Miroslav Janek – Interview
As a follow-up on our ”collected posts” on Czech documentary maker Miroslav Janek here are some quotes from an interview made a month ago by Doc Alliance, below is a link to the whole interview, absolutely to be recommended.
Janek on editing: As an editor, I have been successfully driving directors away from the editing room. Now I drive myself away without much effort. After endless talks with editor Tonička (the wife of Janek, ed.), I delegate all of the material to her and I let her look for new connections and ties yet unrevealed by me, hoping that she will find them. I only enter the editing room when the film shape has been roughly sculpted. However, this active involvement in the editorial process is impossible without a thorough knowledge of the shot material. Before I entrust the material to Tonička’s hands, or rather her mind and soul, I map it carefully, I choose the things I consider substantial and later I gradually “taste” the material, drawing various meaningless and sometimes even meaningful partial ideas on paper…
Janek: I still see film as a visual medium, not a radio one. Although I do not underestimate the sound dramaturgy of the film in any way; quite on the contrary. However, if there is to be at least some space for sound dramaturgy, one has to cut the cackle. I really admire those documentaries (and I envy them terribly) in which nothing is said for like ten minutes and yet the viewers are breathless, the poetic suspense and mystery are growing and the screen… I’m speaking too much again…
