1
00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:18,160
I think there is this sort
of conflicting obsessions.

2
00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:20,792
One is kind of twinship and
the other is opposition.

3
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:26,045
It's about people that look
the same but aren't the same.

4
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:28,480
It's about boys that look like girls

5
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:29,960
or girls that look like boys.

6
00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:35,255
Or boys that look like soldiers in arms.

7
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:41,920
I'm trying to create tribes of people.

8
00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,640
And I think that's why I was
so drawn to the wrestling.

9
00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:45,960
You get there and there's this tribe,

10
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:48,525
and they do sort of look a bit similar.

11
00:00:49,480 --> 00:00:51,532
They all have the same kind of bodies.

12
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:55,000
Their ears turn the same way
if they wrestle too long.

13
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,000
And when you have this kind
of twinship in opposition,

14
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:01,640
it becomes, I mean, it's a
kind of a metaphor for this,

15
00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:03,988
you know, for the Jew and the German.

16
00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:07,360
German Jews thinking that
they were the same as Germans

17
00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:09,501
and being so different.

18
00:01:24,986 --> 00:01:25,000
(upbeat music)

19
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,681
I decided to go back to high school 
and photograph high school wrestling.

20
00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:35,320
I had never really seen my wrestling team

21
00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:37,920
because no one ever had interest in wrestling.

22
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:40,300
And I was just really taken by the guys.

23
00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:44,566
I loved the way the guys looked,

24
00:01:45,960 --> 00:01:51,983
I loved that they were doing something 
that in a way made them small outcasts.

25
00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:58,600
They were doing not a popular sport, 
not a sport that people watched.

26
00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:01,171
A sport that, that was really difficult.

27
00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:07,226
Particularly in practice it’s about partnerships.

28
00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:13,278
And I just thought it was a really beautiful 
relationship that I had never seen before.

29
00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,160
All at the same time I had heard about a guy,

30
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:26,475
a friend of mine I knew, who used 
to be a really big college wrestler.

31
00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:29,200
He was sort of you know on the fringe art world

32
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:31,312
and we should get together sometime.

33
00:02:32,138 --> 00:02:36,680
He’s been coaching me and kind of explaining

34
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:39,635
from the position of a wrestler what’s going on.

35
00:02:43,171 --> 00:02:45,000
JON: Whenever we would go somewhere we would just

36
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,040
talk the whole time about wrestling.

37
00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:50,320
And it was fun for me to try to, 
you know, answer her questions

38
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:54,240
because she would ask questions about 
things that were innate or something

39
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,200
I knew automatically from doing it for so long

40
00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,080
but I would have to explain it and come,

41
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:00,689
you know, try to explain it to her…

42
00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:05,204
she understands, you know, she catches on quickly.

43
00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:16,520
For me, ya know, and I can 
only approach it as a woman,

44
00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:18,440
but for me, from the outside

45
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:22,880
masculinity has sort of been depicted 
in very black and white terms.

46
00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:25,520
There’s just, there never seems to be a,

47
00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,760
a wide range of emotional definitions of men.

48
00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:32,822
–Are you guys twins?

49
00:03:32,822 --> 00:03:34,122
–No.

50
00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:37,560
I love when I’m shooting wrestling,

51
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:42,290
particularly in practice to see 
two guys throwing some moves

52
00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:45,520
and then being careful that 
they didn’t hurt each other.

53
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:48,800
You know pushing as hard as 
they can but then pulling back,

54
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:50,000
making sure that they’re okay.

55
00:03:51,240 --> 00:03:53,595
Talking about how to do it better,

56
00:03:55,040 --> 00:04:00,600
All that kind of stuff I think is is to me a rich,

57
00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:03,128
a rich part of, of masculinity.

58
00:04:09,528 --> 00:04:13,352
See, this is the classic wrestling guy.

59
00:04:13,352 --> 00:04:17,842
I just love this guy—St. 
Eds—He won his match so fast.

60
00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:29,720
And then the newer pictures are like this

61
00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:42,372
I’m looking for introspection.

62
00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:47,521
I’m looking for the moment 
before the guy goes out there.

63
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:50,360
The moment when he comes off

64
00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:54,120
either exhilarated because he won or
devastated because he lost.

65
00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:57,080
I like devastation.

66
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:58,440
I like exhaustion.

67
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:02,769
I, I really like seeing someone 
that I know can’t barely get up

68
00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:10,000
The thing about a wrestling practice is the

69
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,691
coach will really get every 
last bit of energy out of you.

70
00:05:16,840 --> 00:05:21,040
And there’s a peacefulness in 
that moment that I really love,

71
00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:23,596
to see someone who’s just used their entire body.

72
00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:31,560
As much as you explain to someone that you want to

73
00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:33,080
show all sides of it,

74
00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:35,697
no one who lost wants a flash on their face.

75
00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:39,361
–Oh, sorry..

76
00:05:39,722 --> 00:05:43,920
But having a woman approach them is different.

77
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:46,863
I think most of the people in the 
wrestling world are, are guys.

78
00:05:56,120 --> 00:05:58,240
–You wonna draw a picture from these pictures?

79
00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:05,640
–Ya, okay, I'll do it if 
you'll make a trade with me.

80
00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:08,840
Teenagers’ sexuality belongs to themselves.

81
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:15,120
If I catch a glimpse of their sexiness,

82
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:18,280
it’s a sexiness they’re playing 
with and they’re practicing,

83
00:06:18,280 --> 00:06:20,703
but it’s not something I’m asking for.

84
00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:23,640
I’m aware that it’s there,

85
00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:25,574
I’m aware that other people might see it,

86
00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:31,440
but I’m interested in the life 
I would have had if I was a boy

87
00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:33,101
and this is one facet of it.

88
00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:54,080
Gender, religion, nationality, they’re all sort of
things that are in flux in my work.

89
00:06:54,803 --> 00:06:56,520
Um, and they all build on each other,

90
00:06:56,520 --> 00:06:58,977
this idea of you’re not 
sure what you’re looking at.

91
00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:01,880
You’re not sure what you are,

92
00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:03,467
you’re not sure what someone else is.

93
00:07:06,280 --> 00:07:08,480
In the Helga pictures,

94
00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:12,892
I set out to create a total 
portrait of a young man

95
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,680
using Andrew Wyeth’s Helga 
paintings as a template.

96
00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:22,338
To explore how one defines someone in images.

97
00:07:24,687 --> 00:07:29,520
And also using a description of 
femininity to describe a man.

98
00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:36,040
You start to wonder with 
the Andrew Wyeth portraits

99
00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:38,960
is it a feminine pose or is it an artists pose,

100
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:40,120
is it Wyeth’s pose,

101
00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:41,393
is it Helga’s pose?

102
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:48,480
Helga reminds me so much of Jens,

103
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:50,000
this boy Jens, from Prague.

104
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:59,520
This was Jens when he was eighteen and a half.

105
00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:05,175
And he was really quite similar in the physique.

106
00:08:08,014 --> 00:08:14,896
And then he really changed here 
when he turned nineteen and a half.

107
00:08:15,877 --> 00:08:16,764
He got slimmer.

108
00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:23,384
You see the resistance of the 
boy Jens in playing Helga.

109
00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:27,720
He’s playing this character,

110
00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:30,080
and the only way he can pose in certain poses is

111
00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:33,400
to know that everyone else knows he’s playing her,

112
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:35,435
that it’s not really him.

113
00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:38,200
But you see moments where he forgets.

114
00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:41,943
And they’re the poses he would call neutral poses.

115
00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:48,236
And the feminine poses are the poses 
that he feels women perform for men.

116
00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:53,920
It wouldn’t have been a successful project

117
00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:57,760
had there not been an intense 
collaboration between Jens and I,

118
00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:00,640
like both understanding we’re both doing this job,

119
00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:03,200
and it was somewhat difficult and confusing,

120
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:04,784
and we had mixed feelings about it,

121
00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:10,400
but it became a kind of ritual, 
like making these pictures,

122
00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:13,306
and often we’d make the same 
picture over and over again.

123
00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:17,840
There’s a notion of—I think—

124
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:21,396
that I’ve always had in my work of 
trying to get very close to something.

125
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,000
You know trying to create as 
little distance as possible between

126
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:27,960
the viewer and the subject

127
00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:36,041
and I think that the level of intimacy that 
Wyeth pursued was really familar to me.

128
00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:45,280
Fourteen years ago I went to Stuttgart 
with a German friend from New York,

129
00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:50,596
and ended up in this small town 
and met this amazing family.

130
00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,940
I kind of just fell in love with the whole family

131
00:09:55,940 --> 00:10:00,756
in kind of traditional, kind 
of country family setting.

132
00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,640
And I guess about four 
summers into the relationship

133
00:10:06,640 --> 00:10:10,388
I started photographing the 
younger members of the family.

134
00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:19,200
It really became part of, I 
think, the summer experience,

135
00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:22,240
that you know summer came with picture taking.

136
00:10:22,240 --> 00:10:27,100
And it was this kind of big thing that 
happened, sometimes every day for a week.


137
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,215
I started shooting Herbert 
when he was nine years old.

138
00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:37,280
And he doesn’t even remember 
the first time he was shot,

139
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,528
he has to look at pictures to, 
to say, oh yeah that was me.

140
00:10:42,360 --> 00:10:47,463
HERBERT: We would go to the forest and kind of play soldiers with the uniforms at that time.

141
00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:51,028
And play hide and seek.

142
00:10:52,680 --> 00:10:56,280
Schorr: Here’s Karin dressed up as a guy.

143
00:10:56,280 --> 00:10:58,440
Everything was so fake there.

144
00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:00,600
There was a girl playing a guy,

145
00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:03,840
there’s all these German boys playing grown men

146
00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:06,832
and there’s Germans playing American soldiers.

147
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:10,809
And all this clothing was 
yours at that point right?

148
00:11:10,809 --> 00:11:11,920
Herbert: Right.
Schorr: Because that is how I started doing army

149
00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:14,041
pictures because you had all this stuff.

150
00:11:14,041 --> 00:11:17,190
Herbert: Because of my army nerdiness.

151
00:11:17,190 --> 00:11:18,740
Schorr: Yes, your army obsession.

152
00:11:18,740 --> 00:11:23,964
HERBERT: I might have possessed 
like seven or eight U.S. uniforms

153
00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:25,934
when I met Collier first.

154
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:32,160
We got the U.S. military uniforms 
pretty cheap at flea markets

155
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:35,320
because troops were leaving town at 
that time, or they were leaving Germany.

156
00:11:38,340 --> 00:11:41,080
Schorr: But you always had this posse of guys

157
00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:46,234
that for what was I paying back in 
the old days like 10 marks an hour.

158
00:11:47,980 --> 00:11:54,040
Schorr: you can’t go to a lake 
with a bunch of teenage boys

159
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:55,391
and not have a plan.

160
00:11:56,320 --> 00:11:57,935
You’ve got to have a plan.

161
00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:04,120
When we’re kind of marching around the lake,


162
00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:08,440
I may say, okay Herbert, you 
know hold Andreas’s shoulder.

163
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:12,120
And they’ll just kind of pose 
like that, and that’s a picture.

164
00:12:12,120 --> 00:12:14,699
And it’s not a picture I planned, 
but it’s a picture I saw.

165
00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:23,680
When you’re a Jew and you walk around in Germany,

166
00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:25,523
it has such a hold on you.

167
00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:30,080
And I wanted see it from all sides.

168
00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:34,320
I always saw it from the side of you 
know the Jew who felt victimized,

169
00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:36,000
or the Jew who felt oppressed.

170
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,960
And I was very comfortable 
in that role for many years.

171
00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:44,040
But being in Germany for a longer amount of time,

172
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:47,120
my experience changed, my 
relationship changed to the country;

173
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:53,925
my curiosity about what it was like from 
the other side kind of opened me up.

174
00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:00,400
So much of my work, especially portraits of,

175
00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:06,440
of large, blond, strong guys is really 
about confronting a sort of Aryan myth

176
00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:08,920
that terrified me as a little girl,

177
00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:11,200
because I would read books 
like DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

178
00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:14,160
and things like that and that 
was what you were scared of.

179
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:16,520
That was the Jewish girl’s boogeyman,

180
00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:19,612
you know the big blond guy 
kind of coming up the stairs.

181
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:34,731
I mean I think all the boys really enjoyed 
playing heroes or playing good guys.

182
00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:38,880
It was, it was strange to 
bring in the Nazi uniforms

183
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:42,360
because they were suddenly 
confronted with something

184
00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:46,200
that they didn’t feel very positive 
about or they were afraid that…

185
00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:48,120
to feel positive about.

186
00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,720
And so I think those pictures 
have an interesting quality

187
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:53,360
that separates them from the other ones

188
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:59,040
because there’s a real uncertainty in 
their expressions, in their posture.

189
00:14:03,147 --> 00:14:04,440
HERBERT: The German youth has some…

190
00:14:04,440 --> 00:14:12,434
kind of um a torn apart relationship 
with this kind of stuff.

191
00:14:13,560 --> 00:14:17,600
You won’t see a swastika anyplace 
because it’s forbidden by law,

192
00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:18,577
it’s not legal.

193
00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:21,920
And so besides of running the risk that

194
00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:26,631
you can be punished for wearing a 
Wehrmacht and S.S. uniforms in public,

195
00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:31,400
you are simply not used to it 
because you would see this stuff,

196
00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:32,773
not even in museums.

197
00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:37,200
Probably you would see it in a,

198
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:39,040
in a feature film from that time,

199
00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:42,140
in an American feature 
film, not even a German one.

200
00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:49,080
So many things are buried 
in the landscape in Germany.

201
00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:53,080
So many uniforms and medals, 
and you hear stories of people

202
00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:57,120
coming upon buttons and helmets in, in the fields.

203
00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:00,840
And I think that I really 
wanted to flush some of that up,

204
00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:02,040
to dig some of that up,

205
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:07,840
and to almost that some of these soldiers 
seemed to have come up from the ground.

206
00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:10,200
So that if you were walking in 
the field and you saw a helmet,

207
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:13,397
it was as though the soldier 
rose up with that helmet.

208
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,960
And he didn’t rise up as the ultimate villain

209
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:20,720
and he didn’t rise up as the ultimate victim,

210
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:27,760
he rose up as, as just a guy you 
know, who fought, just a guy who died.

211
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:28,960
Um, just a guy who killed someone.

212
00:15:36,634 --> 00:15:41,400
Schorr: I like the relationship 
between this current Joa,

213
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:45,960
this current solider with these Nazis

214
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:47,680
because it really looks like to me that

215
00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:52,440
he represents the whole German 
Army that sits in the woods

216
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:54,409
and maybe daydreams.

217
00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:01,840
If the forest is the pride of Germany,

218
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:04,800
then you know let’s talk 
about what actually happened

219
00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:05,850
in the forest rather than 
just showing the forest. 


220
00:16:07,528 --> 00:16:11,480
I’m not making something that’s about the façade,

221
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:18,557
I’m making something that’s 
about removing the myth,

222
00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:23,268
and then being left with 
something that is more human.

223
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:35,080
There’s not a single intention that 
I want people to walk away with

224
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:36,530
when they look at the body of work.

225
00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:43,320
I wanted to make work that spoke to 
as many people’s desires as possible,

226
00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:45,520
be it a sort of maternal desire,

227
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,064
or a fraternal desire…

228
00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:51,214
the desire to revisit your youth,

229
00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:53,950
the desire for romance.

230
00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:59,000
For me there is no progress 
unless you put things forward,

231
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,720
unless you sort of unveil, you know, desire,

232
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:05,655
unless you unveil uh, repression.