Ira Sachs on Taxi Zum Klo
Ira Sachs on Taxi Zum Klo
The veteran independent filmmaker guides us through this exploration of Frank Ripploh's radically authentic, semi-autobiographical film.
Talking to Ira Sachs about Taxi Zum Klo was a memorable experience for a number of reasons. One is that despite spending lots of time with Ira, we rarely get to have conversations like this one. When I married Kirsten Johnson (also a guest on this show - sorry, not sorry) I entered her family of two kids and two co-parents, who happened to be Ira and his husband the artist Boris Torres. Another reason is that any film with an English title Taxi to the Toilet and set in early 80’s West Berlin was going to open my eyes fairly wide to some cinematic images that this pastor’s daughter had never encountered. And of course it did, but the conversation we all had was about so much more and went so much deeper than that.
Ira is one of the most honest and thoughtful people I know, and this carries through into how he makes and talks about cinema. If you have seen his most recent film Passages, or Keep The Lights On, or Forty Shades of Blue you will understand why this film might have resonated so powerfully with him. Intimacy, specificity, vulnerability, and the messy truth of what it is to be human. Oh and the last reason … Grease! But you’ll have to listen to find out why. - T.J.
Veteran independent filmmaker Ira Sachs is known for a body of work marked by beauty, nuance, and intimate portrayals of people and their emotional lives. He is driven, he says, by a deep curiosity about freedom and its limits - both in his characters and in his own filmmaking. This is part of the reason why Taxi Zum Klo (Taxi to the Toilet), a radical portrait of personal and sexual freedom, blew his mind. The semi-autobiographical story of writer/director/star Frank Ripploh takes us into his separate lives - devoted school teacher by day and enthusiastic cruiser of Berlin’s gay scene by night. Explicit and bold, it was hailed by the Village Voice as “the first masterpiece about the mainstream of male gay life,” when it premiered in the early 1980’s.
We learn how Ira discovered the film, despite the fact that it’s nearly impossible to find today, and how it inspires him to push the boundaries of his own work. Plus, Cooper shares his experience seeing Taxi Zum Klo when it played the New York Film Festival in 1981, and Tabitha dives into questions about the value of art as provocation.
About Taxi Zum Klo (Taxi to the Toilet)
Frank draws a hard line between his professional and private lives, teaching school during the day and cruising through the gay scene of 1980s West Berlin at night. Hailed as “the first masterpiece about the mainstream of male gay life” by The Village Voice, Frank Ripploh’s semi-autobiographical film documents gay culture in the brief moment after gay liberation and before AIDS has taken hold. 1981.
Director: Frank Ripploh
Writers: Frank Ripploh
Primary Cast:
Frank Ripploh (Frank)
Bernd Broaderup (Bernd)
Music by Hans Wittstatt
Cinematography by Horst Schier
Editing by Gela-Marina Runne and Mattias von Gunten