The art installation was a sensation when it played at New York’s Park Avenue Armory.
The film is a different but unexpectedly robust experience, with some segments that are hilariously droll.
CATE BLANCHETT:Yeah, for me, this is probably akin to those experiences.
Credit: Gonzalo Marroquin/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
JULIAN ROSEFELDT:I’m Not Thereactually plays a really important role in the genesis of this project.
Cate and I first met three years ago at an exhibition of mine.
BLANCHETT:We were looking for something to do together.
Cate Blanchett in ‘I’m Not There’.
ROSEFELDT:We talked and talked.
I remember we talked about Andrei Tarkovsky films.
And she was so sweet and started to compliment my work.
Cate Blanchett in ‘Carol’.
BLANCHETT:It was all bulls.
I just wanted to work with you and I’d say whatever it took.
ROSEFELDT:[Laughs]But I felt like a little boy.
Cate Blanchett and Cate Blanchett in ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’ (2004).
I’m being complimented by Cate Blanchett!
BLANCHETT:Oh, really.
I can’t remember.
©Julian Rosefeldt and VG Bild-Kunst
Also there’s the ending of the other Todd Haynes film that Cate starred in.
She look right into the camera in the last seconds ofCaroltoo.
ROSEFELDT:Ah, that’s true.
BLANCHETT:Nah, I’m not looking into the camera there.
I’m looking at Rooney [Mara].
you’re free to feel it’s not overly scripted, it feels like it’s just happening.
Bennett Raglin/WireImage
So I mentioned to Cate that I found that moment to be particularly extraordinary.
But, of course, right away she started talking about Todd’s earlier film.
The Karen Carpenter film.
ROSEFELDT:Yes, which I hadn’t seen at the time.
And so she was telling me all about it.
Cate, how much do you love the opportunity to play more than one character?
BLANCHETT:Oh, I love doubling.
And when you’re working in cinema, you rarely get to double.
It’s often done on stage but much more rarely on screen.
On film, you’re usually inviting an audience into a very literal narrative experience.
So to allow an audience to free associate and find points of common reference is very exciting.
There’s that one sequence inManifestowhen you’re the news reporter and the weather person.
ROSEFELDT:That maybe reminded you ofCoffee and Cigarettes.
Yes, I loved it.
And it’s really hilarious.
How much did you both allow yourselves to have fun with all this heavy material?
BLANCHETT:The material is absurd.
And actually we laughed a lot.
It’s also slightly hysterical because of the pace we were working at.
For me, doing it all in 11 days was quite hysterical and instinctual.
So there was that natural absurdity that was built-in.
ROSEFELDT:Sometimes I’m asked if I’m making fun of those certain manifestos where there is comedy.
It is not mockery, because I do love all these texts.
But the humor does help discover that some of these texts were not written with 100 percent total sincerity.
I mean, the guys writing “Dogme 95” were, of course, having a big laugh.
Or at least an amazing fun time.
BLANCHETT:Oh, for sure.
As in, ‘What are you gonna make of this, huh?
I’m gonna blow it all up!’
But at the time they were outsiders, which is always the place of an artist.
Cate, you play 13 different people, including a homeless man.
But were there any ideas that you considered but decided against because they were too gonzo?
Like playing different ethnicities, for example.
BLANCHETT:We talked about having me speak different languages.
Art still needs to be liberated from notions of bureaucratized thinking.
I mean, look at the work ofCindy Sherman.
She crosses ethnicity boundaries and that’s part of the provocation.
ROSEFELDT:Let me actually askyoua question.
You say you liked the “news show” scene, where the text is very comprehensible.
No, to be honest.
But I thought the experience was more about sinking into those worlds and not paying attention to every word.
BLANCHETT:I know I didn’t!
[laughs]
Youweren’t paying attention to every word?
BLANCHETT:I couldn’t.
It’s like a ballet of words.
Cate, you mentioned how quickly you filmed this.
BLANCHETT:My dreams tend to be like dog dreams.
I’m usually so tired that I hardly dream at all.
Can you hear the birds?
Or is that the traffic?
It’s that zone in which I perform.
It’s like one foot in reality and one foot in a dream state.
I spend most of my life in that state!
Do either of you think that events in the world have changed this picture?
Do I, seeing it for the first time now, have to interpret it somewhat differently?
ROSEFELDT:You have to.
BLANCHETT:Just by force of circumstances you do.
That’s what art does.
It has very specific meaning at the time that it’s made.
ROSEFELDT:And now after every Q&A for the film, I’m asked about populism.
In Turkey, in France, in Sundance, in New York.
BLANCHETT:Of course you do.
Language is so powerful.
Artists are like temperature takers of their time.
And we need them more than ever.
