I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg

A new closeness of visuals and sound in Music film

For the 13 minute long music film I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg seven professional classical musicians left their daily orchestra pit and made their way to search the beginning of musical yearning in situations from everydays life. Out of this, a story in six episodes arises and only just before the end of the film the musicians -who up to this point have acted as their own characters- bring their instrumental mastery to the film.

I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg picks up on the roots of the "Aesthetics of whole" in the 1920s. At that time the new media film encountered composers like Alban Berg, Paul Dessau or Kurt Weill, who used film like an instrument as part of their revolutionary scores. The new media film also met visionary architects like Walter Gropius, the co-founder of the total theatre idea, who introduced film as a means of equal importance within Performing Arts, feeding as much as the other arts into the experience of wholeness in live performance.

Music in film is mostly used as a subordinated art form. It has to serve the film. Music film as a genre aims to serve the music. However, in this aim it usually meets a pitfall: the film images create a certain expectation regarding the acoustics (the original tone), but the sound of the music has to be recorded in recording studios and as such usually clashes with what is seen on screen. This experience arrives as an irritation in the spectator’s brain – because human perception constantly adjusts the information coming in through eyes and ears in relation to our experience.

Opera films of the 80s – and indeed most video clips of our time – use ‘clean’ sound recordings from of the studio which usually conflict with the visual space of the film. When Placido Domingo, for example as filmic Otello appears on board of a Venetian ship with rain painting the backdrop of the harbor and he encounters Desdemona as celebrated great warrior, we hear him sing out of a ‘weatherproof’ studio.

We often find this same sound-space conflict in video clips of popstars such as Madonna. The spectator feels that something is just not quite right. An odd distance remains.

Therefore, in his music film I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg, the director Andreas Rochholl, tried to create a new closeness between image and sound. According to him, if a film is aiming to intrigue the audience there is no way around fully fusing the two elements. He adds, in documentaries of New Year’s Day concerts or similar music documentaries image and sound are likely to correspond. However, such forms usually are lacking in their use of the possibilities of film.

In I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg O-sounds and studio recordings are interwoven in correspondence with the storyline and take both the spectator’s eyes and ears on a journey to a ‘total sound-image-experience’. Music and film in this way unfold both their unique powers and create an all-embracing space of perception. The film images accompany the spectator into a fascinating landscape of abstract sounds composed by Morton Feldman (1926-1987), a primary representative of the New York School. His chamber music piece I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg was the base and initial point for the film.

Cook / Flute Man in the train / Clarinet Cook / Percussion Composer / Piano Kanguroo / Voice Woman in Kimono / Cello Woman from the Milonga Violine Fancier Hat Designer Man with Cello Controller at Berlin Station Script, Director and Eidting Camera und Director of Photography Musical Director Sound Design Costume Design Set Assistent Costume Assistent	Christina Fassbender Alexander Bader Wolfgang Eger Arno Waschk Lisa Tjalve Zoé Cartier Simone Leona Hueber Christian Banzhaf Fiona Bennett Daniel Weingarten Eberhard Küstner Andreas Rochholl Börries Müller-Büsching Arno Waschk Daniel Weingarten Sabine Gallei Julian Eisele Manon Geldhof	"A lighthearted and clever spectacle constructed around the chamber music work by Morton Feldman." (Int. Film Festival Rotterdam) A kangaroo spontaneously leaving its job, a kitchen in crackling tension, a cellist meditating in view of a backyard graffiti, a Violine fancier searching the extraordinary, a composer adoring patterns, patterns, patterns.
	Music by Morton Feldman (1926–1987) I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg for Voice and Instruments (1971) Running time: 13 min. Prducer: KADMOS PRODUKTION in Cooperation with Zeitgenössischen Oper Berlin commissioned by Copyright: Universal Edition, Wien SCHOTT MUSIC, Mainz Film was completed in 2011 Thanks to: Mona Isabelle Schroeter and Henning Klose from Tangoloft Berlin DB Netze Thomas Hesse and Sophia Kreller from Bahnhofsmanagment Berlin HBF Susanna Poldauf, Pavel Jiracek, Salon Bennett, blush dessous	A new closeness of visuals and sound in Music film For the 13 minute long music film I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg seven professional classical musicians left their daily orchestra pit and made their way to search the beginning of musical yearning in situations from everydays life. Out of this, a story in six episodes arises and only just before the end of the film the musicians -who up to this point have acted as their own characters- bring their instrumental mastery to the film. I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg picks up on the roots of the "Aesthetics of whole" in the 1920s. At that time the new media film encountered composers like Alban Berg, Paul Dessau or Kurt Weill, who used film like an instrument as part of their revolutionary scores. The new media film also met visionary architects like Walter Gropius, the co-founder of the total theatre idea, who introduced film as a means of equal importance within Performing Arts, feeding as much as the other arts into the experience of wholeness in live performance. Music in film is mostly used as a subordinated art form. It has to serve the film. Music film as a genre aims to serve the music. However, in this aim it usually meets a pitfall: the film images create a certain expectation regarding the acoustics (the original tone), but the sound of the music has to be recorded in recording studios and as such usually clashes with what is seen on screen. This experience arrives as an irritation in the spectator’s brain – because human perception constantly adjusts the information coming in through eyes and ears in relation to our experience. Opera films of the 80s – and indeed most video clips of our time – use ‘clean’ sound recordings from of the studio which usually conflict with the visual space of the film. When Placido Domingo, for example as filmic Otello appears on board of a Venetian ship with rain painting the backdrop of the harbor and he encounters Desdemona as celebrated great warrior, we hear him sing out of a ‘weatherproof’ studio. We often find this same sound-space conflict in video clips of popstars such as Madonna. The spectator feels that something is just not quite right. An odd distance remains. Therefore, in his music film I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg, the director Andreas Rochholl, tried to create a new closeness between image and sound. According to him, if a film is aiming to intrigue the audience there is no way around fully fusing the two elements. He adds, in documentaries of New Year’s Day concerts or similar music documentaries image and sound are likely to correspond. However, such forms usually are lacking in their use of the possibilities of film. In I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg O-sounds and studio recordings are interwoven in correspondence with the storyline and take both the spectator’s eyes and ears on a journey to a ‘total sound-image-experience’. Music and film in this way unfold both their unique powers and create an all-embracing space of perception. The film images accompany the spectator into a fascinating landscape of abstract sounds composed by Morton Feldman (1926-1987), a primary representative of the New York School. His chamber music piece I met Heine on the Rue Fürstenberg was the base and initial point for the film.