Schneider Vs. Bax

Graniet Film

PRESENTS

SCHNEIDER VS. BAX

by Alex van Warmerdam

INTERNATIONAL SALES

HEAD OFFICE
Van Diemenstraat 100
1013 CN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 627 3215
Fax: +31 20 626 1155
E-mail: / ASIA OFFICE
Unit A, 26/F., CKK Commercial Centre
289-295 Hennessy Road
Wanchai, Hong Kong, S.A.R.
Phone: +852 2311 8081
Fax: +852 2311 8023
E-mail:

INTERNATIONAL PRESS AGENT

TORONTO

Joanna Sturrock

+647 3023853

Erin Wellings

+647 4013768

Tiffany Kizito

+647 5015594

Hilton Garden Inn Toronto Downtown,

92 Peter St,

Toronto, ONM5V 2G5,Canada

TEL:+1-416-596-2829

SCHNEIDER VS. BAX

Written and Directed by Alex van Warmerdam

The Netherlands, Belgium / 2015 / 96 minutes / Dutch / Comedy, Thriller

Film Specs:

Production Countries: The Netherlands, Belgium

Year: 2015

Language: Dutch

Genre: Comedy, Thriller

Subtitle Language: English

Format: DCP

Running Time: 96 minutes

Color/Bw: Color

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Frame Rate: 24fsp

Sound Ratio: 5:1

Originally Shot on: ARRIRAW

Credits:

Written and Directed by Alex van Warmerdam

Producer: Marc van Warmerdam

Co-producers: Eurydice Gysel, Koen Mortier, Robert Kievit

Line Producer: Berry van Zwieten

Director of Photography: Tom Erisman N.S.C.

Production Design: Geert Paredis

Editor: Job ter Burg N.C.E.

Music: Alex van Warmerdam

Costume Design: Stine Gudmundsen-Holmgreen

Makeup: Marike Willard-Hoogveld

Sound Design: Peter Warnier

Visual Effects Supervisors: Dennis Kleyn, Albert van Vuure

Casting: Annet Malherbe in associationwith Kemna Casting

SCHNEIDER VS. BAX is a production of Graniet Film

in coproduction with Czar Film, Vara and Mollywood

Schneider vs. Bax is supported by Netherlands Film Fund, COBO, Eurimages, Flemish Audiovisual Fund, Screen Flanders & Agentschap Ondernemen, Abraham Tuschinski Fund

Main Cast:

SchneiderTom Dewispelaere

Ramon BaxAlex van Warmerdam

FranciscaMaria Kraakman

GinaAnnet Malherbe

MertensGene Bervoets

NadineEva van de Wijdeven

BolekPierre Bokma

LucyLoes Haverkort

GerardHenri Garcin

Logline/tagline:

Schneider, a hit-man, is given a job: before the night has passed he must kill the writer Ramon Bax. It seems to be an easy task....

Short Synopsis:

Schneider, a hit man, gets a call from Mertens on the morning of his birthday. He has a last-minute assignment for Schneider who refuses it, because it is his birthday and he has promised Lucy, his wife, to help her with the preparations for the dinner party. Mertens insists that it is an important matter. When they meet in Mertens' office, Schneider is told that the target is Ramon Bax, a writer. He lives alone in a secluded place. "It's an easy job. With a little luck you're back home before noon." Schneider accepts the assignment. What was promised to be a simple hit turns out to be more than expected.

Long Synopsis:

Schneider, a hit man, gets a call from Mertens on the morning of his birthday. He has a last minute assignment for Schneider who refuses it, because it is his birthday and he has promised his wife, Lucy, to help her with the preparations for a dinner party. Mertens insists that it is an important matter. When they meet in Mertens’ office, Schneider is told that the target is Ramon Bax, a writer. Bax lives alone in a secluded place. “It’s an easy job. With a little luck you’re back home before noon.” Schneider accepts the assignment.

Bax, over sixty, is staying at his summer house on the edge of a lake surrounded by reeds. He is recovering from a night of drugs and alcohol. When he remembers that his daughter Francisca is coming to see him today, he heartlessly gets rid of his young mistress Nadine. Francisca arrives. She is depressed and unhappy, and her father does not know how to deal with her. He urges her to take drugs and compares her unfavourably with her sister. They quarrel and she starts to cry. Bax suppresses his discomfort with a joint, vodka and some haphazardly chosen pills.

What was promised to be a simple job turned out to be much more than Schneider ever expected.

INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR:

At the Netherlands Film Festival your previous film Borgman won the Gouden Calf, the award for the best film, but you could not be present because you were working working on the scenario for Schneider vs. Bax in the north of Spain. Why the hurry?

“I also write and direct theatre performances, so there has always been a stage play between two films for reasons of logistics. I wanted to break through that pattern. I wanted to make two films back-to-back so I could benefit from the continuity.”

In connection with Ober (2006) you said that the film was a reaction to your previous work and you said something similar about Borgman. Is Schneider vs. Bax an anti-Borgman film?

“Anti is not the right word. When I start on a new film, the first thing I think is more or less: and now for something different. Borgman was mysterious, ambiguous, metaphysical. I’m not going to do that again. An old wish surfaced inside me: to make a film as light as a feather. A stylistic exercise. A study of light, space, water, and reeds. Two men with guns, a few women of course, very little dialogue.”

You have never made a film on the basis of somebody else’s scenario. Hasn’t it crossed your path or does it have something to do with being in control?

“For me, making a film starts right at the beginning. And the beginning is no more than the decision to want to make a film, and at that point I look into a large, white empty space. The first images loom up, characters, situations. For a long time it gets no further than musing, doodling, and making notes. And then the writing begins. I put myself in the shoes of the characters; manoeuvre them in problematic situations, think of obstacles. At the same time I visualise the spaces in which the characters move and things like that. If I were to film somebody else’s script, I’d have to do without all that. In that case, what am I doing?”

The title of the film implies a duel and Schneider vs. Bax contains many elements of Westerns; did you set out to make a genre film?

“I didn’t intend to make a genre film because that means you have to stick to the laws of the genre and that doesn’t have my interest. But the principle of a Western – a man on his own in a landscape with a gun; and then another man, also with a gun. I’ve always been intrigued by it. Because it is pure cinema; there’s not a word involved.”

“I wanted to do something with a contract killer, a lake, lots of reeds. That already carries the germs of a Western. You could see reeds and water as a substitute for the prairie. And a contract killer is in fact a bounty hunter. But Schneider vs. Bax is also a game of mistakes, bad luck, and coincidence.”

Do you see many films by other people? Are there filmmakers that you admire, or who serve as models?

“I’ve recently been going to the movies a lot again. Under the skin, Leviathan, I thought they were classic, merciless films. Films I take my hat off to. And then there are of course my old favourites: Hitchcock, Buñuel, Melville, Laurel and Hardy. But also many films I don’t even know the name of the director of. I’ve taken things, learnt things from all those well-known and unknown directors, consciously or subconsciously.”

For many of your previous films you have an entire houses built because the size of the rooms and the corridors determine the psychology of the space, or you have had a wood erected in the studio to make sure everything is exactly as you had in mind. The complete interior of Mertens’s office was built in the studio, but most of the shooting for Schneider vs. Bax took place in a nature reserve in the north of the Netherlands, which meant that you have to take account of all sorts of rules and regulations and with the nesting season of the marsh harrier. What did that mean to you?

“Most of all it was exhausting. I’ve seen more or less all the reed lands in the Netherlands, and what made it so exhausting that every time we nearly got permission to film there and then at the last minute the permission was retracted. It all had to do with the nesting season and the great reed warbler, a threatened species. Every time we were on the point of getting permission, the great reed warbler turned up and the permission was withdrawn. That bird became my enemy. I visualised it as a large bird with an angry look, but it turned out to be only a stupid little bird.”

Why does the story have to take place in the reeds in fact?

“I was more or less born in the reeds so I know reeds well. Reeds make a noise when you run through them. You are invisible in the reeds, but not quite. When you’re in a reed field, reed is chaotic, especially in the sun. Thousands of little shadows. You easily get lost in the reeds; you lose your bearings. Reeds are a visually attractive obstacle.”

The art-direction is even more striking than in many of your earlier films: almost everybody is wearing light-coloured clothes; both the interiors and exteriors include a lot of white and sandy colours. What gave you that idea?

“In fact, since The last days of Emma Blank I have been interested in the sun, in summer. In Borgman, too, I wanted to have only sunlight. Violence and things dark in sunlight are more interesting than violence and things dark in the dark. But a warm, sunny summer is anything but normal in the Netherlands. So in both films I only partly succeeded. In Schneider vs. Bax I wanted to develop that idea once more. And not only by having as much sun as possible but an overpowering lightness. To start with there are no nights. The film takes place in one sunny day. And as far as the light was concerned I also wanted to have no difference between interiors and exteriors. In Hollywood, before they started filming in studios, they constructed rooms without ceiling and put them out in the open, and later on a revolving plateau so they could turn with the sun.The fact that light always comes from above I find wonderful. Schneider’s house has a normal roof and the light comes in through the windows as usual. As soon as we leave Schneider’s house things change. In Schneider’s lock-up a lot of light comes from above and similarly in Mertens’s office, but Bax’s wooden house has a completely glass roof so that even the light in the toilet comes from above. The summerhouse in the woods has no roof at all.”

For a long time now you’ve been working together with cameraman Tom Erisman. What is his specific input? Is he also involved with the direction for instance when you yourself are acting?

“Not really, also because Annet [Malherbe] was always on the set to co-direct me when I had to be acting. But he certainly has a specific input. To start with I prepare the storyboard of the whole film with Tom. He asks basic question so that the whole scenario goes through a wringer and all superfluities are scrapped. For this film we discussed the light a lot. One day I found a photo in a magazine, a Polaroid picture of a father and son in a dell in the dunes, taken from a family album. The glaring summer light provided a certain glistening that I liked. I showed that photo to Tom, saying “Look, that’s what I want, but not nostalgic.” Tom then said: “What you like about it is the out-of-focusness of the photo”. And he hit the nail on the head there are, because digital film are dead in focus, to my displeasure. We softened that in the grading, in the postproduction. And the skies weren’t to be blue because that gives you that nostalgic postcard feeling.”

Your film-making is a kind of family business. From your third film onwards your brother Marc van Warmerdam has been the producer; your wife Annet Malherbe played the lead in Abel and has featured in your films ever since, and she is now responsible for the casting. Your children, too, and another brother have collaborated in your films. How did that come about?

“It developed over the years. Marc and I also work together in the theatre and we have done so since we were young. Annet is a good actress and has turned out to be a good casting director. She also assists me in the choice of make-up and costume. Vincent has made the music for many of my films and that is only logical because he already made a lot of music for my theatre performances. And my sons, who are both musicians, have made ring tones with the group Zoutmus and a few songs that sound on the radio in the film. They also assisted on the set to earn some money.”

Stanley Kubrick was a notorious director but you too are quite outspoken. Apparently while you were shooting you said to Maria Kraakman, a renowned actress who plays your daughter in Schneider vs. Bax that she was 'like a rectangle'. Was that any use to her?

“I’d forgotten about that. I’ve read it in an interview with her. I believe she had to come into the room. She held her arms stiffly alongside her body so that I saw her as a rectangle. I said: ‘There’s a rectangle coming into the room’.She didn’t know what I meant, so I showed her on the video-assist. Then she understood perfectly well and after that the rectangle was no longer there.”

In the course of his laborious activities the contract killer Schneider has telephone conversations with his wife who is at home preparing for a dinner party. Do you know if she is aware of his profession? Does the actress Loes Haverkort know, and does it matter? Do you in fact know yourself the reason behind the planned killing?

“Let me put it this way: I told Loes not to create the suggestion that she knows what her husband’s job is, but I can’t forbid the viewer anything. I myself am not aware of the reason for the contract killing.”

But is there no deeper meaning? Is there nothing to interpret, nothing for the viewer to identify with? Is Schneider vs. Bax not also about good and evil?

“Of course Schneider vs. Bax is also about good and evil, but almost in a way that denies. I want to show it drily, as un-dramatically as possible, without sentiment, without moral judgement. That is exactly what raises questions, I think. The only character with a bit of a moral consciousness is Gina, probably a prostitute. The whore with a heart of gold, an incredible cliché. I couldn’t avoid it but fortunately it isn’t too obvious. Whether there is something to interpret for the viewer? That’s an impossible question for me; I am not the viewer I am the maker.”

According to the Hollywood doctrine you have to create a whole biography for every character, but when you are writing the characters you know nothing or hardly anything about them. Isn’t that difficult for your actors? How do you give them something to go by?

“I don’t go in for those biographies but I know more about the characters than you think. The question is: does the actor have to know all that? I don’t think so. The actor is already the character because he was cast for that role. Kirk Douglas is Spartacus, or you could also say Spartacus is Kirk Douglas. I give actors something to go by because together with them I go through the mise en scène, we decide on the tempo and perhaps scrap the odd line or two.”

'Muesli makes me depressed, muesli is for goats', your character says. Is that autobiographical?

“That could very well be autobiographical.”

Schneider vs. Bax was edited by Job ter Burg; do you sit next to him all the time or do you just see the edited versions? What kind of things do you try out in the editing?

“I am always there in principle. This is our third film together. We have developed a kind of system by now; together we choose the best takes of particular scene, and discuss the setup. Then I go to the place where I work in the building next to his. He phones me when he’s got the first version. I comment on it and we work on it together. At that point it is merely a case of putting the scenes together. What follows is the real job: to turn all those scenes into a film, because if you put everything together on the basis of the scenario it is not a coherent film in any sense. We move scenes about and discard a great deal. The content as such remains intact, but the structure becomes completely different. When we have the feeling that there is some kind of coherence we show the film to three people at the most: my brother and producer Marc, and two friends whose opinion I value highly. They are allowed to say anything they like - and they do. With the comments we go back to the editing suite and use what we can. By then we will have made some progress. Then it takes roughly three, four weeks before big steps have been taken and there is a second viewing. The two friends who were there at the first viewing will not be invited again because their opinion is coloured by what they’ve seen before, and also they will easily approve of the changes because they see their own comments in it. New friends therefore – they could also be acquaintances; it could be three or four people. We repeat that process let’s say eight times in the course of a good four months.”