Jan Schomburg

Screenwriter and Director (Germany) who took part in the conference 04: Storytelling: the Business of All?

Jan Schomburg, *1976 wrote and directed movies (« Above us only sky » 2011, « Forget my Self » 2014, « Divine » 2020), wrote screenplays together with Maria Schrader (« Stefan Zweig – Farewell to Europe », « I’m your man ») and wrote two novels (« Das Licht und die Geräusche », 2017, « Die Möglichkeit eines Wunders », 2024).

Secretly he even wrote and directed sketch comedy for German Television.

His films were shown at Berlinale, Locarno, Rotterdam, New York, among others. He was awarded the German Film Prize for the screenplay for « I’m your man », the film « Stefan Zweig – Farewell to Europe » won the Audience Award of the European Film Academy.

In 2024, he is the head author and showrunner of « Other people’s money » (WT), an eight-part international TV series for ZDF and DR airing in March 25.

— an interview by Guillaume Desjardins, Writer-director, member of Les Parasites, recorded at Les Champs Libres (Rennes) in December 2023 in the framework of the serie “What stories for our time?”.

The story: its responsibility to art

« We learned just to listen to detail and let it grow on itself somehow. »

Break down the writing process: from details to general.

I’ve been writing a few screenplays and a few novels. I’ve directed a few films and now there’s a new position coming up which is called “showrunner”. I wrote a series that will be shot in January 2024 and I will be the showrunner, whatever that means, because in the European context there’s, I think, a very different interpretation of this job.

I took part in a workshop organized by a few European producers called “The Creatives” and they asked themselves: “What is the story again? Why are we here? What’s the series? How could a European network look like? How could European storytelling in terms of a series look like?” Each of those producers asked one screenwriter from these different countries to come together without any task except thinking, listening, developing a little bit. This week somehow revolutionized my brain in terms of what an idea is and how you can invite chance and also the collective into this process.

And how after some time when you become a professional, you just develop in a sense that you already know what it will be and so on. It’s very structural, it’s very from the general into the details. So first you have the general structure, then you work on the details. We learned just to listen to detail and let it grow on itself somehow. For me that was really a very beautiful process because I was stuck a little bit in this, “I have to write eight episodes about a financial scandal”. It’s just an industrial process of writing. So that really inspired me a lot.

« I have the feeling, this idea of storytelling is part of why our planet is where it is right now. In that that the individual is valued very highly and the collective is not valued very highly. »

The classical and narcissistic dramatic structure of the narrative.

Generally, I would say a story in film is mostly seen as something that is told of a protagonist, and the identification of the audience with a character that has some kind of a problem. Mostly it’s binary problems: so there are different concepts in dramatic structure and there’s one called “want and need”. There’s something that the character’s aiming for but then there’s a real / deeper truth in his character that wants something else. In different ways, this is for me a weird thing to see a human being. First, because I don’t think there’s one deeper truth. And also, that you have to decide between these things. It’s a weird concept I would say.

This is what a film story is: a problem has a character and we follow a character anticipating this problem. And somehow, in most of the movies, then the world around this character is organised through this problem. Everything that happens around him, in the background, somehow adds to this problem or helps him. But it’s all organised in this narcissistic way. It’s a weird narcissistic way to see the world: that, somehow, all the world is organised just for you.

And I have the feeling, this idea of storytelling is part of why our planet is where it is right now. In that that the individual is valued very highly and the collective is not valued very highly. All these stories that work like messiah stories that are like, in a way, Jesus stories, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, also Star Wars. This is all a story of, “okay so you are now responsible for the fate of the world and you’re the most important person on the planet.” And of course, this triggers somehow a certain kind of intense feeling but it’s, in a way, when you look at Lord of the Rings now or Star Wars or also Harry Potter, it seems so outdated in a way. Somehow it, at least for me, it doesn’t match what the world is about right now.

And I have the feeling that there are a few examples for stories that are really very close or that are very intense and which do not really necessarily work the way normal stories work. And I’ve been always interested in this kind of stories.

A very weird example for a story that is working in a different sense I would say is for example Pirates of the Caribbean. The first part of Pirates of the Caribbean, I’m not sure, I haven’t done some research, but in a structural sense it’s very clear that Orlando Bloom should be the main character. Because his father used to be a pirate now he’s on the good side and like the whole dramatic conflict is based on his character.

But nobody cares for his character because everyone loves to look at Jack Sparrow. But Jack Sparrow is not a dramatic character in the classical sense. He doesn’t have a real development, he doesn’t have a conflict in that way. He’s just a trickster who’s always a character on the side normally. There are so many stories that have like classical dramatic structure and they are just really bad. Nobody wants to watch it. And there are a few of them that are really amazing and, intense and surprising and so on.

« Conflict is just a little thing in the whole range of human interaction, of human behaviour, of what interests us about a film. »

Conflict in the narrative.

When I’m writing, very often conflict is not what is interesting for me about this scene. Because there are so many people giving notes on screenplays in this industrial context of a series for example. Very often I write a scene and because I have to write so quickly I know in their kind of idea of structure it’s not yet prepared very well, but there’s something in the scene that I know is good and it’s not the conflict. It’s a different idea of how we could live together maybe. And then I have to, in the next steps, I have to like prepare it in a way that it can be seen in the classical structure.

The Coen brothers, for example, have a very specific dramatic structure often. So first, they have like, for example, in Fargo they have good characters and bad characters and they don’t mix also. For instance, McDormand doesn’t have like a dark side. But then very often in these films at some point it all leads up to one showdown. But the showdown doesn’t happen. There’s just a vacuum and then suddenly you see two people talking for half an hour.

For example, in the series I’m writing so there’s a state attorney and she works for a very long time to get the gangsters to trial. And finally, there’s the big trial. And then normally there would be a showdown in court in the court scene and she would like prove in front of everybody “he’s guilty….” And this state attorney says I don’t like to be personally involved because it’s about a collective idea of the law being enforced. But it’s not about my personal idea that I want to punish these guys. I don’t have to go there. There’s a colleague who will read it and if it’s good it will stand in front of the court but it’s not a personal thing. Somehow, we go somewhere else than the classical confrontation for example.

I have the feeling there’s a lot of conflict. It’s just a little thing in the whole range of human interaction, of human behaviour, of what interests us about a film. I don’t have anything against conflict but I think there are so many, sometimes this idea really narrows the story. And I think it can be just broader.

« I have the feeling that the stories we are telling right now should go away from: that’s the other and that’s us and to make this border between. We should really tell stories that show how this border can be crossed, how we can have a different logic of interacting than to say that’s us and that’s them. »

Interaction in the narrative.

I just think there’s a certain kind of story that comes out of different structures. People say, well it’s just an empty box somehow but it’s still a box that you put something into. If you work from the general structure into the detail for example you will have a certain kind of limitation. Also, the other way around if you work only from the detail to the general you have also limitation. And of course, structures can also help you to be inspired but I really see it as some kind of tool that if you’re stuck and if you’re not in the flow you can be inspired by it. But if you take it as a rule then you have a lot of films that look the same and it’s a little boring also.

In a way I try to come into some kind of hypnotic state. If this would be a scene I would try to look at things. “There’s somebody sitting there, somebody’s going down there… Oh there’s a rucksack, there’s a backpack back there. Is something in the backpack? What’s the noise?”… I really try to meditate myself into the situation and just see what the place asks me for. If you really open yourself up to other ideas that you don’t have if you think of like turning points and you just don’t have them.

These big stories I was talking about earlier, if you look at them now, it’s really weird like Lord of the Rings, I saw it a few months ago and thought this is like such a bad and also, in a way a fascist story, in that the dark people from the east come and they have the bright, the only white people who save the earth and so on. It’s a weird story and the whole idea of: they are evil people and there are the good people. I think that’s really problematic.

« I think art in general is just also there to show that human behaviour, human interaction can follow a different logic than, for example, our capitalist logic or the logic of war. »

The story: an open offer.

And that there can be visions, stupidity, just irony, nonsense…, just all things that politics have lost. Or you think: “no, no this is like we are the forces of reason” and then you just hear that this is totally irrational and unreasonable and it doesn’t make sense, what’s happening. I think this is for me one of the main reasons to tell stories apart from entertainment.

I think a story is mainly also just an offer and it’s also an open offer. I mean of course if I write a scene I somehow have an idea for it but also, I have some kind of an idea of what a spectator will do with it, how he or she will see it. But of course, then it’s also possible that it’s seen very differently. Personally, I like to have also an ironic layer on the scene that says: “oh but it’s also the opposite.” I really love it when scenes do like somehow dialectic scenes and they show both angles.

I once did a film about a woman who loses her memory and so she has to reconstruct who she is and at some point, she wants to meet her mother who she has totally forgotten about so she goes to the old people’s home and her mother has amnesia, dementia, so Alzheimer. She meets this woman and they both cannot remember each other but then somehow you notice, oh there’s a somehow genetic kind of connection between them and you see, there’s like a deeper biological connection and at some point, the woman working at the old people’s home comes and says: “oh this is not your mother. You got the wrong woman.”

That kind of idea that well you think that biology is so strong but this is also a construction. And if a scene can do like a very intense feeling of: “oh she found her mother.” Then it’s also: “oh no she didn’t find her mother.” That’s something I like to play with if possible.

« Show a different logic and open a door to some other reception of the reality. »

The responsibility of the narrative towards art.

I really like people telling me stories. Very often an inspiration comes from… And I love to listen to people speak about what they lived through. But also, for me, writing is more an ability to watch and listen I think, to see certain things becoming something special. It’s more of an ability to pick a present up than to create a present. I think it’s really mainly looking at people and listening to them.

I have the feeling that it has become a little harder maybe to follow a private path in the way you’re telling a story because there’s a lot of fear in not only these young screenwriters but also in the producers and TV editors. I would say if you manage to keep in these whole voices that come to you, if you manage to listen to something private and to watch something private to see the world in a private way, that is something that is very unique now I think. Because many young people are really trying to fit into what’s already there. I have the feeling that’s a very strong and important place for people who have a private angle.

I think the only responsibility you have is to art and to the logic of art. And this then becomes also political responsibility but not in the sense that you’re responsible to stop climate change or something. It’s to show a different logic and to open a door to some other reception of the reality.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download