Dr. Papageorgiou: Mr. Landsjoasen, I am exceptionally pleased to welcome you today. Since you come from the film industry and your industry, just like plastic surgery, lives to a large extent from appearance, I hope for an interesting conversation. But let’s start from the beginning. How did you come to this profession ?
Mr. Landsjoasen: Yes, well, I think like most high school graduates, in the summer after graduation you ask yourself more or less seriously for the first time: What am I going to do now in my life? So first wait for the Abi grade and then see what you can do with it. That was at the end of the 90s. The world was a bit quieter than today, no internet, no cell phones. Also we young adults felt no existential pressure, I mean financially my family was doing well and you did not have to work right now to survive. We simply had more time to think.
Dr. Papageorgiou: I come from the same time and agree with your classification. I think we were just in a different mood according to the circumstances. Much less career-oriented than today. I, for example, was offered a place to study law, but I never took it, and then I decided to go into medicine. And I followed this decision. This decision was not difficult for me. It was an easy decision and without major discussions with my parents. In retrospect, they were of the opinion: Let him go his own way. So even though my parents supported me financially in my studies, they still let you decide freely.
Mr. Landsjoasen: That may be. For me, the question quickly arose: Academic or practical? At that time, I was intensively involved with philosophy and realized that there is also written philosophy and lived philosophy. I decided to go in the direction of lived philosophy and ended up in the film industry instead of studying subjects like art, history or philosophy at university. I was born in Cologne and at that time Cologne was the film center of Germany.
Dr. Papageorgiou: What happened next?
Mr. Landsjoasen: After a few internships, I then got a job at Carmeo in Cologne.
Dr. Papageorgiou: Carmeo is also an expression for special commitment or something, isn’t it?
Mr. Landsjoasen: Something like that, yes, carmeo is the term used in the film industry when a top movie star or other celebrity makes a deliberately very brief appearance in a movie. For example: Imagine a whole film revolving around a love affair, both main actors relatively unknown as well as the rest of the cast, and while this couple is sitting on the Rhine, for example, analyzing each other themselves, Christoph Daum strolls along the Rhine terraces and briefly asks for a light for his cigarette.
Dr. Papageorgiou: That’s great, it gives the whole thing another dimension. Also a little bit like, now that the star is there, it all gets a meaning, doesn’t it?
Mr. Landsjoasen: Yes, exactly.
Dr. Papageorgiou: What happened next?
Mr. Landsjoasen: We already had interesting projects. For example, our film “The White Noise” with the actor Daniel Brühl, who was not very well known at the time, was a resounding success. Not on a commercial level so much as on an understatement level in the film scene.
Dr. Papageorgiou: I had watched it. The film describes the different stages and levels of schizophrenia, the person affected and the environment. Brilliant. Our psychology professors at the medical faculty recommended this film to us at the time. The main actor, Brühl, had a very steep career after this film. A kind of Carmeo, only in reverse.
(both laugh)
Dr. Papageorgiou: My episodes are getting longer and longer, so now without derivation: What do you think of pictures, I mean film pictures, news pictures, advertising pictures, art pictures, portraits, so pictures in general ?
Mr. Landsjoasen: Well, then I’ll try to keep it short as well. Pictures are just pictures. Especially if the pictures are supposed to serve a purpose. You also have to be aware of the power of images. As soon as an image wants to fulfill a purpose, it must inevitably be posed or a suitable one from millions and millions must be found which can fulfill the purpose. Hollywood is just Hollywood and not real life. In this day and age with Instagram and filters, etc., this boundary is becoming increasingly blurred, and younger users in particular are finding it difficult to distinguish between image fiction and reality.
Dr. Papageorgiou: I know this from the field of breast augmentation, then by means of Photoshop etc. the pictures are presented super and not the real ones, which also look very good, but just not perfect. And I think to propagate the perfect is unrealistic.
Mr. Landsjoasen: With you, yes, it goes into the realm of advertising, where everything suggests that everything is perfect, whether it’s because of the product or the surgeon.
Dr. Papageorgiou: The lightness of advertising images. What do you think of advertising images ?
Mr. Landsjoasen: Yes, advertising images, of course… But I think advertising images should exist, but in a somewhat more realistic version. This perfect is also a Trojan horse for the producer. Your problems are not solved by the best coffee in the world, it’s more complex.
Dr. Papageorgiou: What do you think about art images?
Mr. Landsjoasen: I love art. And I am enthusiastic about it. There’s just pure art, like pure music. It’s something that reaches deeper and, interestingly enough, is directly recognized, especially by children.
On the other hand, there is art that often needs to be explained. The art that needs to be explained is not art for me.
Dr. Papageorgiou: Thank you very much Mr. Landsjoasen for this wonderful interview.