Michael Henderson talks to Alfred Brendel about his favourite films
‘I belong to no tribe,’ says Alfred Brendel, taking tea at his home in Hampstead, surrounded by some of the books that constitute his vast library. ‘I follow no creed, subscribe to no ideology, and I despise nationalism. I have lived in many places but wherever I go I am a paying guest.’
If you wanted a single statement to do justice to this extraordinary man, that would do pretty well. It is the expression of a well-travelled, well-read, well-versed man in language that is by turns serious and playful. With his immense learning, worn lightly, and a highly developed sense of irony and absurdity, Brendel is every inch a central European. He may have lived in London for four of his eight decades, and be a honorary knight of the realm, but nobody has ever taken him for an Englishman.
In the most important sense, though, Brendel does belong to a tribe: the kingdom of artists. Like Goethe, of whom it was said that he represented a culture in himself, Brendel takes nourishment from all aspects of European civilisation. One of the supreme pianists of the past century, who retired from the concert platform three years ago, he was a painter in his youth, ‘and I’m still looking at paintings, most gratefully’. He has written brilliantly around the subject of music in several collections of essays, and is an acclaimed poet. Harold Pinter read six poems at Brendel’s 70th birthday celebrations ten years ago, and last year saw the publication of his collected work, Playing the Human Game.
Now he has turned his attention to another abiding passion. His father owned a cinema in Zagreb, and throughout his life Brendel has taken a keen interest in films and film-makers. Last week this displaced Austrian returned to Vienna, to talk about some of his favourites in a series called — that central European sensibility again — ‘Between Horror and Laughter’.
‘I was at a dinner there last year, seated next to a very nice man, and we began to talk about some lesser-known films. When it was suggested that I put together a programme, I thought, “What a lovely idea!” I thought that by choosing the films I would know a bit more about myself. Not that I want to know too much.’
And what did he find out? ‘A very important factor is humour. There is hardly a film I have chosen, except Victor Erice’s El Espiritu de la Colmena [Spirit of the Beehive], that is not really funny. I see the world as absurd, and I am grateful if the absurd is seen in comical terms. I like the combination of the grotesque and the macabre. For me it represents something important about the nerve centre of the 20th century. Many works that I value most highly in various art forms share this feature. As a poet I admire a combination of sense and nonsense, and I like a symbiosis of the two, or the presence of one in the other.
‘From my teens I was always interested in surrealism, starting with Dada. In Graz there was a place where one could bring along some item, put its price on a slip of paper, and take something else away. I found there a Dada almanac from 1920, with Beethoven on the cover, which I still have.’ As he says, these films ‘have nothing to do with the American Dream created by Hollywood. If anything they are in opposition to ideologies and illusions. They are not the most famous films made by these directors. Indeed, some have been neglected.’
His Hitchcock of choice, for instance, is Frenzy, made in London in 1972. ‘It is a masterpiece from beginning to end.’ He has also selected Lindsay Anderson’s public school fantasy If…, shot at Cheltenham College four years earlier, ‘because I admire films that do not respect certain borders. That film is so wonderfully done, down to the last detail. Always I try to see how original is a film, and how masterful.’
Another British film, Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, by Karel Reisz, appeals to Brendel’s love of ‘the grotesque and the forbidden’. So, rather more resoundingly, does Freaks, Tod Browning’s notorious film of 1932, that was promoted at the time as ‘the most startling human story ever screened…are you afraid to believe what your eyes see?’
‘You may ask,’ says Brendel, ‘how can one make fun of various defects in people? People were horrified by it, and the film used to be half an hour longer. But Freaks does not make fun of them. The most honest, dependable people in the film are those with defects. You see what they can do, like producing a cigarette without limbs.’ What Brendel does object to is a film like The Birds, which is a long way from being Hitchcock’s best. ‘I love birds, and I despise that film. It frightened me.
‘Freaks and La Grande Bouffe (where the characters gorge themselves to death) may be macabre, but is not the macabre entitled to be funny sometimes? If you go to the theatre, you will certainly find the macabre there. There are moments of humour in the middle of King Lear.’
Louis Malle is represented by Le Souffle au Coeur: ‘Each film for him was a new venture.’ Buñuel is there, with Le Fantôme de la Liberté, and there is a collection of short films by the Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer. Two American comedians make the list — Buster Keaton, with a double bill of The Scarecrow and Steamboat Bill Jr, and Woody Allen, whose Zelig (1983) is the most recent release. ‘I don’t care much for modern films,’ says Brendel. ‘They’re far too noisy, and much of the time I can’t understand what people are saying.’
Despite a recent operation on his spine, he remains in good health. He has always attended concerts given by other pianists, and his curiosity is undiminished, although not all schools of scholarship interest him. ‘I have never been in analysis. For some artists it is a privilege not to know too much.’
Is it too much to hope that he may be invited to give a series of talks in London covering his many interests? Brendel on Robert Musil, perhaps — ‘The Man Without Qualities was the formative book of my 20s, the way Joyce, Proust and Kafka were for others.’ Brendel on Kurt Schwitters, the collage artist with ‘his marvellous eye for colour’. Or Brendel talking about those things he doesn’t like. ‘Lehár, Puccini and Rachmaninov formed a kind of Bermuda Triangle around 1910, sucking all feeling out of music.’
Or, for starters, Brendel talking about films he did not take to Vienna. ‘I’m still looking for the early Mae West movies. I’ve seen only the later ones!’
Brendel’s choices: The Scarecrow/Steamboat Bill Jr. Buster Keaton 1920, 1928; Die Dreigroschenoper G.W. Pabst 1931; Freaks Tod Browning 1932; Jeux Interdits Rene Clement 1952; Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment Karel Reisz 1966; If… Lindsay Anderson 1968; Frenzy Alfred Hitchcock 1972; Le Souffle au Coeur Louis Malle 1971; La Grande Bouffe Marco Ferreri 1973; El Espiritu de la Colmena Victor Erice 1973; Cria Cuervos Carlos Saura 1976; Le Fantôme de la Liberté Luis Buñuel 1974; Programme Jan Svankmajer 1964–89; Zelig Woody Allen 1983
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