Stefan Jäger: “It’s time to tell this, but not through the male gaze”

We interviewed the director Stefan Jager for the movie The photographer of Monte Verità with script of Kornelija Naraks and the beautiful photography Daniela Knapp. The director told us very interesting things about the making of the film and how the female and male audience received the story, which stars a strong female character. premiere on August 5 in theaters.

Interview with Stefan Jager

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: How did you know about the existence of this story? What motivated you to tell this story?

Stefan Jager: I discovered Monte Verità when I was nineteen years old. Because I was invited to the Locarno film festival. And they introduced us to this little… it’s not a mountain, it’s a hill above Ascona, which is a small town near Locarno. I love nature, it’s so intriguing. Later, I found out about the story of the mountain, and I thought, “You have to make a movie about it.”

At that time, two documentaries were about to be released. Six years ago, a screenwriter came to me and presented me with the first draft. Totally completely different from the story we tell now. The protagonist was a young woman who wanted to get married, but she didn’t love the man she was going to marry…so she ran away from her with her doctor.

I ask the screenwriter: Is this your story? She told me, “No no, this is the story my teacher wants me to write.” And I say to him: “Come on, it’s not possible…! What is the story you want to tell? About a woman who finds her identity.

© Grischa Schmitz

The privilege

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: How have you faced such a deep and empowering story of a woman, being a man? The script filmmaking since the beginning has changed a lot.

Stefan Jager: Yes, but I don’t believe it, I told Kornelija Naraks, this is your story. And I asked myself… Am I allowed to tell a story of female empowerment…? And what I loved, is that it forced me to adopt the mentality of a woman. I have children, I am a father and I know that I would leave my family, it would be normal, you know? If my wife leaves the family… (gesture of surprise) I don’t know how she would react. So I said, come on, let’s try to re-encode this mentality and let’s have the privilege of realizing how painful it can be to make a decision like that, that it’s so difficult… and this is the thing with this story.

Because it’s so modern in my eyes, even today if a mother of two daughters were to make that choice. How would you react? If she was your best friend. And when I created the technical team of the film, I realized that in the position of head of the departments there were 77% women working, which is great. I didn’t do it on purpose. I really accepted this mindset that was so moving and overwhelming. I am very grateful to have this opportunity.

Stefan Jager
© Grischa Schmitz

Photographs

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail : How was this beautiful mise-en-scène born, that the photographs emerge from your gaze? After her gaze, everything slows down and beautifully turns into a black and white photograph.

Stefan Jager: Interesting. It can be the branch of a tree in motion… or a person moving and fixing that moment. It was very complex. We had a second unit to shoot all of that. And we worked with a photographic camera that was composed with a digital camera so that we could record how the photo was composed. We did a lot of testing…because we want it to be very unique to recreate the meaning of those images 90 years ago and at the same time create a unique voice. Each image took days to create.

Monte Verita
Copyright tellfilm, Grischa Schmitz, DCM

reflections

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: You beautifully display spirituality and materialism, modernity and ancient, civilization and nature, masculine and feminine. How did the public receive the film? Do I reflect on these great themes?

Stefan Jager: We had very positive reactions. After covid we had sold-out screenings. There were a lot of people, fifty years old or more… We even have an audience that knows that their grandparents have been to Monte Verità, and they were deeply moved because they said that it was exactly as their ancestors had told them. It was more difficult for the male audience, especially for the critics. Because they have a male gaze on the story, they didn’t accept the female gaze… so we decided to go for a really strong female character. They couldn’t understand. Which is kind of successful in my opinion, because that’s where I wanted to go, you know?

To hit them and wake them up, and say: “Hey, it’s time to tell about this, but not through the male gaze, but through the female gaze…” how Ida Hofmann, Lotte Hattemer, who were two founders of this place and could do much more, to most male historians. About Hermann Hesse… we can make a biographical film about him… But we are not interested in what he did on Monte Verita, because he meditated, it would be a boring film.

In Switzerland as soon as you do something about someone or a place that you really know, everyone has their own interpretation. Today there are men who think that their reality is the only one that should be discussed. For example, one of the critics told me: “you should have told that story but with Erich Maria remark. And I said: why? and he told me: “…because he was there…” It doesn’t make any sense, bringing him back to 1906 because he would be a child.

(Silence. Then smiles.)

For example, tonight I have a screening at a strip camp. There they run totally naked, all day. They do yoga, retreats, and stuff. This place has been around for twenty years. They are very famous and they want to show our film tonight. It’s very interesting how the film is spreading.

Maresi Riegner
Copyright tellfilm, Grischa Schmitz, DCM

“…It’s costing me a lot of work…”

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: There is a very short scene where the Dr. tells him: “I’m writing about how to beat the patriarchy, but it’s taking a lot of work.” It’s the first time I’ve heard that dialogue spoken from the mouth of a man in a movie. They are not very common dialogues.

Stephen Jager: (Laughs) He believes in that, you know? And at the same time it was… terrible. He slept with his patients. He had three children with different patients. He didn’t know that this was some kind of abuse. He said, “I’m really in love with them, so…and they’re in love with me…let’s go for it. Natural. The big problem she had with her father was that he was very domineering…and she really thought that” patriarchy is hell.” So he ran away from his different families.

Stephen Jager
Copyright tellfilm, Grischa Schmitz, DCM

essays

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: Lastly, how was it working with the actors and actresses in rehearsals with this particular story?

Stefan Jager: What I did was invite them to the real Monte Verità and we stayed there for a week. We did little rehearsals, we just walked. And I said: “…let’s walk for an hour without talking, let’s just breathe…” Let’s take what nature gives us. Then we went to the museum… let everyone discover their own story about it. We simply capture the feeling of nature, of history. We gave them a lot of texts, and they have also written a lot.

We went to a cave where Hermann Hesse meditated for a month and we started reading aloud. This totally helped them. One of the actresses loved lying on the stone for half an hour. She said it was the best rehearsal she had ever had. It was simple, but I thought… it was a risk. Because I didn’t know if they liked to argue, I didn’t want to make an intellectual approach, I really wanted to give them the feeling that I had when I got to this mountain. And I’m pretty sure that when they first arrived in 1800 and discovered this place, they felt the same way, overwhelmed by feeling the same thing, by nature, by the impression, by the wind, etc.

Sabrina Odoguardio / Cinematopsail: Stefan a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your beautiful film and for the time.

Stefan Jager: Thank you for getting up so early.

laughs. Stefan and his team were in Spain and I was here in Argentina with five hours less.

Sabrina Odoguardio: Please, thank you.

Profile of Stefan Jager in IMDB

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Stefan Jäger: “It’s time to tell this, but not through the male gaze”