A desperate longing for love, for security, for sensuality - that's the theme of Solo for Clarinet. Captivating, exciting, but also upsetting, the film shatters the boundaries of conventional genres and crosses over into the labyrinth of human emotions. On the surface, it looks like we're immersed in a crime story; underneath, this is a love story drawn to the extreme. In the end, nothing is like it was at the beginning. Three years ago, when Regina Ziegler first offered Nico Hofmann the chance to film the novel by New York psychoanalyst Elsa Levin, he was immediately taken by the range of emotions packed into the story: Although the novel was a couple years old, nevertheless in its presentation of destinies shattered by an unrequited longing for love it was still astonishingly timely to our day and condition. Regina Ziegler purchased the film rights in October of 1991. A lot of thought was given to how this material could be shaped in a sensitive and yet gripping psycho-thriller. It took a couple of years before Regina Ziegler had found the right approach; then, in 1996, she commissioned Susanne Schneider to write the screenplay. After several intensive conversations between producer, dramatic adviser, and author, it was decided to shift the action of the story from New York to Berlin - a change of location that, for the characters involved, required scarcely a rewrite.
In spring of 1997 Susanne Schneider delivered the first screenplay. In summer of 1997 Nico Hofmann was engaged to direct the film. He was so enthused with the project that for Solo for Clarinet he freed himself from an exclusive contract as director and project-consultant with Constantin Film. Within three months Regina Ziegler had secured the financial backing for the production costs - a DM 7 million project.
As for location shooting, everyone agreed it could only be done in Berlin. Almost all of the locations - the notorious Sozialpalast in the rundown Pallasstrasse, the eye-catching Herlitz-Siedlung housing-estate in Falkenhöhe, a street in Prenzlauer Berg - all served as appropriate backdrops and fitted easily into a mosaic of contemporary Berlin. The interiors by set designer Thomas Freudenthal were fashioned with a perceptive, discerning eye for the film's varied emotional elements. is a very physical and very direct film. Despite the dreary surroundings of their everyday lives, both protagonists refuse to forsake a lingering hope for love. With all their strength and against all odds they struggle to bring a bit of happiness into their strained existence.
The film is dominated by feelings, by scents, by thoughts, by a will to love at all costs on the part of Bernie Kominka and Anna Weller. This coordinated strength draws us along an imaginative trail of fantasy as we observe and experience and share the same emotional highs and lows. The game played by both protagonists generates the tension and excitement of a tightly strung psycho-thriller - as, torn from their roots, they are pulled into a maelstrom of emotional contradictions, into a psychological whirlpool they can neither escape nor even wish to.
Although we have some very good German actors, admits Nico Hofmann, nevertheless, I would not have dared to shoot this film without the consent of Götz George and Corinna Harfouch. From the very beginning, both stood at the top of the director's wish-list. In fact, an alternative list didn't exist. In the case of George and Hofmann, the pair had collaborated previously on Der Sandmann and two films in the tv-series Schulz und Schulz. As for Corinna Harfouch, this would be the first time she worked with the director.
Sometimes it was exhausting, because it was so very intensive, recalls Hofmann. Götz and Corinna are two actors who take their work seriously, to the point of constantly questioning and challenging themselves as to how they should play their roles. But when a director is prepared to accept this tour de force on the set, then scenes unfold that are surprisingly packed with wide-ranging feelings.
The naked scenes in particular were difficult to direct. Just how much can - must - should an actor expose herself or himself physically and psychologically under the circumstances? In the script there was a scene between Götz and Corinna that was described in four sentences, along the lines " they sleep together ". Now match this with Corinna and Götz, both of whom define their characters very strongly in regard to body-consciousness on the screen. Bernie, for example, reacted explosively - like a man under high pressure about to open a valve and let everything out.