our Academician, and here, thank you all and I look forward to today’s conversation. Thank you. Good evening everyone. I’m going to start this really nerdy conversation.

Can you hear me well? You hear. But there will be enough time at the end and it is actually intended as a conversation with you. This is… the two of us just an introduction. I’m also really thoughtful, it was very difficult for me to choose from where I would start this conversation,

Both from which topic and from which time, and I decided that it would be the year 1968, and I’m asking you for just a little patience , I’m just going to be a bit longer in this introduction than is perhaps appropriate,

But it seemed to me that since we are not the generation that plays the game, as your friend says, on relegation, we still have ohoho years ahead of us , but it seemed to me that more or less all of us in one way or another

Remember 1968, a turbulent year in the whole world. Martin Luther King was assassinated in the USA in April and the civil rights movement is really at its peak. In April, the musical Hair was staged on Broadway, until then it was on off-Broadway. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.

Young people across the US are protesting against the war in Vietnam and against the Johnson administration. In Europe, young people are of course protesting against the war in Vietnam, but the reasons for the rebellion are specific to a certain context. Student demonstrations for the first time ever in Belgrade.

Young people are looking for more democracy in society, young people are protesting against high unemployment, excuse me, young people are protesting against social differences. In Czechoslovakia, the Prague Spring began in January and lasts until August. In France, I will stay there for a while because the situation is completely different,

Complex, difficult. Riots begin on the Nonter campus. It is a campus that was founded 4 years earlier to reduce the pressure on the Sorbonne. These student riots are like that, of course there is always rebellion and protest against the war in Vietnam,

And American imperialism and so on, but somehow, among the students in Nonter, somehow everything starts relatively easy. They are led by a group of some 100-150 extreme left-oriented students. However, it is March. As you get restless, that rebellion does not calm down, the campus closes.

Young students head towards the Sorbonne and on May 3 organize meetings inside the courtyard of the Sorbonne, in front of the Richelieu Basilica. This is the beginning of those May protests as they are called in France. The rector calls the police. The police get into a big conflict with the students.

Sorbonne students are joined by students from other faculties, high school students. The streets of the Latin Quarter are the scene of major conflicts. Suffering on both sides, barricades are on the streets, the public is on the student’s side. We are still in May. On the 12th, the unions decide to join the students

And call the workers for a general strike. They are actually rebelling against de Gaulle’s government, and at that time the great de Gaulle has a majority of only one vote in the National Assembly. According to some sources, 8 million workers are involved in the strike,

According to other sources, 11 million. What is true is that France is facing a blockade. De Gaulle disappears. He is not there. No one knows where he is, not even Prime Minister Pompidou. And they think according to the newspapers that he ran away. However, he did not run away.

He went to Baden-Baden to ask General Massu if they had the support of the army, if needed. He returns, dissolves the assembly and announces new elections. In those new elections, the Degolists win big, but de Gaulle has to go. He must resign and that is the end of him. The great de Gaulle.

However, all these upheavals on the political scene were also reflected on the social scene. Women protest and demand the legalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy. And in 1974, while Simone Weil was the minister, they exercised that right.

And now, these upheavals on the political and social scene are of course reflected in art and film. The directors of the French New Wave make films. André Cajat films, I’m sure you remember the film Die of Love Sani and Girardot.

He is making a film dedicated to or about Gabrielle Roussier, a young teacher who enters into a strong emotional relationship with her 16-17-year-old student. She is convicted and commits suicide. This further shook France. Aznavour records Chanson, Mourir de amor. Jean-Luc Godard makes the film Until the Last Breath.

And if we remember something, it’s that, the French say Jean Seberg. The one holding the Viet Cong flag and paying a lot of attention to Dela Cro. Trifaut records Stolen Kisses. But that’s when the festival starts on May 10 in Cannes.

Directors of the French New Wave, Godard, Truffaut, gather like-minded Louis Malle, Lelouch and demand that the festival be closed. That it is pointless, that is, they are looking for, they are demanding an open part of the festival for students, that is, workers. Some directors withdraw films from the program.

Some members of the jury withdraw from the jury, like Monica Vitti, like Louis Malle, like Roman Polanski. Although I found that Roman Polanski later said that they forced him. Now they are or they are not, he withdrew. Basically, the festival is closed. In 1968, you are in Prague.

You are very active in the strike committee. You are shooting the film “We from Prague”, before the entry of the Russian army, troops into Prague. You also, which is very important, attend the signing of the protest letter on Korčula, where philosophers are gathered around Praxis and your father. Now tell us.

What do I have to add to you? Lot. You told everything. I am not. I will start by saying that at that meeting when Louis Malle, Godard and Truffaut managed to interrupt the Cannes Festival, when Bata Čengić from these parts had a film at that festival which he failed to show,

That American directors led by Zinnemann, Vidler and others sought a meeting with those kids who destroyed the festival. And at that meeting there was a conversation that was written down that at one point

Zinnemann, “The Man”, “Točno popodne” and so on, said: “Whatever you say that the film is more like this or that, but you have to admit that the film had a beginning, a middle and an end.”, to which Godard replied: “Maybe not in that order.”.

It is one of the small details of that year. I was a student at the Prague Academy, I was on Korčula where the summer school was held, a strange, strange event that was incomprehensible to today’s understanding of that terrible country called Yugoslavia.

A group of philosophers from all over the world, my father woke me up at six in the morning and said Raz, the Russians are in Prague, he heard the news.

By chance, I stood in line between Marcuse and Bloch and Fromm and I don’t know who, and that was my closest contact with world philosophy and signed that protest letter they wrote. I left for Zagreb and came to Prague with the first plane and watched those Russian patrols through Prague.

And it was very painful for someone who was 19-20 years old then. It took ten years for my parents to go from the pre-war illusion and hopelessness and hope for a better world and Russia, which has kindergartens on every corner, to great disillusionment. This disillusionment happened to me in four, five, five months.

It is very painful when you are 18 years old and when you have the ultimate illusion that a society can really turn into a normal human society, that some socialism like theirs was extremely gray, extremely terrible, I called it hard porno socialism, and we came the soft porn of socialism,

That in that socialism the hope was suddenly born that people could live somewhat normally, eh… And then you see that one system cannot survive the forces of the world and that it wasn’t just the Russians who came in with tanks, that the west

Was very pleased that these tanks entered, because even the west did not like something that was an exception to happen to it in the heart of Europe. And that Prague, that Prague Spring, was a human exception. I went through that illusion-disillusionment, I was in that

Strike committee, everything was on the edge between Kafka and Švejk. It was surreally funny for two minutes, surreally tragic for two minutes. But that’s the Czech Republic, it’s that mixture that happens minute by minute, you don’t know if it’s part comedy or part tragedy.

And probably that feeling, but it’s Central Europe, it’s that gag humor with which you defend yourself against that course of history , and it probably remained somewhere in me and in my colleagues as a form with which we later told our stories.

So yes, it was a painful lesson in 1968, but they left a mark that, I believe, we had forever distanced ourselves from politics, forever lost hope that politics is a utopia and that it is guided by some desire for a better society, and

On the other hand, I saw that this mixture of funny and sad is something that will mark my life and the stories I will tell. That. After… you guys from Prague or students from Prague, although I didn’t really understand why Lordan Zafranović didn’t like to hear that you were a student from Prague,

That the academy as an academy, he infinitely appreciated… Goran Marković wrote a book called “Prague School there is not”. Well, let’s move on now , but you and the Prague School come in time after the Black Wave of Yugoslav cinema.

Tremendously important great directors Aleksandar Petrović Makavejev, Žika Pavlović and you will list far more great films than I know that won awards at Canes. Petrović was nominated twice with his two films, three with “Feather Collectors”. They are great films, but they are films that are not on the same frequency, as, with politics.

They are also directors, they are being hunted and they are leaving one by one. According to some inscriptions, it seems to me that Aleksandar Petrović was born in Paris and returned to Paris, the last of that group.

And according to them or according to Makabejev, you are beloved children, and they are persecuted, even though you call them children of the revolution. I said too much again. You said it all. The people who made films of that time, Žika Pavlović, Makavev, Aleksandar Petrović, Žiljnik, Boštjan Hladnik, etc.,

Are people who really turned not Yugoslav film but Yugoslav culture upside down. They entered a completely new world of talking about the reality in which we live. Belograd politics and Belograd politicians suddenly declared them the Black Wave. It was some local spite that then spread and gave the stamp of a fantastic generation.

Makavejv went out. Saša Petrović never left. He lived twice. The traveler left. Žika Pavlović stayed. Žika Pavlović was a professor at the Academy. He was expelled from the Academy. They returned him in front of the student. He was in charge of technology, for issuing cameras.

Probably one of the strongest directors this country has ever had. We came not immediately after them. Between them and us is a buffer zone called the Pink Film. If you remember Lepa Brena, if you remember the films of that time, it was 5-6 years. Something fell but survived. Cell phone. He survived.

It was a so-called buffer zone. Pink film. Politics, especially in Serbia, financed the revelry with huge amounts of money. We came after that. I’m writing it, so I’m repeating what I wrote. Mak and Žika, directors who were our idols. We are studying in Prague.

If anyone was a little god of cinematography for us, it was those two. Because we entered and went back to that country making films, and they dug pits in that area. We also wanted to go to those pits. Dig further. They had one small deviation, never spoken,

But very clear, to give us movies to patch up what they threw out of them. I also write about the fact that I first talked to them a couple of times, but it was always there, someone was present, it was always there, we love your movies, what’s wrong with you, are you crazy?

But I managed to talk to both of them, during my life, and try to explain to them that our relationship is different, or we have different sources, they are like young Skojevics, like young communists who were in love with a utopia,

Believed in it and experienced great disillusionment . They talked about their disillusionment through their films. They have a need for revenge against their idol, socialism or communism, a need to tell them that they screwed up and that what is happening now has nothing in common with their hope.

We are a generation that had no illusion. I was not a believer, not a religious one, nor a party, nor any system, I had no excessive illusion about the system. I grew up in a house that didn’t have too much illusion about the system,

So I was probably brought up that way. The films we made did not have that directness, but what I tried to explain to them in our conversations, and they somehow agreed, we talked about that regime differently, and I had a more destructive impression.

Because we talked through people’s destinies and through the destinies that people watched. We had five times more viewers in the cinema than them. I strongly feel, perhaps the same illusion, that through our stories we destroy the illusion of a system much more clearly and quietly

Than they did with their blow. Whether that is correct is not important. We stayed under their age, very good, very kind of intimate. Makavejev came to visit us in America, they and Bojana are wonderful people. Ana and I always say, we’ve been visited by a million people from these parts,

Maybe the only ones who have always been with us for 7 days without saying a single bad word about someone. Which is very difficult in exile, you meet someone who does not have any wound, there is no one who hurt him. These were wonderful people who made wonderful films.

And until the last meeting with Makavejev, who was seriously ill, he was a man I loved very much. You really have one story that has a plot and a denouement. and it is related to the film and to the depiction of destruction where, in your own way,

The criticism of society is, “You only kiss once” how did he get to the Canes in the first place. A little by smuggling, a little by some sort of political balance. If I understood correctly at the time, that balance between you and politics was at the level of a handshake.

Which would hardly pass today. So can you tell us about how much it is, or is it just as painful? No, it’s not painful, I’m just ashamed to tell ugly stories about that regime, because everyone today tells ugly stories about that regime. It is such a quantity that it is rude to add.

On the other hand, it’s a story I’ve told an awful lot, and I’m always afraid I’m boring people with that story. He only kisses once, he wrote, while Tito was alive. It was written only once at a time when there was some political fear of various things.

Jadranfilm’s advice asked for a three-page write-up of what I must change in the film if I want to shoot it, from the fact that the main character who is a policeman must not be a policeman, but can be some other profession,

I said waiter for example and so on to a million little things . The director of Jadranfilm is a very brave man named Sulejman Kapić. Probably the most powerful, smartest producer that Yugoslavia ever had. Both he and I knew that the advice would change during the shooting of the film,

Therefore no one would remember that the advice asked for something, so we shot the film, the film was the same, the police had already asked for it, examined it, locked the negative, told me and him that we are not moving out of town. We made two copies, they knew there was one, but

There was only one copy in the records, the other went to Paris illegally through a flight attendant. My sister took it, took it to Canes. Cannes played the film, Cannes announced, all the newspapers wrote that the film played at Cannes, that was a big deal,

It was my second film in a row at Cannes, nobody knew that the film was locked and that the police keep the negative. Bargaining with Račan, long, not so naive and not so painless, resulted in the film going to Cannes, the film did fantastically in Cannes,

But sometimes movies need luck. “Samo jedno se ljubi” is extremely lucky that on that day it played Vrata Raja Cimin, a great film that the European critics, imitating the American critics, buried, and the critics always in Canes, when someone is buried, someone needs to be raised in order to have a balance,

And we we were the only film that day and they got us up and they made big red carpets for us and we were on the back of one Cimino who made a fantastic film, it went well and then it couldn’t be stopped here and it then played etc.

And the film played and the film is still there that on the street in NY some elderly lady stops and says oh thank you for that film, it marked my youth and then I think maybe it made sense that I made films.

Now something else, I will wander off again, but there will be a reason why I wandered off. Namely, the first French woman who ever won the Nobel Prize for literature is Annie Ernaux. It’s Annie Ernaux, she’s eight or nine, I think the ninth book has been translated,

All the books are in Croatian, all the books are autobiographical, and based on her novel, I know some have seen it, the film The Event was also made. Levenmoe, this is Annie Ernaux. In the explanation of the Academy, it is written that Annie Ernaux receives the Nobel Prize for courage,

For the clinical sharpness with which she describes the roots, pitfalls and limitations of her own memories. And President Macron, congratulating and talking about her main book, which is “The Years”, he says that as much as the book is autobiographical, as much as it depicts personal memories,

This book is also a collective biography of France, France must be remembered and not can forget. I admit that I read your book again as a collective biography. The years you mention are common, some events are common, and only our memories related to those years are individual.

And what, one of the things that touched me deeply, deeply in your book, is that you very sympathetically first describe how Christmas was celebrated, and then dad had the role of director, he organized it like that, it’s all very nice and warm and cute.

But what really impressed me was that regardless of the great tragedies and great accidents experienced by grandmother Olga, grandfather, mother Eva, father Danko, the word tragedy and accident was forbidden in your home, it was not talked about. And that, that moved me tremendously and here, now allow me, but those who know me

Know that my associations go like this, like popcorn, they just jump. In this lesson, I read Masim’s poem, which says, and I say, your family is a small circle of great people, you should have the strength not to talk at home about misfortune, tragedy, great tragedies and not think of revenge,

And it might be possible and realistic in some other contexts and families. That’s how I experienced your book, as a collective biography. Well, I was really lucky to grow up in a family where there was no notion of hatred, no notion of revenge

. I don’t know if my parents are aware of it or not. I interpret it to myself that they lost their youth, that in their best years there were wars and prisons and that they were eager for life, that they simply wanted to live.

And when you want to live, when you are hungry for life, then there is no need for hatred or revenge, there is only a need to seize life. And I watched my parents and their friends, they were more or less the Praksis group, on their hiking trips that took place every Sunday,

At their gatherings and drinking parties that took place every other day. They had an enormous need for companionship, joy and laughter. It’s like keeping someone in a closed bottle and all of a sudden you open that bottle

And that bubbly comes out and it just foams and it just needs to get air and breathe. In such a family, in a time when there was actually great misery, when we had nothing, and when it was not a problem,

When simply poverty was not something terrible or at that time, I often say this in America, I was unfailingly lucky that I grew up in a time when money was not the only important thing in the world. There were a million other things that were more important than money.

That happiness combined with a family that has a need for hunger, for some life, freed me and my sister from that legacy of unhappiness and hatred. This is what we saw here and what we see today, that the children of these Ustashas and I don’t know what,

Were brought up in that hatred that needs revenge and that is endlessly perpetuated, and circulates, and goes, and goes out, and simply more nobody knows why they do it and how they do it,

But it goes out and it poisons this society to the limit, and the government in this country flirts with it and in that mixture, in that gem of coquetry and hatred, we live and suffer simply. Because we live in an unhealthy society. That. However, come 91 and people change.

Yesterday’s friends, if they were friends at all, move to the other side of the street. Colleagues to whom you gave work move to the other side of the street. You were exposed to anonymous threats, open, feathers fly, your name was removed, deleted from the list of artists,

But that’s why you entered the white book and the black list. That was before and after. Difficult, in any case difficult and you and the lady make a difficult decision to leave, temporarily true. All departures are temporary. You’ve never seen someone who’s gone forever.

And many have left for good, believing that they have left temporarily. Those are not easy years, they are, what I have to tell you, we have all been through, in various shapes and forms. Quite early in that society, in that year, I gave two interviews in Feral about what I think,

About that nationalism, about that disease. And at that moment it was very clear that they will not and do not love you. On the other hand, I, I have often said that, I, living in socialism, making films, made terribly low budget small films, which did not need money from politics.

Even though under socialism you wanted a slightly more complicated film, which means you went a little above the minimum budget, you had to start flirting with politics. There is no free lunch with politics. Every lunch with a policy comes with a sixfold charge.

So I managed to survive, I wasn’t even a party member, I wasn’t in anything, I was in that white book. The consequence of the white paper is that we were the first on the list for apartment allocation, so we disappeared … from the list. And that was the only factual consequence.

But when she came in 1991, then, I remember, a meeting of all directors in Savska was called, she was in Zagreb Filmoteka 16 in the basement. 50-60 people came. And Vrdoljak came and sat like this. And he said: “The state,” in those words, “asks you to show your enthusiasm, your will.”

It was a typical Goebbels speech. I also listened to that speech and said, I have nothing to ask for. Even if I wanted them, they wouldn’t give it to me, and I wouldn’t even ask. Therefore, in that double, we decided to leave temporarily for a year, so we returned.

So I understood and was told that on the television blacklist I was second on the list, and I don’t know, seventh on the ministry’s list. That these lists physically exist, that it is not an imaginary category. What I said then, I can’t even shoot a postcard,

Let alone write one, let alone shoot a film. And then we left, simply because it was unnecessary to flatter ourselves, it was crazy to play a game that doesn’t have all that. It seemed to me that this was some small dignity that a man… Making films is a very difficult discipline,

Because it requires money. Getting away with it and not flirting with politics is on the edge of the possible. And once you succeed, or at least you have the illusion that you succeeded, then you don’t feel like throwing 30 years of work down the toilet.

Then it seems to you that it is more honorable to leave. And I was sure that I would never make films again, I concluded, that’s it. You know, we lived in a… my generation, me and five, six of my colleagues, had films that had a huge audience.

I mean, they claim that Ralje had one million and seven hundred thousand people. Do you know what those numbers are, for a small country? We had the illusion that these films do something, that they move some small consciousness. And when you realize that you lived in a bubble,

In a glass castle that had nothing to do with reality, if they managed to start a war like this, in a few months, through Belgrade and Zagreb television, then it seems that you have nothing to do. Why would you tell a story in such a space?

We left, if it wasn’t for Ana sitting there, I probably would never have come back. I was very adamant that I would go forever, and her thesis was that they cannot steal my land. Why would you allow someone to steal from me, if they can’t steal my land.

And then we slowly started to return, and blah, blah, blah, the story went on. Yes, but it is the decision of two adults, but also one child who was torn from his milieu, from his society, and now thrown into something else, temporarily, maybe or not.

So that’s not easy either and it’s terribly shocking, that letter of yours in response to Olga’s. Where am I, what am I? A big responsibility. Yes, yes, yes, yes, that’s us, realistically, Ana can talk about it more than I can, that child cried every night for a couple of months

And yelled, let’s go home. When it happens to you, it’s not easy. Today, that child is infinitely grateful that we didn’t bring her home. He lives his fantastic life in America. So, that story also had a happy ending, had that terrible beginning, but once,

You know, in America they tell me that those who come, that the first generation was sacrificed. That the second generation has a chance, yes indeed, and that the third generation is Americans. We see it, our grandchildren are Americans. And that’s how it goes, and that’s what happens. This country

Lost something to those people, but this country lost a million people. What we meet out there are perhaps, it’s ugly to say, the best people, but people who had the courage to go and try some life. 90% of people who left here since the 90s did not leave for political reasons,

Not even for economic reasons, which sounds terribly strange. They left because they needed a place where they could live a normal life. They needed the space of some happiness. They needed a space where they could work, where they could play with biology or physics or whatever,

Without being constantly under the pressure of politics. This politics here is forcing our lives to such an extent that we are completely unaware. When you go out and come back, you will be amazed at how much we here have agreed to be raped by politics every day.

That all these ministers, the Plenkovićs and the whole dance the macabre that this government does, that we simply live with it and wonder like some animals that are being chased around and they are surprised that the forest is burning, that hunters are shooting. But that’s the reality we live in

And those people who left have some relatively happy lives. Which is strange. These people should lead Croatia today. Those people should sit in the place of various Plenkovićs today and this country would look different. But those people will never come back. None of them will return.

At least the ones I know, those children found their places very quickly. Some happy, some less so, but in a huge amount happy. It is the tragedy of a small country in which there is an arrogant government. I was once asked what I would do if I were prime minister. I said

That he would sit at the border and talk to everyone who leaves. And first find out why. And he would deal with that as prime minister. That is the only thing … but now we have entered another sphere. We are in the sphere of sentiment, and this is the sphere of politics.

So let’s get back to the bright side. What do the English say? Every moon has its silver lining. Let’s go back to happier times. You got a great place at New York University, then an even better one at Ohio. You are putting the hat of the pedagogue professor on your head again .

Study directing. Danilo Šerbedžija was also your student. That. I will tell how he came to be. Okay, but what would happen, two things would be interesting to me. Exactly what you experienced in Prague, which is, as we said, at the Academy of Drama in Zagreb you learn art,

And in Prague you learn craft. There was a lot of practical work in Prague. Now, how much are you in that triangle of the film, the film of the first, in that triangle, film, director, actor, how do you lead the student, in fact you may not lead,

But you are a facilitator, I don’t know what your role is specifically as a pedagogue, exactly with those young people who will perhaps penetrate and find the answer, and what is acting, and what is directing. Well, it’s not an easy discipline. I was a student of people who made many, many films.

Elmar Kloss, Vavra, Šoruka, are people who each had 15 or more films, Vavra 30. They were so sure of themselves that they didn’t impose anything on you. They let you go, they kept an eye on you and they let you learn from your mistakes. If they did something wrong, then they tried

To explain to you why it happened. but they never warned you in advance that you would go wrong. I am lucky that I can choose my students and that I never take more than 4-5 students. So, it is also a post-graduate study, so these are people from 25 onwards, very often with families,

Very often people who have been in some lives and have done something. These are people who have something to tell, which is very important in the film. The trap is relatively easy to learn on film. You learn some basic elements, but the question is whether that person has something to say.

It is much more important than craft. Accordingly, some pedagogies , but in that system, it consists in opening a way for him to express himself and to shape himself through the film. I do it very practically, I torture them with a million real exercises, they record this, they record this, they record this,

And through these recordings I slowly get to know who they are. And then when he sees who they are, then I try to direct them in that direction so that they say what they have in the way that is most adequate to what they have. It’s not easy, it takes time,

But I’m lucky to work on big projects with students. So I worked, I don’t know how much longer, so I made a documentary film for four years with a group of students about how Bush rigged the Ohio election. Bush Jr.! And in four years, they made a film that even Zagreb television

Played, it was sold in 36 countries, which talks about the freakishness of the American electoral system and how easily it is manipulated. Two people ended up in prison after that movie because the movie revealed that they did all kinds of things with those machines. The last time I worked big, I

Took them for four years and then the same for 4 years, although the study is three years, it’s always longer, I did a feature film that you have on Netflix, a student film, the first one that ended like that. It was nominated for the best student film in America.

We spent a year and a half writing the script, filming, and so on, collecting money and everything together. It’s kind of a mix of a basketball coach, someone who’s a producer , and someone who’s their dad, so it’s…. That pedagogy on film is completely different from any science game, biology, language

Or anything you teach someone. You have to awaken them in them and that is actually the only role. And Danilo? Danilo… he called Rade and told me that my son is studying with you. I said it’s nice, but it’s now the third month, they’ve already chosen the students in the 12th, I’m sorry.

He said give it a try, please. Then I tried, please. So they accepted him. So Danilo became probably one of the most popular students of that school ever. They loved him endlessly. It was a big cry when Danilo left. He made

A graduation film with me in my class, which won the Croatian Critics Award for the best short film. He had never made films before. He’s a guy who finished Latin and Greek, it’s quite a strange phenomenon that someone like that would go to a movie. Al went the other day and finished

His fourth feature film about Dražen Petrović, he was filming in America. So, yes, Danilo is a beautiful story. That’s nice. You mentioned the same thing, I think it’s in this book, but somewhere that Casavetas gave back, I’ll tell you why I’m asking, gave back to students,

Gave back to actors the right to improvisation. and I remembered when I was reading that how you wrote a lot about this last film by Scorsese and how Scorsese and De Niro had constant problems with Leonardo DiCaprio because he was constantly improvising something for one reason or another, I don’t know who.

However, as far as improvisation is allowed to the actor by the contract, as much as he can, what Casavetas said gave him back the right to improvise, but to what extent, that must be regulated in some way. It is not regulated in big films, in that way I have only

Shot like that once in my life, that insurance is sitting next to you, a representative of the company that insures the film, it is the big Lloyd’s and that is in charge of making sure that you record what is written. If it wasn’t, why was this sentence added?

Then I add a sentence, then she asks three times if you really need it? And she doesn’t understand anything, except that she is in charge of recording what is written on paper, what society has ensured. These are big projects, we make small films where there are no such contracts. There is no way.

But it depends terribly, I’m me, I really like improvisation and I improvise in rehearsals with the actors before I work. Now, when I was working on this film, I called 15 actors one month before the start of filming , it’s a film that has a lot of roles, and we sat for

A day and a half at a huge table and read the text and talked about the reasons, the meanings of some dodo someone. And then I started working individually with two, three, and then when you do those rehearsals, you improvise ad infinitum. Try to go there, then to the left on this topic,

Then take that word, then what could you do with that word. You play, play, play, but once it’s agreed , there’s not much improvisation on set. Because improvisation is dangerous, Casavetas’ improvisation was something else entirely. They were with that little guy before under the cameras, they tried to

Bring life into that American stiff film and they decided to do it cheaply and that the actors could have their say, they could play. They also made a movie about that game . Ken Loach works in such a way that the actors compose the lyrics during filming. I don’t do that. I like

To play terribly before, but when I start… Normally in 50 places in this film I made, I crossed out two sentences and added another one. You can see in the situation itself that something works, something doesn’t work, that something out of 10 sentences needs one sentence

. This happens very often, but the essence remains. Because you do segments. If in one segment… The film is 90 minutes, let’s say. If you play for 3-4 minutes in one scene, and so on in five scenes, suddenly the film is 130 minutes. The film is a terrible economy

Where every second I have people around me who calculate how long we are, how much this, where we can afford, we are too short, where we are too long. You maintain a balance in that dramaturgy and that is very important so I like improvisations until the moment we shoot.

Directors, it’s no secret, have their favorite actors. We know that Spielberg loved… he loves Tom Hanks, that Scorsese loves De Niro, they made about ten films together. Ksenija Marinković, Miki Manojlović are often in your films , and if he hadn’t stolen our lives, maybe Nebojša Glogovac and Mira Furlan

Would have been there a few more times . Well, you can tell us something, now you’ve told us about Danilo, you can tell us a nice anecdote related to whatever. What we know and that we were all delighted by that miracle of Nebojša Glogovac,

And he came with a big, the English would say, he brought with him a big baggage that scared you. Do you mean political or…? I don’t mean political, but I mean the other, dependent, various, however miraculous. Yes, Nebojša was a strange man. He was a terribly calm man. I tried for that film

Four actors one, aha, it’s called water. I thank you. It’s a treat. I studied those actors too, I think for almost a year. Great actors. Each of them was a great actor. I couldn’t possibly get from them what was dim in my head that this man should be. Ante Tomić kept saying,

Be careful, one day you have to tell them not to play that. How are you going to do it? How can you tell these people, after torturing them for a year, not to play? I try to tell every actor when I take him to rehearsals, to the casting, first of all,

It can be very easy to burn out if you don’t get it as a role. If you’re ready for it, let’s play. if not, it’s better not to start playing because it’s very painful. It’s terrible when someone calls you or tells you: Hey, you’ve come 20 times and someone tells you

That’s not for now. It’s a painful thing. We tried Nebojša. I have a custom that has proven to be correct, at least for me, to record rehearsals with the actors and then play the tape for 7 days and not watch it. Actors are deceptive creatures. The actors come in, tell you three jokes,

They are charming, they are cheerful and then you are under the impression that this is exactly what you are looking for, and then you look at the video and there is no charm, no joy in that video. Therefore, to get rid of the actor’s charm, I let it cool down

In the fridge, hold the tape and then watch it slowly. With Nebojša, it was clear that it was not seven days, it was three days. So I went to look again and it was clear. And then we had that one with him… He was then playing Draža Mihajlović

And he made a very clumsy and stupid statement, as only actors can, where he identified himself at one point in something with Draža, that Draža was a man. Every actor is looking for a human being in every role, which is perfectly normal.

If you were to play Hitler, if you were to play anyone, you would look for what is human in that. Otherwise you can’t cry and play, you can’t play cliches. You can’t play an idea of ​​someone, you have to play someone. He also mixed up the actor and the character,

And Ante Tomić wrote a very disgusting article about it in Nin, before I took Nebojše. And when I told Nebojša that I would like him to play it, then we invited him. Ante and I were then in Novi Sad at Salaš 3,2,1 where we wrote the last version of the text

Near Split, that is the famous Salaš that entered all the legends of this country and I begged Nebojša to come, he came to motorcycle with my future wife and we sat down and for the first hour, one, he Ante and I discussed the issue of Chetniks, Draža Mihajlović and everything that awaits us.

If he plays it in Zagreb, there will be 30 texts that I took a Chetnik to play a Croat. That was clear. But you can’t fight it, it’s a category outside of you. but we wanted to clear it up with each other. We cleared that up.

I also remember sitting with Nebojša for two hours. We read the text slowly. I tried to say what I would. And then we slowly entered. For six months, they were in various places and slowly worked towards that role. I was terribly warned that he was impossible, that he was an alcoholic,

That I would suffer, that it was terrible. It’s always when you take an actor, then the voices of benefactors come. Everything was the other way around with him, he plays the whole movie under a mask. The mask lasts for hours, forty-five minutes. He plays under plastic.

We worked on him as an older man, he cut his hair, he did plastic…the cheeks are plastic, and Nana, who worked on the Mask, he came regularly, waited regularly. He was a man who knew everything, all the lyrics, he was a fantastic teammate. So,

He is something I remember as one big, big joy. There is nothing more beautiful for a director than an actor with whom he can play well. It is the pinnacle of my profession. Nothing better. There is no better Christmas for a director than an actor. You are a lucky man.

Yes, I am an incredibly lucky man. Happiness has been with me all my life. Here, I have reached Rijika. And you gave up, you did, thank God, you forgot how I stopped you, half way down Gundulića, you jumped, the rain is falling on you, I have an umbrella, not Rajko.

It was terrible, but you survived. But again, something more beautiful. Me, again me paja, me and me, but I strongly believe that each of us has our soulmate somewhere. She was a kindred spirit in emotions, friendship, and business cooperation. The only question is, do I want to be so happy and change it?

You and Ante Tomić, kindred spirits. Well, no, we are completely inverted souls. That’s why… No, I mean, it’s a symbiosis, you’re not a duo in, as you say, a duo in pairs. That. A duo in pairs, he is a country child from a village near Imotski, raised on a quarry, studied in Zadar,

A completely different category of human. I’m a city kid, studied all this. I am much older than him, almost 30 years, or 25, 27 years older than him. And according to that, these are two worldviews and that’s why we work so well. Okay. Because we are completely different and simply, we established,

I started with him with Karaul, I always say that. We met in Motovno, as one meets most people in Motovno, who are no longer there, and in that Motovno he came to do an interview with me freely. That’s how we met. And speaking, I then read,

His first book was a book of stories. And in that book there were two fantastic stories, one wartime, one prewar. And I told him, the man will write a third for those same two characters, we have a fantastic omnibus, you can do that somewhere. And he said, that’s a great idea,

I’ll make it tomorrow, I’ll send it. A year has passed, nothing has been sent. He is the laziest man in the world. There is no lazier person than Anka Tomić. And then suddenly an e-mail came with the first three chapters of Karaula. And he said, I’m sorry, I’m not her,

He wrote this, are you interested in it? I said, I’m interested, but let’s do it together. He wrote me, and we published it, an e-mail, I never want to have anything to do with the script, you do what you want, invite me to the premiere. We wrote 11 versions of the screenplay together.

And then we write it, we’ve been writing it for over 20 years. And how many hands is that? Every scenario around us is over 10 hands. We call it a hand, like those self-painters. These are versions of the script, it’s officially called. and it goes on and on.

We work in such a way that we take two weeks, sit in a room, always start in America, then come to a big studio, and then get there. Ana cooks dinner for us, and we sit down during the day from 9. The scenario is black work, it looks very simple.

Billy Weiler, the greatest of screenwriters, told me it’s just tears, sweat, and blood, there’s nothing joyful about screenwriting. And this is done from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon, every day. And then we finish one version, then leave it for a couple of months.

Then I take it, tamp it down, write it down, write it down, put it together, cut it out. Then we sit down again. And those sessions come to ten. If you weren’t good with someone, who would you spend two weeks in the same room with? Soulmate.

Now the philosopher will give us a definition of what it is and who is a soulmate. That can only be it. Oh that. Performances. I know the song. You know me. It comes from Opatija. It’s that sound. Hotel Kvarner. And you know that’s his music? That. And what isn’t Branislav Živković.

No no. He is also the co-author of it. And why does Branislav Živković appear? Where does he appear? He is the composer who composed the music for the entire film , and this is Robić and Kinert, these are… Kinert was a strange man. He wrote hits. We will be patient for a while,

Just for a little break, until the instrumental. And that’s this original. We found it in the basement of Jugoton. Until then, some subsequent version was running. we also looked for the original and found it in the basement of Jugoton. was the original recording. it is also original in the film.

And then we called him to hear. and then he said it was the original He came to the recording to sing it. and he came with luxuriant black hair. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone with such lush hair. And I told the make-up artist that it was probably a wig.

Take off his wig. She came back after five minutes said no it’s his hair. The reason why we played this song, I hope it reminded you of your youth, is because of course it appears, you can hear it in the movie “Only one kiss”

But because music is an integral part of every movie. And it’s nice when he finally got his one, first and only Oscar. Ennio Morricone said. There is no great soundtrack that is not inspired by a great movie. and that was The Hateful Eight. How do you choose music?

I know that the music for “Constitution” was written by a young doctor from Skopje, educated in Boston. Yes, here he is, yesterday he left Zagreb, he is writing music for this one as well. Same for this one? Only now he lives in Portugal, then he lived in America. Traveling circus, musician.

What is the music in the film? As a student of the Prague Academy, I swore that I would never have music in a film because music is something that raises emotions. if you can’t take it with a picture, don’t play in the movie. That was the idea of ​​a young student.

I have now ordered 25 numbers for this film. It’s not that I kept my word to Stuern. It is a sound that is terribly dangerous. The other day we watched this new movie on Netflix with Julia Roberts, Leave the World Behind. It’s such a rape of music.

That’s why I stopped watching the movie. Because it’s for everyone, this raising of glasses… would be, aaaaaAAAAAAAA Everything… makes the viewer an idiot. Who can’t conclude anything by himself, just feel nothing. Music has to outline everything for him. Throughout history, music has gone through incredible cycles.

When the sound film with the jazz singer started, when the music in the film started, when the credits started, the music played until the last frame of the film. Then in the 60s and 70s they threw it out. The American New Wave kicked it out. Then came Spirbeck and Lukas and these,

And brought composers who from the first to the last square of beautiful music. I’m not a fan of that kind of underestimation of the human race, but Hollywood has to raise the same emotion in Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Melbourne, and then they do it with music.

I like something that doesn’t underline, something that helps you float. I call it carpets. It’s a sound that you hear and don’t hear. I like music that resembles the sound of the street, so you don’t know if it’s that or not.

I try the story to the music in a completely different way, but it depends terribly from film to film. Each film has a completely different one. In all the early films, I always had one hitman. He only kisses once. Sometimes at eight or Just tonight. I had a whole host of Croatian schlagers.

It seemed to me that it was a sign of the times. And it is! And that it should be kept. Today there are no blockbusters and I don’t need it, but I make different films.

The music in the film I’m working on now, let’s try to find something that you both hear and don’t hear. and there is a lot of it. So much, and it should not be generally noticed. So it’s a very balancing act.

Everything comes to an end, including our conversation, but before that, your movie. We went too far. I won’t look at the clock. The man who said it was 60 minutes was wrong. Željko said we are 60 minutes away. In two sentences.

I’m making a film, I’ve come to the end of editing, so to speak. The film will now go through all the processing. It will probably be technically completed sometime by the summer. and it could appear sometime in the fall. I have to wear glasses, I can’t see anything without them.

So that I wouldn’t say Rajko Dujmić again, oh God, he’s miserable. And poor me? You will forgive me, and he will forgive me. But I really like these sentences you wrote in the book. Life or cinema? I do not know. I tried to make films, and life happened to me.

I’m not sure I would have done better if I had gone the other way. I can only say on behalf of all of us. May the force be with you. Thank you. It was wonderful for me. Thank you very much. If you have something for a short time… They certainly don’t have it.

They certainly don’t. Thank you very much for coming.

#grlic #rijeka #academicus #exlibris #rajkogrlic #croatia #hrvatska #europe
Prenosimo vam večer u antikvarijatu Ex Libris u Rijeci a gost je Rajko Grlić. Razgovor s redateljem je vodila prof Božana Knežević iz kluba Academicus koji zajedno sa Sveučilištem u Rijeci i organizator ovog događanja.