Michael Ginthor

Michael Ginthor’s trademark-philosophical style distinguishes him from other filmmakers of his generation. In his writing he always walks a thin line between the hardly-even-thinkable and utter nonsense.

→Michael Ginthor was born and raised in Austria. A few years during his childhood that he spent in the birthhouse of Mozart’s mother on the Austrian Countryside seem to have ignited his artistic sensibilities.
→After graduating from High School he studied History and Philosophy at the University of Vienna. He majored in Philosophy with a thesis on Ludwig Wittgenstein and moved on to become a writer.
→An occasionalist out of conviction, Ginthor decided against a relatively comfortable career as a society-journalist and made LA his new homebase, mainly for two reasons: To finally pick up surfing and to make movies.
→The surf-film project Zen and Zero seemed a perfect match from the very beginning, it involved both, surfing and filmmaking and offered him the chance to enrichen the genre with his personal views on philosophy and metaphysics, making the movie an instant success due to its queer philosophical conclusions and logical short-circuits.
Ginthor lives and works in LA.

Michael Ginthor and Edwin Steinitz, editor of Zen and Zero, just finished working on LISEL SALZER – Life and times.

Zen and Zero: An Austrian Surfextravaganza. So wack you’re unsure if it’s all a put-on, Zen follows five Austrian guys as they fly into LA, buy used cars and make the long trek to Costa Rica, surfing along the way and, once they arrive at their destination, selling the vehicles to live off what they make so they can surf some more. The surf footage is fine enough, but this doc is really about the trip and characters met along the way, including a leather-faced gent who surfs by day and says the most profound things around the campfire at night. Now, it’s just as possible this was shot in the mid-1970s (that’s how the thing looks) and some jokester has recorded an updated tale in English over the original, mundane Austrian narration. What’s Up, Tiger Lillehammer? Nope, wrong country. (Regency Lido, Sun., 1:30 p.m.) (MC)

As anybody who lives here knows, Hollywood is a very small town. As such, word travels fast when something new and interesting arrives on the scene. When I first heard about an Austrian Surf-movie called Zen and Zero, it sounded completely preposterous, and that’s exactly what drew me to it. Shortly after watching the film, I met its director and his crew, who were very much like the movie itself; funny, philosophical, and smart.

Daniel Appleby: What was the genesis of the project?

Michael Ginthor: I moved to L.A. in 2002 mainly for two reasons: To make a movie and to finally pick up surfing. Surfing was pretty much all I did in the first couple of months. I got hooked immediately, it really struck a chord. I got really interested in the whole surfing-culture and started reading books and watching movies. It’s just very interesting from a psychological and philosophical point of view. It’s very sublime. Since I don’t believe in multitasking I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

SUBLIME? Do you mean by philosophical certain spiritual components, connecting with the great unknown?

Well yeah, it”s just you and the ocean… it”s scary and beautiful, wild and mellow, threatening and comforting all at the same time, and for sure there is that living-in-the-moment aspect to it, whatever that means. But it’s really hard to talk about these things. As for me personally… it just fills me with optimism, I mean if you ride a nice wave and you do what you need to do on it, it just makes your day. It makes sense.

Do you consider surfing a sport or a lifestyle?

Most sports are about winning. Surfing is about balance. There is no winner-loser constellation at the end, there is only balance, a sense of equilibrium. Also you can”t just say “let”s go surfing on Wednesday from 2 to 4” like you schedule a tennis match. You gotta be on it pretty much all the time: What is the tide doing, what is the wind doing, what are the sandbars doing. The sheer amount of time you have to invest makes it more like a lifestyle, and then there’s of course always sand in the bed and long discussions about the next trip….

How did you get ZEN AND ZERO the movie made?

Initially there was very little enthusiasm for an Austrian surf-movie, which is somewhat understandable. By the time we got our initial funding which was not a lot, but enough to get started, we had already put way too much work into the project to let it go. We decided to shoot it and worry about the editing, and all the other costly stuff later. We thought that as soon as we had something to show, the dough would come in, too. It became sort of a runaway train. My horoscope back then read: Go on an extended trip through lakes and spas. Given that it was printed in an Austrian newspaper that was pretty close to what we had in mind, and before we knew it we sat in our cars and headed South.

You seem to put a lot of a great deal of emphasis on Zen and Zero being an Austrian Surf movie. I don’t see it like that at all, the fact that you guys are Austrians has little to do with its success at all. The movie has more of a universal appeal in my eyes that goes way beyond the fact that you guys just happen to be Austrians.

Well for one, if we call it an Austrian Surfmovie, we are the uncontested champions of that category for years to come, that’s for sure. Which is good. On the other hand you just have to replace Austrians by outsiders. The way outsiders perceive things is different, they are more likely to be enchanted and mesmerized than lifelong veterans. The fact that we were students of dudedom, so to speak was one of the premises. This perspective allowed us to do all kinds of things, from metaphysical speculations to pure slapstick. It also provides a natural dramatic curve since it’s a learning process: The hero (we) undergoes a transformation, a journey. That’s a classic structure. We thought it would help the audience to identify with us and stay with the characters which in our case was a sort of a collective character.

Where there many things off camera that you would have liked to capture but couldn’t?

There’ are always a million things you don’t get. There’s a million ways to develop a story, there’s a million ways to perceive reality. We started out with a pretty elaborate treatment that spelled out what we actually wanted to say and we stuck pretty close with it. I personally don’t believe in filming everything just to have it covered. I think there needs to be sort of a condensation process between the original impression and its translation onto film. We didn’t want to make reality TV and we sure as hell didn’t wanna be stuck with tons and tons of footage in the editing process for which we didn’t have a single dollar back then. But there’s always stuff missing, of course. That’s where the fun in editing it comes in, the cheating and the bamboozling and that’s when you truly find the movie.

You shot digital. How did digital technology influence the making of Zen and Zero?

At the very beginning we did planned to shoot it on film, and we did the math, too: We would have saved a lot of money for camera equipment. We’d have brought a couple of bolexes and spent all the money on material and I think we would have made it. But if you just think of the sheer volume of all the film cans plus the heat and the dust of three months in Central America…it just would have been a nightmare. We had two fully loaded truck as it was. I think for a project like that the Panasonic DVX 100 is a really good choice and I think that the Panasonics will be as legendary as the Bolexes are now in twenty years or so.

So shooting digital had financial as well as logistic advantages?

For sure. One small tape as opposed to six reels? The downside is that since the material is so cheap filming becomes somewhat inflationary; you tend to be less careful about how and what you shoot which makes for sloppy filmmaking. Plus, as I said, you end up with tons and tons of material, so the money you save for the material you more than likely loose in the editing room, if the movie gets made at all and the editor doesn’t drown in footage. We tried to treat the material as if it was film material, think about every shot, take the time to set it up, etc. I think that the economic premises of a movie should be reflected in its aesthetics and vice versa, especially in filmmaking. It’s the art form with the closest ties to economics and I don’t think that this is a restriction at all.

How was the film received by critics?

We got a number of really good reviews that were not only flattering but also very funny, inspired and entertaining. Steve Barilotti from Surfer’s and Drew Kampion from Surfer’s Path for example wrote stuff that I think is much better than all the writing in the movie. Sometimes I wish I would have made the movie they reviewed. As for all the festival-success Zen and Zero has had: Before we went to X-Dance I watched it with the editor Edwin one last time and we said to each other, “You know what? We’re not even gonna embarrass ourselves.” The fact that we won there and that we won in surf-culture strongholds like Santa Cruz and St. Jean de Luz and just recently in Sao Paolo as well really made me think. I mean there’s films out there that are so spectacular, so stunning, with athletes and filmmakers that really risk their lives for the right shot that I don’t feel like we deserve it. But then again: Zen and Zero is a heist movie at the core plus I’m sure we needed the awards badlier than anybody else, for the sheer lack of star-power, that’s for sure…

So what are you cooking up now?

It’s been mainly a writing and editing year, we currently have another documentary in the making. A lot of people took interest in the movie, some suggested we turn it into a feature film, others saw a TV-series in it. Initially, after having seen the film about 350 times, that was the last thing I wanted to do. But then again: There are many of tales to be told from the surfing world and when you sit out there in the water and all of that optimism creeps up on you again, it seems like there’s so much possible and so many ways to develop it further… and the next thing you know is you write a comedy script and develop a TV-show. It’s a sad and beautiful world.

Daniel Appleby is the self described hardest working screenwriter in Los Angeles. He is currently working on a sequel to the Greatest Story Ever Told.