
Yesterday, I sat down with Philip Groening,
Scriptwriter, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Sound Editor, and Film Editor of
Into Great Silence (
Die Grosse Stille), the first film about life
inside
The Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the
legendary Carthusian Order in the French Alps.
The majority of the film becomes a study in silence, as
there is nearly no dialogue in this 164 minute long film recorded over the course of six months Groening spent in the
monastery, participating in the silent life there. According to Groening, the film would seem to answer the question,
"How does one make a film that, more than depicting a monastery, becomes a monastery itself?"
Groening found the answer outside of language, logic, and discursive processes and in the visual power of film.
Our video interview
lasts 8:56 minutes and weighs in at 40.9 MBs and should be enclosed with this post and available via the
Cinematical podcast in the iTunes
Music Store. If you find the discussion of interest then make sure you check out the final screening of the film on
Friday, January 27th at 6pm at Broadway Centre Cinemas V in Salt Lake City.