Robert Wilson: Die Schönheit des Geheimnisvollen

Robert Wilson – The Beauty of the Mysterious

Year: 2021
Country: Germany
Director: Carl von Karstedt
Cast: Robert Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Marina Abramovic, Tom Waites
Genre: documentary, biography, art
Runtime: 52 min.
Age: 18+
Wilson's ability to work with light as with a palette of colors and to create on stage a ghostly, semi-transparent, and at the same time contrasting world became the foundation of his unique graphic style. It is this unique, instantly recognizable handwriting that constitutes the essence of Robert Wilson's creative legacy, for which the master was valued during his lifetime and is still admired to this day.

The idea for this documentary film was born from a personal shock. German director Carl von Karstedt, who was still a child, saw Wilson's play "The Black Rider" in Hamburg in 1990 and was so captivated that it determined his future path. He calls his film a “quest to track down beauty” – the very beauty that lies at the heart of Robert Wilson's mysterious art. The mind-blowing beauty of Wilson's ascetic, as if frozen, stage scenes looks so mysterious and, it seems, unrelated to the plot of the work, and is so mesmerizing that it creates an incredible synthesis, a fusion of music, movement, light and color, as a result of which Theater is born as a spectacle, as a phenomenon, as meaning.

Tom Waits, who wrote the music for "The Black Rider," remembers: “When I met him, Bob looked like a science student from the 1950s. I didn't know what to think about it.” But after working together, the composer is sure: “It would transform anyone.” Wilson himself said: “My existence, and all that I have been able to do in my work are the result of chance.” One of these fateful episodes in his biography was the meeting with an autistic teenager, Christopher Knowles, who became one of the authors of the text for the legendary opera "Einstein on the Beach" (1976), which introduced a revolution in the performing arts of the 20th century.

The film paints a portrait of a man for whom creativity is not a posture, but life itself. Footage of rehearsals for the play "Dorian" in Düsseldorf and archive images showing Bob unexpectedly coming on stage and dancing at the end of the long hours of representation reveal him as an absolutely free being, a magician able to bring even a jacket sleeve to life. Testimonies from those who worked with Wilson confirm his image as an artist capable of transformation. Marina Abramovic, for whom Wilson staged "7 Deaths of Maria Callas," recalls that their collaboration allowed her to expel the painful memories of her relationship with her mother. Willem Dafoe, reflecting on his collaboration with Bob, admires his unique way of working with light.

However, Carl von Karstedt's film is more than a portrait. It is an attempt to trace the path of a master who does not just light the set, but enlightens the spectator's gaze, offering them a change of perspective and a touch of the eternal mystery of beauty.
© Lucie Jansch