Stanley Schtinter on Remapping History via Cinema

Have you ever wondered what the final movies were that such celebrities as Elvis Presley and Kurt Cobain watched before their death? If not, can you at least admit that you’re really curious now? British artist and filmmaker Stanley Schtinter uses this unusual concept as the approach to his film Last Movies, which world premiered at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, late on Friday.

The documentary, based on his book with the same title and narrated by Jeremy Irons, is featured in the Next:Wave lineup of the 23rd edition of the Danish festival. Schtinter’s credits on Last Movies not only include that of director, but also that of producer, cinematographer, and editor.

The CPH:DOX website describes the film as providing “a darkly humorous, alternative timeline.” And it notes: “The humor is pitch black and the level of detail completely overwhelming in … Last Movies, which takes its simple concept to the point of absurdity, with entertaining and thought-provoking results: What would film history look like if the timeline was determined by the more or less random movies celebrities and cultural figures watched before (and sometimes while) they died?”

Schtinter, in an email interview with THR, discussed the idea behind the film, why history can only benefit from a very different approach, the “pig’s trough” of culture, and whether there could be a sequel to Last Movies.

What inspired or triggered this idea of finding the last movies famous people watched?

Let’s go with triggered, considering the violence of film language. I was reading about the assassination of former Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, leaving the cinema in Stockholm in 1986. Intense interest persists around his murder because the assassin has never been caught. But my question was: What did Palme watch? This seemed as important a detail as any other.

From there, I remembered the legend of Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division watching Werner Herzog’s Stroszek in its U.K. television premiere on the night he died, and I began to wonder if the 20th century — the century of cinema — could be remapped according to who saw what last. And it can, almost from the inception of the form, with Kafka watching Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, to the present day, with Jean-Luc Godard watching his own film, Phony Wars. The criteria for a person’s inclusion is that they “gave” themselves to the camera within their lifetime. They consented to being shot.

Where did you turn for your research on people’s last movies?

Mainly the library, studying hundreds and thousands of celebrities and public figures. Books, newspapers. And sometimes, as in the case of Jean-Luc Godard, contact with those who were there with them, who know. Last Movies parasitizes the predatory relationship the dominant screen culture encourages people to have with its stars. Generally, this means someone’s last days and hours were afforded such scrutiny that we know what they watched if they watched something (before they died) and/or their death was witnessed, as in the case of Palme.

The film indeed feels like a different lens on history itself. What issues do you have with the traditional way of organizing history and where it has brought us?

Introducing an organizing principle like this one, one that hasn’t been conceived of or used before, can reveal holes and biases in the established historical narrative. In the beginning was the word; the word is authority. Repetition of an account of an event is all that is required to produce truth. And even if the teller was present at the event recorded, there’s room for ambiguity, argument. The camera has not settled this, the camera lies. There is no absolute truth. But as a “storyteller,” I have an impulse, if not a responsibility to attempt to move closer to what the truth might be.

Historian Peter Linebaugh describes it as shedding a “satanic light.” This shedding shouldn’t be clogged up with notions of the anti-Christ. It’s about necessarily questioning any power wielded by one person or institution over another. This feels especially pertinent now, given the widespread failure of governments and their aggressive tactics to keep control. Linebaugh encourages history to be re-written from below… If there’s a truth out there, it is on the street, or in the fields, not in the palace.

Do you think the last films of famous people tell us anything significant, or is it mostly a different possible narrative? I remember that the film starts with a note that it is “a tribute to chance”?

We live in myth, making narratives to try to make sense of the chance that ultimately runs our lives. The last films seen by famous people speak to their lives on and off camera to tell a narrative as real and complete as any other. My first intention with this organizing principle was to arrange a series of film screenings headlined with the person who watched the film just before they died, e.g., Kurt Cobain headlining Jane Campion’s The Piano), so encouraging the imagination of the viewer in seeing what those who see no more last saw. No explanation, no guidance. This was before the writing of the book or the making of the film. It was intended as a technology for rewilding the imagination.

How much is the film based on your book Last Movies, and is there anything new or different you could do with the film?

For the editing of the film, I limited myself to footage lifted from the films that were seen by the stars studied (their last and any others I had evidence of them watching in their lives). For the writing, it was a process of reduction.

The most exciting part of the filmmaking process was watching how an almost randomly selected scene from an unrelated film could replace in a parallel, perhaps indirect, and altogether more illuminating way what I had labored over the minutiae of in writing the book. The film seemed to make itself. “The living can assist the imagination of the dead,” said [William Butler] Yeats. Only about half of the book is covered in it. Maybe I’ll make a sequel? Last Movies: RESURRECTION.

Your film gives us a “pop culture”-ish walk through history with various interesting anecdotes and recurring themes, such as JFK, Star Trek, and Nike. It even mentions Donald Trump and how he attempted to buy the famous upright piano from Casablanca. Do you see the presence of those names as a reflection of your own interests or of their importance in pop culture iconography itself?

Again, chance. I can’t select who is in the project, and clearly, then I can’t select what. Neither the book nor the film reflects a preexisting interest in a specific individual or their work. Inevitably, I will have preferences or biases, but at no point is a value judgment applied to their person or their life’s work. That matters to me. The pig’s trough of the culture in the present time is not the location of my activity.

What can you share about your work as an artist and filmmaker? Your film and website seem quite status-quo challenging or “alternative.” But it feels like you are a proud traditionalist when it comes to movies on the big screen?

It’s shameful to have a website, never mind social media. But Google is so greedy and confused that it does seem to be worthwhile having a holding page to summarize the projects you feel work best, and in the way that you’d like to have them presented. My work, or “unwork” as I prefer to have it… exists. That existence means shared space. It means the travel to and from the venue. The chance encounter. It’s still all out there. Any presence I have on the internet points away from it.

In terms of the technology, beyond the attendant parts of what I’ve mentioned in going to the movies, nothing comes close to watching a film in a cinema. Having a drink in a bar. And vinyl is still the highest fidelity format for music. And words must be printed. I’m not nostalgic, or even really a fetishist for this stuff. But I recognize when and how it is done best, and I cannot compromise for the all-destructive progress myth of the neoliberal dystopia that tries to reduce the breadth and scope of life.

I hope you won’t need to think about this for a long time, but any idea what your last movie could be?

In Last Movies, there is only one example of someone actually picking a film before ending their life. Unless I am committing suicide, which I hope I never need to think about doing, my last movie might be a surprise if others find out about it, but I will never know. And that is the point. I like The Darling Buds of May. I like Cutter’s Way. And I’d eat scallops from Isla, and I’d drink an Imperial Stout (Sam Smiths), and I’d smoke a cigarette (Manitou 9). And I’d drink an espresso from the Algerian coffee shop in Soho. And I’d feed the baby goats on a high hill in a sunny Switzerland. Alas, chance intervenes as it always has and always will.

Any plans yet for your next film? Not that I want to hamster-wheel you!

Maybe I’ll do the difficult second part of the book that tends to be left out of Wuthering Heights screen adaptations. Certificate U [for “universal,” a film rating from the British Board of Film Classification]. And in the meantime, the success of Last Movies might mean I’m given the opportunity to undermine any good I have done by lending my singular talent to a string of commercials for the brands aforementioned? I have a big idea for Persia. But it’s hard to know where the camera is to go when a genocide has been live-streamed; when everything is and has been shot.