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“Just write: I'm harmless...”
A telephone-interview with Mascha Rabben
She is somewhat rushed, as she wants to go to Bombay later. For two months. Maybe a little less. At the moment, she says, she quickly eats a sandwich and this is why she is in such a good mood. “Why Bombay?” “I can’t explain. It just suddenly worked out this way and then I simply booked.” “So this is not because of a movie?” “Oh no, we want to record some music there. This is why I sit on all these crates and suitcases…”
She laughs and it sounds quite joyful. I want to know what she thinks Bombay will be like, what will await her when she gets off the plane. “A sky full of violins. Indians dressed in white and a sky full of violins. I will sit down and then see what happens. It will be incredibly beautiful.” “How does it feel to suddenly read in the papers that one is a star?” “I have read it. But until now I have not noticed anything. Nothing has changed. I keep getting offers. But the stuff I would like to do is just as rarely offered as before.“ “Does money not play a role?” “Well it’s true, I have much more money now than before. But money is not all that important. I need it, but I do not make a movie to later pay my dues in a sanatorium. I do not want to make films I cannot relate to. Until now, I made films only with friends or with people who later became friends.” “Is Rainer Werner Fassbinder a friend?” “I like Rainer very much. We have found a level that enables us to work together incredibly well. Before, I used to be scared that he might yell at me or put me down. He can really hurt people. He is an awfully sensitive person and thus reacts very strongly to all wrong tones.” I want to know what she thinks about the story of ‘World on a Wire.’ She is all excited. “The science-fiction story of all science-fiction stories. It’s really no story at all. It is psychedelic. A mind trip for people who have brains. It is as if the role fell from the heavens for me. Too bad Rainer made it so differently, so unnatural and artificial. I would have rather preferred it warm-hearted and more identifiable.” “Is this not in part due to the role–a mysterious being in a bizarre world?” “True, but I think that now she comes across as cold.” “Don’t you think this could be due to you? It seems that your role in ‘Harlis’ was just as artificial, and Robert van Ackeren says that even in private you have a tendency towards a certain artificiality.” “This is what he sees in me. When he says this, he ignores that there is also something very natural about me. I find that I have a certain equilibrium in me. But this has nothing to do with ‘World on a Wire.’ You know, in the movie Klaus Löwitsch really appears as Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Valentin as Jane Mansfield and I am Lauren Bacall.” “Can you tell me what your ultimate goal is?” “Nothing I do not own already. After all, to achieve something does not mean to own something but to be something. Nothing can happen to me the way I am now. I would be unable to make a mistake now. I am not exaggerating anything. I am not going to let anyone pin me down, neither to a role, nor to a place or a person.” “But what should people write about you then?” She bursts out laughing. “See? I just call you by your first name here. I am the complete anti-star. You can’t write anything about me. Just write I’m harmless. No one needs to get upset about me. This would be my request to the viewers. It is unpleasant to think that people would find me wondrous, like a multi-colored horse in the circus. I don’t want to keep revising the stuff people store in their heads about me. Sometimes I really sense how they stare at me and yet they do not see me. Then I feel like hitting them on their noses and I want to say ‘Hey, look, this is who I am.’ But now I really have to run. Bye-bye.”
(Alexander Wesemann conducted the interview.)
From the information brochure:
Fernsehspiele Westdeutscher Rundfunk July – December 1973, p. 68-69
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