Architecture on Film: Into Great Silence

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Into Great Silence [Die Große Stille]

How does one make a film that, more than depicting a monastery, becomes a monastery itself? How? To this day, I don't know how. I only know that one can. That, at some point, this film took on form, became a monastery – space and not a narrative.
– Philip Gröning

Winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize and the European Film Awards Prix Arte (Documentary), through experiential, elemental cinema – a meditative journey through time, light and space – the film immerses the audience in the rhythms of monastic life, changing seasons, and the practice of absolute presence.

A German documentary about Roman Catholic monks who barely utter a word, "Into Great Silence" runs 162 minutes – 162 engrossing, entrancing, enlivening minutes… Grace, it seems, makes little noise… Philip Gröning brings us inside a world as mysterious and often as silent as the dark side of the moon.
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

With no artificial light, no additional music, no commentary and near to no dialogue, Into Great Silence, a film 21 years in the making, achieves the remarkable through its masterful congruence of content and form – creating the Grande Chartreuse monastery itself inside of the viewer, and transforming the cinema auditorium into a space of reflective contemplation. 

(Germany, 2005, Philip Gröning, 169 min)

Programme Notes: Philip Gröning reflects on Into Great Silence

Abridged from an interview with James Drury (Editor, Barbican Guide), 22 October 2020

The film came about through a certain element of chance. I had the idea when I was 24 and had just started film school. I had won first awards for young filmmakers and was proving to be successful. But the industry took all my energy, and I wanted to get out, to withdraw immediately to write novels or something. I was brought up Catholic, and thought there must be Orders that are completely silent. I found out there aren’t any, but there are three Orders that are pretty much silent. The Carthusians are one of them. I wanted to see what that was like and thought, as an artist, I should make a film about that experience.

My original note for this film was theoretical and very brief. My concept said that a monastery works with time to change the monks. I wanted to live with them; live as the monks do. And I was sure this would have a deep impact on my own perception, vision, sense of hearing, sense of time. I then wanted to use that change of perception as a tool to create images and rhythms and a sense of sound that would transfer to the audience, so that the film thereby becomes a monastery. It was a simple idea – one page maximum. And I set out what I wanted to achieve. I set out to make a monastery.

It’s a film about time. I’ve always been puzzled by what time is. What originally fascinated me was that I think a monastery is a machine through which the handling of time is transformed; its very structure, rhythm and routine – everything repeats. The   mode of expression we have as filmmakers is time. Montage is the strongest tool we have, and how strictly we handle time for the audience is what sets cinema apart from all other mediums.

I wrote to a few monasteries, and spent time travelling Europe to visit them. They all refused. Then the prior of one monastery said he was interested in my approach and invited me to stay, to talk with him about it. So I travelled 2,000 km and lived at the monastery for two weeks. I knew this was the place I wanted to film. They told me, “It’s not the right time just now, but maybe in five or ten years”. When you’re 24 the idea of making progress on something in ten years’ time is inconceivable.

But I kept in contact with the monk – I liked him a lot. Every four or five years I would travel to the monastery and talk to him, I found him very philosophical and trustworthy. In the meantime I made other films [The Terrorist (1992), Philosophie (1998)]. Around the time I completed L’amour, l’argent, l’amour (2000), I got a call from the monastery at 7am – it was its administrator asking if I was still interested. This was now the year 2000, and it had been 16 years since I made my request. I hadn’t even really been thinking about it, and perhaps that’s why I got the opportunity. I think the prior trusted me because I had stopped talking to him about the film, and because he saw the films I was making, and that I had a very serious approach to my work. The monks told me all the big French filmmakers had wanted to go to the monastery – but they were more interested in their film, in observing the monks almost as if they were strange creatures, rather than the philosophical idea of being in a monastery. When the abbot finally gave me permission in 2001 he had known me for 17 years.

My approach was very simple. I decided to film alone, not with a team or anyone else, because that would have created a group, and the monks themselves are alone. I was there for six months in total – four and a half months to start with, then two shorter phases of filming.

When I went there I had the feeling of a huge void. It’s what anyone would experience. We spend so much time pushing ourselves to fill our lives with things, but these things distance us. Then suddenly you’re in these beautiful surroundings, with an incredible light in your room, but you don’t speak to anyone. The only contact you have with others is going to church. That was very difficult. I thought: “What am I doing here?” I didn’t move into my cell for a week, because I thought the cell was so perfect that it didn’t feel right for me to be in there. So at first I just started shooting the empty cell, and lived in a different room. Those are the beautiful images of the empty cell at the beginning of the film.

Slowly it became a great joy to be there. There’s a real pleasure in not worrying what you’re going to do each morning. As an artist you have to figure out “What the fuck am I doing?” every day, but that was already decided for me at the monastery. The sheer synchronicity of waking up to the sound of the bell and having a moment before going to church, during which you light the little fire in your cell, look out of the window, and see the smoke telling you fires  are being lit in every other cell. Without being in communication with one another, there’s still a sense of community. The most interesting thing was how my perception changed. There were moments of despair, when I thought, “I can’t do another shot of the cloisters with the sun changing”. But after a while you start to notice the presence of objects and the things that accompany us – how they’ve come from a long time ago; as, for example, a stone was formed millions of years ago.

There were some monks who were opposed to me being there and filming. I asked if my presence there would force them to leave – if they had said yes I wouldn’t have made the film. Those who were opposed didn’t see the film. But the others have – although, it’s three hours long, and as a monk you have to pray every two hours, so some didn’t see it all as they didn’t want to break a 1,000-year-old rule just to watch a film. Those who did see it loved it. One even made me a lead statue that looked like an Oscar wearing a cassock.

People ask who the main character is in the film, and the answer: is the audience – because the main character in a monastery is the person who is changed by the monastery itself.  

My original note for this film was theoretical and very brief. My concept said that a monastery works with time to change the monks, and I wanted to use that change of perception as a tool to create images and rhythms and a sense of sound that would then be transferable to the audience, so that the film thereby becomes a monastery. It was a simple idea – one page maximum. And I set out what I wanted to achieve. I set out to make a monastery.

It’s a film about time. I’ve always been puzzled by what time is. What originally fascinated me was that I think a monastery is a machine through which the handling of time is transformed; its very structure, rhythm and routine – everything repeats. The mode of expression we have as filmmakers is time. Montage is the strongest tool we have, and how strictly we handle time for the audience is what sets cinema apart from all other mediums.

The film came about through a certain element of chance. I had the idea when I was 24 and had just finished film school. I had won an award for young filmmakers and was proving to be successful. But the industry took all my energy, and I wanted to get out, to retire to write novels or something. I was brought up Catholic, and thought there must be Orders that are completely silent. I found out there aren’t any, but there are three Orders that are pretty much silent. The Carthusians are one of them. I wanted to see what that was like and thought, as an artist, I should make a film about that experience.

I wrote to a few monasteries, and spent time travelling Europe to visit them. They all refused. Then the prior of one monastery said he was interested in my approach and invited me to stay, to talk with him about it. So I travelled 2,000 km and lived at the monastery for two weeks. I knew this was the place I wanted to film. They told me, “It’s not the right time just now, but maybe in five or ten years”. When you’re 24 the idea of making progress on something in ten years’ time is inconceivable.

But I kept in contact with the monk – I liked him a lot. Every four or five years I would travel to the monastery and talk to him – I found him very philosophical and trustworthy. In the meantime I made other films [The Terrorist (1992), Philosophie (1998)]. Around the time I completed L’amour, l’argent, l’amour (2000), I got a call from the monastery at 7am – it was its administrator asking if I was still interested. This was now the year 2000, and it had been 16 years since I made my request. I hadn’t even really been thinking about it, and perhaps that’s why I got the opportunity. I think the abbot trusted me because I didn’t talk to him about it, and because he saw the films I was making, and that I had a very serious approach to my work. The monks told me all the big French filmmakers had wanted to go to the monastery – but they were more interested in their film, in observing the monks almost as if they were strange creatures, rather than the philosophical idea of being in a monastery. When the abbot finally gave me permission in 2001 he had known me for 17 years.

My approach was very simple. I decided to film alone, not with a team or anyone else, because that would have created a group, and the monks themselves are alone. I was there for six months in total – four and a half months to start with, then two shorter phases of filming.

When I went there I had the feeling of a huge void. It’s what anyone would experience. We spend so much time pushing ourselves to fill our lives with things, but these things distance us. Then suddenly you’re in these beautiful surroundings, with an incredible view from your room, but you don’t speak to anyone. The only contact you have with others is going to church. That was very difficult. I thought: “What am I doing here?” I didn’t move into my cell for a week, because I thought the cell was so perfect that it didn’t feel right for me to be in there. So at first I just started shooting the empty cell from outside, and lived in a different room.

Slowly it became a great joy to be there. There’s a real pleasure in not worrying what you’re going to do each morning. As an artist you have to figure out “What the fuck am I doing?” every day, but that was already decided for me at the monastery. The sheer synchronicity of waking up to the sound of the bell and having a moment before going to church, during which you light the little fire in your cell, look out of the window, and see the fires being lit in every other cell. Without being in communication with one another, there’s still a sense of community. The most interesting thing was how my perception changed. There were moments of despair, when I thought, “I can’t do another shot of the cloisters with the sun changing”. But after a while you start to notice the presence of objects and the things that accompany us – how they’ve come from a long time ago; as, for example, a stone was formed billions of years ago.

There were some monks who were opposed to me being there and filming. I asked if my presence there would force them to leave – if they had said yes I wouldn’t have made the film. Those who were opposed didn’t see the film. But the others have – although, it’s three hours long, and as a monk you have to pray every two hours, so some didn’t see it all as they didn’t want to break a 1,000-year-old rule just to watch a film. Those who did see it loved it. One even made me a wooden statue that looked like an Oscar wearing a cassock.

People ask who the main character is in the film, and the answer is the audience – because the main character in a monastery is the person who is changed by the monastery itself. It’s a film about the audience.