While in Berlin, I didn’t get to the Stasi museum as planned. Or the Pergemon Museum. My longest bike rides were at night when I couldn’t really see anything. I only had one sausage the entire week I was there! But I did spend several hours at the Gemäldegalerie. I had originally planned to just “pop in” on my way to the Sony Center for my first film of the day. I thought I’d stay for about one hour tops. I’d check out the Holbeins then hurry off to catch Catherine Deneuve.
But I was drawn in. I ended up staying for four hours. In the gallery the floorboards squeaked and the guards followed me from room to room. The place was nearly empty. As I drifted around I fell into a kind of trance, propelled onward by the array of images, individuals, light, color, and drama. In the museum I experienced a clear and straightforward sense of continuity from the pictures on the gallery walls to the moving images unspooling at the Sony Center across the street. And, fittingly, the building that stands between the galleries and the cinema is the Berlin Philharmonic’s concert hall. I found this connection moving. Though when I tried to explain this to someone later on that night, I was met with a blank stare.