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| Rasmus Hammerich and Camilla Bendix star in Martin Strange-Hansen’s Oscar-nominated Live Action Short On My Mind |
In my conversation with Oscar-winning director Martin Strange-Hansen (This Charming Man) and two-time Oscar-winning producer Kim Magnusson (Anders Walter’s Helium and Anders Thomas Jensen’s Election Night) on Martin’s Oscar-nominated On My Mind, starring Rasmus Hammerich, Camilla Bendix, and Ole Boisen, we discuss special Oscar ingredients, the meaning of numbers, universal stories, and the essence of saying goodbye.
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| Martin Strange-Hansen with Kim Magnusson and Anne-Katrin Titze on Always On My Mind: “For me it has that essence of saying goodbye that is so specific.” |
A man walks into a bar. He wants to sing karaoke. It has to be ‘You were always on my mind” and it has to be right now, daytime on a regular Tuesday. Only it is a day like no other for Henrik (Hammerich). Louise (Bendix), the woman behind the bar, picks up on that, while her boss Preben (Boisen) who sits at a table struggling to do the accounting, does not. On My Mind effectively explores the interactions between the ordinary and the extraordinary, what dew on glass can elicit, and how personal it is what “makes the soul fly.”
From Copenhagen, Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson joined me for an in-depth conversation on On My Mind.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Hi, good to see you again, Kim. And of course congratulations to both of you! What’s your Oscar secret, Kim? Why this category and what’s your special ingredient?
Kim Magnusson: My normal answer to this would be - make a great film. The Academy has grown in size and geographically in membership. It has to do with what the voters would like to see and embrace. This year I’ve had five out of 150 that were considered for the award. We did do Martin’s film after film school when he did win his Oscar 20 years ago.
AKT: The two of you have been working together for a very long time!
KM: Martin’s first film, This Charming Man, was also produced by M&M. When you ask about this category - it’s a stand-alone category, you don’t need to be elected by a country or committee to be participating in the Oscars. For me it’s about telling a good story with a great talent.
AKT: You mentioned last time that it is the personal stories that attract you, and this is clearly a personal story. Were you hesitant at all to tell a personal story like that or was it something that you wanted to be out there, Martin?
MSH: It was something that I wanted to be out there. The idea came from that I actually learned something from that process of what we went through with my daughter. I wanted to share that experience as well. Even though it’s not one-to-one with what happens in the film, it’s very much connected to the feeling. I wasn’t hesitant, but 20 years ago I would have been.
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| Martin Strange-Hansen on Henrik (Rasmus Hammerich): “I wanted to make sure at first that you did not know where he was.” |
AKT: On the one hand, there’s the time distance that you needed and also you needed to not make it one-to-one. These two distancing factors make the film universal and so much about the core, of “making the soul fly” as you say. You start with the head tapping on the glass and we have no idea where this is going. Can you talk about that start?
MSH: I always wanted it to feel like a limbo. He’s in limbo but he’s not letting us in. We don’t know what’s happening in this person’s life but it’s something severe one way or another. I wanted to make sure at first that you did not know where he was.
AKT: It’s interesting because it’s the opposite of what happens next. He goes into a bar, no questions about that. And all we see there is about counting. The accounting the owner is doing, the counting of the shots. Everything is numbers, structures, the opposite really of the soul, of what your protagonist is concerned with. He is clashing with the concrete world of numbers.
MSH: You are correct! I never really thought about how much numbers mean, but you’re completely right. There’s numbers in every little part of the scene. He is in the dark place and he has to deal with people who are in this normal life. For him it’s a special 15, 30 minutes that he has and, yeah, I wanted to confront him with the mundaneness.
AKT: And then comes song #347. Why did you choose this particular song, You are always on my mind? It doesn’t let my soul fly. Especially the Willie Nelson version is pretty misogynistic. So I’m curious about how both of you see it!
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| Kim Magnusson: “I always try to go for a story which is universal but also one that has a warm, heart-felt feeling for me and meaning for other people.” |
MSH: For me it has that essence of saying goodbye that is so specific. You have a lot of regrets. When I was doing the film, I woke up in the middle of the night and I had dreamt about the song. It occurred to me that this was a song about being the parent of a teenager and I was like, I wasn’t there enough for you!
AKT: Kim, any thoughts on that particular song?
KM: Like Martin was just saying, it was chosen because it is a universal song. It’s also I will have you on my mind even if you’re not there anymore.
AKT: It’s a catchy title and many people may know it and it stays in your mind. What I found most interesting is the discrepancy between his state of mind and that of the others. It’s about the moments in life when you don’t care about what others think, and he is in that state of mind. His decision making is so well-shown when he tells the strangers what is going on. Also the relationship between the two in the bar is very interesting with the shared cigarette.
MSH: This is a character who’s a very private character. He wants this to be private in a way it’s so painful that he has to be pushed all the way to the edge. The scenes where he is singing was one of the hard scenes. The first version was kind of violent, but it felt wrong. When we were rehearsing it felt mechanical.
We changed that scene actually right before we shot it. In the last version he says it with his back to the camera, and I think that is so powerful. There’s so much respect for him as a character. Then we worked a lot on what we called “an old married couple.” They are not married but they feel like it.
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| On My Mind poster |
AKT: They are not, and it’s very clear that she is working for him. She is dependent on him. That dynamic, I thought was interesting. She is making decisions because she knows that he doesn’t get what’s going on. He just wants to sell the more expensive whiskey. Martin, you wanted to add something to what Kim said earlier?
MSH: I think there is a special sauce, but there’s no secret. We have a very good talent development in Denmark. Very young people from 14 on actually make movies.
KM: Unfortunately, the whole short film financing scheme has come down. But from early school stages people come into film and as probably in the States and everywhere else in the world, a lot of young people want to go into media. So a lot of people because of my success come to me and I get a lot of short film proposals.
I always try to go for a story which is universal but also one that has a warm, heart-felt feeling for me and meaning for other people. I believe that taste is also something that goes with that the more narrative stories tend to be liked by the Academy voters, compared to some of the maybe very auteur-driven festivals. It’s a world Academy now, which is great. It used to be an American Academy, but now it’s really a world Academy. And that’s going all the way through story lines and voting and winners and all those kind of things.
AKT: It broadens the spectrum. Thank you! Keeping my fingers crossed! And see you next year for the Oscars!
MSH & KM: Thank you so much!
The 94th Academy Awards ceremony originally scheduled for Sunday, February 27 will be held on Sunday, March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
