"I got into the film business from working first in theatre." "Then I started to paint and then I wrote poetry" "I was always interested in music... originally jazz then rock'n'roll." "Film united all of the arts that interested me." "You had to understand painting to create pictures... writing to create dialogue... music to understand the sound of contemporary life and acting and theatre to direct actors." "So it was a logical progression, because film includes all the arts." "That was a decision, which I made very early on" "I grew up in Ulm... which was very important for me." "Ulm was a kind of a global city." "It was a successor to Bauhaus, with the Ulm School of Design" "I went to secondary school there... and the teachers introduced us to all the arts, including film" "I saw all the experimental films back then." "When I came to Munich, I began shooting newsreels for TV" "I also started making short films and went on from there." "For me, one of the most important eras was punk and new wave... the whole punk movement" "I created a magazine called Die Sau." "A lot of cutting edge musicians wrote for it... like David Byrne of Talking Heads, Devo, Patti Smith..." "The story of The Fan began in this magazine... as a diary, a young girl's diary." "I can only think like a girl." "I can't think like a man" "I'm actually a woman." "All of my novels are written from a female perspective" "I've never written a book from a neutral or male perspective." "And The Fan was the diary of a girl" "I wrote it for a girl, an actress I knew at the time." "And then I struggled to make the film" "I was a journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung back then" "I could study the relationship between stars and their fans" "I wrote a long article about the fan cult around a big TV music show." "That was the background for The Fan." "The real story was about love, of course." "Basically, the star calls to the fan and says:" "I love you." "All pop music tries to conquer the audience with affection." "And the fan believes it." "They come and say:" ""OK, on the radio and TV you said you love me, here I am"." "But he can't live up to that promise." "He uses her for a night, then says:" ""Ok, fuck you"." "So she says: "Fuck you!" And kills him..." "And eats him up." "Kind of:" ""I love you to bits"." "And gives a new birth to him, as a better person." "That was one strand." "The other strand, the subtext of the film, if you like... in the film, you can see many references to it..." "It's basically about National Socialism." "The fans at the beginning are yelling "Heil!"" "Listen carefully, it's Germans yelling "Heil!" to Hitler." "There are many references to the Olympic Games of 1936." "Also, the hero is wearing a Nazi belt and SS uniform." "The girl walks around with "SS" on her bag." "Throughout the film, there are references to National Socialism" "I was asking the question:" ""Who is actually guilty?"" "Did Hitler summon the Germans or did the Germans seek Hitler?" "The fans were the German people..." "Were they provoked or seduced by Hitler?" "Or were they looking for him?" "Where does the blame lie?" "The Fan asks that question as well." "Who is guilty?" "Is he guilty because he chose her, played with her carelessly?" "Or was that desire always inside her and needed him to live." "Because she is bored in school, bored with her parents..." "Her life is meaningless without him." "The star is like God, you could say." "A substitute God, as no-one believes in God anymore." "The fan looks for a God substitute and finds him." "But God disappoints because God wants to satisfy many people, not just one." "The Fan contains both those themes." "The Fan had a lot of levels but I tried to tell the story as simply as possible." "So that it is a cannibalistic love story first." "And you don't have to see the other aspects." "Most people never discussed them." "It was never in the newspapers." "Recently, at a screening in the US, all of this came up." "Influenced by the likes of Tarantino... they analyze these things, every frame, to discover the meaning of it all." "Today, I was in school." "I tried to stay away from the post office." "But I went crazy, thinking of R all the time." "Désirée Nosbusch was a star then." "A young, incredible talent." "She often made headlines" "Désirée thought the script was amazing." "Then I made a storyboard" "I basically made a storyboard of every scene." "Especially the nude scenes, of course." "There was a lot of nudity" "I made a storyboard of every scene." "She had a manager then, who was also her boyfriend." "He was much older than her." "And, well..." "That's how I shot it." "Désirée, I have to say, was my favourite actress ever." "She gave me exactly what I needed." "She was cool and totally passionate at the same time..." "When she looked..." "Or when I looked through the camera... and saw her expression and the emotion she put into it... it was exactly as I had imagined it." "Bodo Staiger, concept-wise, went in a certain direction... that was in at the time also because of the likes of Devo." "Cyborg style, cool and the music was, let's say, Germanic." "It summoned up a German mood." "Also because of the group DAF... with whom I made a film later on, called Gold der Liebe." "And he was on the same lines." "I liked that... it fitted my concept of dealing with fascism." "And the German New Wave music was dealing with fascism." "Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft "Der Mussolini", all these things" "I liked that." "He had that same direction." "The music was good." "A moment..." "Life is just a moment." "Just a moment." "Then nothing remains." "We shot in that flat for 10 days." "It went perfectly." "We had no problems." "We shot in Ulm, where I grew up because I lived there for 7 years." "Then we shot here, in Munich." "There were no problems, no problems at all with Désirée." "No problems with anybody, it all went well" "I got all the permissions, everything I wanted" "I think the only problem was bad weather in June." "See the fans waiting for the star, they're freezing their asses off." "Bad weather in June." "That was my only problem." "Cameramen always have problems with me" "I do the camerawork" "I choose the framing." "I choose the camera movements." "Like I said, I come from painting, I wanted to be a painter early on." "So for me, framing is important, nobody must interfere with that" "I'm still friends in the US with the cameraman Bernd Heinl." "We fell out later because he said he couldn't carry on." "Same with the editing too." "On my shorts, I met two of the best German editors." "In the editing room I was asking:" "Why do you do it like that?" "They said:" "Look here... you do the editing, and if you fuck up we'll tell you." "So they taught me editing." "That's why my editors also don't really have a chance." "With The Fan in post-production, one morning the editor called and said:" ""I don't know if it's good or bad news, but I can't edit with handcuffs..."" "quit." And I said: "Great, goodbye"" "I cut it myself, and I've done so ever since." "I've missed my period." "I'm four weeks late." "I will give birth to you." "We will be happy." "I know you love me." "And me too, I love you." "To get past the censor we shot a different ending." "In the new ending, everything was only a dream." "Désirée wakes up in the wardrobe." ""What did I just dream?"" "The film was released with this ending that we all hated." "Even the distributor, Sam Waynberg, me and everyone." "So we just went to all the cinemas and cut the ending off the prints." "Then the film was as we wanted it" "I had shot and edited it so that we could cut it out." "The audience reacted well." "Some people fainted or threw up or something, I can't remember exactly." "It was a rather moving scene." "The critics were negative." "Only bad reviews." "Everywhere terrible reviews, but I'm happy now." "Critics say:" "Another embarrassment from Eckhart Schmidt." "Next film:" "New embarrassment from Eckhart Schmidt." "Next film:" "New embarrassment from Eckhart Schmidt." "So what?" "They can't kill me" "I've made 106 films, screw them." "Tomorrow I return to school." "We didn't report it." "I didn't want a scandal." "The scandal about The Fan..." "Basically, Désirée and her manager saw the film..." "We had dinner in an Italian restaurant." "The screening was at Arri in the Türkenstrasse." "We went to dinner and Désirée said she wanted two shots edited out." "And I said, nobody tells me what's in and what's out." "Every shot was just like in the storyboard." "But she still said that she wanted them cut." "There was one shot a wide shot, with her naked from behind, but very wide." "As in the storyboard." "And one I never understood why she wanted cut..." "He reaches into her pants." "Like that..." "It's just a fade, very short." "You can't see anything... no pubic hair or anything" "I didn't get it." "Nobody knew what was up." "Why she was against these scenes." "We'd stuck to the script." "I didn't film anything in secret." "Every scene was arranged, with lighting, took its time and so on." "On set, she could have said:" ""I don't like that"." "We could have changed it or out the scene to suit her." "We didn't get it." "It went to court because I refused to cut anything out." "The judge was a woman." "She looked at the storyboards and the shots." "She said, you stuck to the plans, what's the problem?" "So there was no problem." "When the film was shot, Désirée didn't sign the contract." "And her manager was not authorized by her parents to sign the contract." "So her parents were brought to court." "It was a very uncomfortable situation for Désirée." "Now it was about whether the contract is valid as the parents didn't authorize the manager to sign." "Désirée also wasn't authorized to sign." "That was the situation." "Then Sam Waynberg said:" ""Let's make her an offer." "I don't know how it'll go."" "It wasn't about the film or cuts to it, but whether the contract was valid." "That was the thing." "So Sam Waynberg said:" ""Offer her some money maybe then it'll all be OK."" "So he offered her money and the problem was gone." "For me, it was a very, very sad story." "Because I thought Désirée was truly amazing" "I can't think of anybody else for all of my movies." "She's the perfect actress for me." "Désirée always said:" "Worst experience of my life, Eckhart Schmidt." "In every talk-show interview she said:" "Worst experience of my life..." "he did this and that" "I just put up with it" "I offered her several other films, like Das Wunder." "She refused, of course." "Later, by chance, we met in Berlin at the film festival" "I said:" "Désirée, it's shitty between us." "It's stupid how everything went." "She said:" "Yes it kind of is" "I said:" "Do want to meet sometime?" "Because I lived in LA, her too." "So we'd meet regularly and have a glass of wine in a nice restaurant." "And we got along very well" "I'm still very fond of her"