230
MICHAEL ROLOFF
and how far must one go to reach the realm of the impossible,
all
of that could be utilized dramatically to very good effect. I have even
been thinking along those lines, that it would be possible
to
do
something of a dramatic nature with this theme or a similar one,
with several persons each of whom develops a theme, improvising
until he enters more and more deeply into the story and the subject
ROLOFF:
I wanted to come back once more to your interest in films.
What, for example, do you think of
M arienbad?
WEISS:
Well yes, visually very beautiful, very beautifully made, but
as
far as I am concerned the film gets stuck in the esthetic. I prefer
Bufiuel's films which are laden with content and emotions, and I
also
like socially critical films. Yes, Resnais never gets beyond the purely
esthetic and to come back once more to
Leavetaking
and
Fluchtpunkt:
these works were just preparations for me to show how essentially
fruitless such a life can be which does not take any stand whatsoever
toward the outside world.
ROLOFF:
What do you think of
8~?
WEISS:
That is a wonderful film but these people, Fellini as well
as
Antonioni, are still too much captivated by the
d'Olce vita
milieu. One
notices that they are film moguls who live in this milieu and who are
basically in love with it and with all these beautiful girls.
ROLOFF:
Don't you think also with the meaninglessness they attack?
WEISS:
Yes, they attack it and actually it doesn't amount to anything
and they are also in love in an adolescent fashion with ideas about
orgies and such things. It all strikes me as so sophomoric; the attitude
to emticism, for instance, I find dilletantish, and this goes for 'all the
Italians, including Fellini and Antonioni. Basically it is all terribly
puritanical, basically these are not erotic films, it is all terribly
twisted.
A single scene
in
a film by Bunuel-in
Viridiana,
for example, when
the girl goes barefoot thmugh the room in the evening-is far richer
in erotic content, is packed with sensuality and sexuality, as in none
of the films by the Italians. The others are nothing but estlietes and
Bunuel is not and that is what I like so much about
him.
I am at
odds with my own estheticism, you see; one
is
easily tempted to put
too much effort 'and time into fiddling
with
form. In my plays, I
think,
I manage to overcome that quite a bit, at least more than
in
my
so–
called autobiographical books.
After I had seen Peter Weiss's
MaratfSade
performed in
Berlin
and
London I sent him a number of questions about the play and its pro–
duction. Mr. Weiss gave the following summary answer:
