Ganz was born in Zürich, to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He believed in what he wanted to do. 21 Apr 2020 - 3:59pm . I don’t have the strong beliefs he had. He said it looked too much like some kind of "boxer," that it was excessive. Somehow I tried to get as close as possible but not at night or outside the studio. RR: Do you have essentially the same relationship to Far Away So Near as you have to Wings of Desire? I mean there is just no acting. Others had a real one so I said, "OK give me a small one." I read about your reaction when you saw the rough cut of Wings of Desire, in an interview you gave before the film came out. We were about 20. How would he express himself, and is he angry? So the real source was what the witnesses said and a lot of them wrote books later. There is a "poker player" side to him. Soft manners and kissing hands. Incredibly fair. Bruno Ganz gentog rollen i Wenders’ Så fjern, så nær! BG: Well it might be that Wim and Handke were thinking in those terms. I got a letter from David Hare. Did they give you a knife? In an interview with the German daily "Berliner Morgenpost," Bruno Ganz admitted that he continued to be haunted by that strange figure for a very long time. GA, I cannot agree. Was that gesture chosen by you or by Wim Wenders? Bruno Ganz was an acclaimed Swiss actor who was a prominent figure in German language film and television for over fifty years. In a way, it was logical for us. But I know what he means. That he is not German. Some sort of humiliation. Seven or eight weeks - four months' reading, watching patients and listening to this tape and then I asked them to provide me with a kind of coach. No, I did the film because before we shot Wings of Desire, we had been talking about this pizza business in the second half but we had no time to use it. And it was fun to do. He had a partner, film-industry photographer Ruth Walz. I'm not sure. He went to the Unites States, where he made films in which he could be seen for thirty seconds. But one day, I brought in from home one of my own hats, and then I said: "Wim, listen. He believed in himself very strongly so he was the one who knew everything about everything. He had decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university. Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday! Ganz really has (I think) captured the essence of the Fuhrer, and we three truly believed. He is internationally renowned for portraying Adolf Hitler in the Academy Award-nominated film Downfall (2004). I was not really aware. And here [in London, with the BBC], there is a storyboard, there is a studio, and the work is executed. And part of that he saved in the bunker. Or do you see another explanation? […]. When you saw the final version of the film for the first time, were you surprised? And do you recall your initial reaction? Den sveitsiske karakterskuespilleren Bruno Ganz er død, 77 år gammel. That means to me that there is still a huge gap… they need an intact icon of the evil itself. I proposed it to him. So he is very calm. That’s very Austrian. Because a politician was not supposed to be the one who does what he announces to do. or stupid?" I never found out what was really the point of departure. Truly an important work and contribution to historical cinema. RR: A critic writing about the film said that it was interesting that in this situation, it is the woman who defines the agenda for the couple. He sounds as well like a human being in another speech I heard. That’s the one left (pictured left). But the gesture was my idea. Első filmszerepét tizenkilenc évesen játszotta Der Herr mit der schwarzen Melone (Az úr a fekete dinnyével) című filmben. In the mud he takes his hair and pulls himself out of the mud. I know. And even then, Otto constantly spoke to Bois and I to Minetti. I’ve never done this because I prefer to invent people and not do an imitation. Then I was actor enough to say, 'That’s OK, that will help. I am very reluctant to do that. BG: No. Were you able to step out of him when the director called "cut"? One of the most significant moments in the film is in the very first scene (pictured) when several young applicants for the post of Hitler's secretary are waiting for him to show his face round the door. RR: But you found other lines by Peter Handke too heavy, too serious? For example, the rhythm of the editing and the music are exceptionally good. But it’s one thing to read books and to learn, get some knowledge about history by reading, or to live in a country. But certain lines, such as the dialogue between Otto [Sander] and me in the BMW [shots 1049-1069] - no, that was all right! Now we made these real experiences on the Russian front because when it’s winter there our equipment is not for winter. The property of the Austrian state, for two centuries it has been awarded to the most important German-speaking actor of the age, who after a suitable period nominates his successor and hands the ring on. In Downfall, Ganz gave the world his Adolf Hitler, and he acquitted himself with terrifying aplomb. And the people working in that studio were from our crew. Ganz medvirket særlig i tyskspråklige produksjoner i Tyskland og Sveits. Bruno Ganz was born in Zürich to a Swiss father (mechanic) and a northern Italian mother. I think what people needed desperately and what he gave to them – it seemed that he would be the only one who was able to give it – was they felt very humiliated after the First World War and they needed someone who gave them back their dignity. RR: I asked him if the circus was to some degree a metaphor for filmmaking, or was I way off. It has, one hopes, put paid once and for all to the endless queue of British actors playing Hitler in English, from Derek Jacobi to Robert Carlyle, Roger Allam to Ken Stott. They weren't joking. Sometimes I felt he would have been the founder of a new religion or something like that. Now this is a problem when you are playing an angel. And his hatred for the Jews was really incredible. Even if you are bad as Hitler still you’ll look like him.". And he made a film on the death of Nicholas Ray, Lightening over Water. That’s what actors do. Gustav Knuth, az egyik főszereplő, már akkor meg volt győződve tehetségéről. That’s what you do. Artist. RR: I was wondering whether the circus in Wings of Desire might be a kind of metaphor for the shooting of a film. A genocide with an industrial way of doing it, that’s too much. Bruno Ganz was an acclaimed Swiss actor who was a prominent figure in German language film and television for over fifty years. He was separated from his wife Sabine Ganz. But his attempts to be witty in an English sense, it’s just terrible. He understood that it was partly show business. I feel close to them and I have no problem to be a German. Then you are free. I don’t know what evil itself is. Bruno Ganz. Where did you find that? Not even he himself could. Sometimes at the end I thought, you are such a stupid guy. It is possible. The film is not about this though. He is convincing enough there with his irony as he thinks and so he keeps his voice on a level you are not scared of. Someone used an expression I found very interesting: he said that the woman was in "the position of discursive authority" [2]. And since she is a trapeze artist, all right, it's the circus. BG: Yes, that's why Wim cut it out. Not many directors in Europe are capable of that. He was an artist. I remember that once my mother was very excited because they found in the garden pieces of metal which seemed to be from the wing of an American bomber who confused Zurich with Stuttgart. Just stop it. Bruno Ganz finally reveals what he thinks of the parodies. What do your eyes tell? But what does it mean: you, you're an angel and what do you do? Well, his army. Maybe I am searching for a gap or a hole to fragment. great art can be created by a great acting performance which is what Mr Ganz gave us. They were really the hardcore of the first Nazi group and in 1945 he gets this telegram saying if he doesn’t answer before 10 o’clock they will take power. As very often he is quite stupid. And it was completely relaxed. Or are you not allowed to say that? He must have his own way of working, and I know that with Wings of Desire, for example, there was no final script... BG: Well, even with The American Friend, we didn't really have a script. What is he feeling, and what is he thinking? Sure, we did it all ourselves and we were shooting a film. Bruno Ganz Age. Bruno Ganz had previously starred in Wim Wenders's The American Friend (1977), and had other important roles in films made by such directors as Peter Handke, Werner Herzog, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Claude Goretta, Victor Schlöndorff and Alain Tanner. Ganz még az érettségi előtt elhatározta, hogy színész lesz. He was really intelligent and he manipulated the media and he was very, very cynical. I had to shoot there for three days. Bruno Ganz apja svájci (német) gyári munkás, anyja olasz származású svájci. Did you know ahead of time that that scene would be so funny? His anger he had when two of his own friends (who were never really friends) - Himmler and Goering - when they left him, he felt betrayed, because they started with him very early on the streets of Munich. But I really wanted to see it, so I went to see the rushes and I found it very good - but at the same time knew that it represented a risk for the film. But I was surprised with the addition of the wig how far it went. The countries around Europe just underestimated him. So I can live with that. He never occurred in lists from people close to him. Yes it was. He could change colours and behave in this way or that way. And that was really a kind of problem for us. Because I was close to that man and I knew him and that’s not him." But it helped me also that I am not German because I could put my passport between Hitler and me. It was a journalists' movement and it was so easy to do because the film was weak. The terror was not only in the viperous rages and shrieking attacks of undiluted bile as the Führer harangued his quaking generals (one scene in particular has given rise to an endless stream of often hilarious YouTube mash-ups: see a self-referential example below). It was also in the audacious delivery of a rounded performance in which, against all the known rules of engagement with Nazi history, the murderer of six million Jews was allowed to be seen as courteous to women, fond of his dog, even pathetic in the face of imminent annihilation and suicide. Ganz was born in Zürich, to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. RR: I have heard about a scene that was included in the rough cut but was eliminated later: a scene in which Damiel et Cassiel throw cream pies at one another. Fest was very important for me. How did you get an impersonation of a tremor? Bruno Ganz in Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire (1987) . Bruno Ganz interview This is a part of our Cambodia forums to chat about anything Cambodia-related. He was what we call an autodidakt. RR: One final question. I think he was devoted to all this show and theatre and actors and opera singers. It makes no sense. He overran France within two weeks. And he's been a gambler. Coming up with terms like "evil" and "good" makes me nervous because I don’t know what it is. This was part of my preparation. ... Ganz exclaimed in an interview. Every speech the first eight years is about the Versailles Treaty and always it ends with him promising people that he will be the saviour of the German people. This makes you. Fest talked about Hitler. The voice that has come down to us is the speech-making voice but it’s not the voice that you are doing for most of the film. He invents a film while shooting. It's industrial filmmaking. I, my partner and son watched this last night and were blown away. However I regret that Wim was treated very harshly at the Cannes Film Festival. Han hadde hovedroller i et stort antall filmer og teateroppsetninger og mottok en rekke priser. As very often he is quite stupid, His imagination was very strong. Oh, what a mess!" The voice sounds… I liked it. You are just there. I can hear very clearly that he came from Austria. But the circus scenes were too sentimental. His hidden left hand on his back and if you had not known you would not have been aware of it but I knew it so I saw how it was trembling or shaking - a kind of tremor. We filmed that, and I went to see the rushes, which I don't normally do. BG: No, I very much like Henri Alekan just as Wim does. There were only four handovers in the entire 20th century. I did it for myself because I felt really somehow ashamed. He wrote me a letter saying, "Don’t fall into the trap of chewing the carpet. I just didn’t realise that we are a summer army." What you deliver is your physical presence. Even if you are bad as Hitler still you’ll look like him', The producer sent me a tape recorded secretly. BG: No. But I didn't specially like the whole circus side of the film… And I don't know to what extent Wim wanted to go with that metaphorical meaning in the film. Oliver Hirschbiegel's powerful new film, Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler, is now hitting theaters stateside after a very successful run overseas. [Bruno Ganz laughs.] We talked a lot about the "human clothing" but without deciding anything really specific. "Wim Invents the Film While Shooting." "There’s the 4th Army and there’s another army." Her leger Ganz med sine tidligere roller, når han agerer den morderiske hovedpersons samvittighed og fungerer som … There are some moments in the film where Hitler goes absolutely mad with his generals but he often speaks very softly. Was it a surprise to discover that you looked like him? I wanted an Austrian actor for that region and he came to Zurich and he helped me. That’s what Hitler was able to do. And Curt Bois [who plays Homer] is like Otto. T he loss of any beloved actor hurts, but there’s an extra tinge of poignancy to the passing of Bruno Ganz at the age of seventy-seven. Bruno Ganz (født 22. marts 1941 i Schweiz, død 16. februar 2019 i Schweiz) var en schweizisk skuespiller, mest kendt for sine roller som Adolf Hitler i filmen Der Untergang og som Damiel i Himlen over Berlin.Han har endvidere spillet den mandlige hovedrolle som professor Rohl i The Reader.. Filmografi (udvalg) 1977 Den amerikanske ven; 1978 Drengene fra Brasilien Photograph: PR handout Bruno Ganz, kjent for sitt portrett av Adolf Hitler i filmen «Der Untergang», er død 77 år gammel. In a lot of the discussion of the film he is talked about not as a human being but as a monster. What can you do? Did the theatre artist in you address the issue of his fascination for Wagner? That’s not bad. So it was a part of the first script that we could transfer to the second film, which would be Otto's story, Far Away So Near. My mother was talking about how we had to suffer in Switzerland because he did not have full access to bananas and oranges. I hated the Swiss army. But in the scene with the dying man, I liked the lines. Ganz was one of the leading figures in the contemporary German-speaking theatre and film world. I hope this makes sense. He was quite good at that. And I who knew nothing about Hitler in his last two months, very little, and who learnt who he was – people telling me in these books what they saw and his behaviour and what he was like and what they felt and since it’s a lot of people, after all this somehow your imagination starts to work and you get quite a clear image of such a person. I don’t want to start to argue." Now we are safe." He doesn’t really believe it but it’s the same thing. I think he got very early deep, deep, deep in Wagner’s work, by seeing as a boy in Linz Wagner’s operas. I think even the problem people have saying I am humanising. Bois was Jewish, the other German. So he's right. Bruno Ganz in 2015. I was lucky or my producer was smart. In making films, as you mentioned, with other directors, my respect for Wim Wenders increases constantly because it is a matter of creating something together. But I wanted it - the rather childlike and comical aspect, because after an hour and a half of black and white, with the seriousness of the angels and Peter Handke's monologues, we needed a change of style. Goebbels says in the film, "Gentlemen, in a hundred years from now they will make a wonderful colour film about the terrible days we are living through now. Too ambitious. […]. I think I am not allowed to say that. You should now realise that you did the wrong thing. He was the only one in Germany – in the beginning they did not understand – that when he said something he did it also. I was scared just for two or three seconds. They had married in 1965 and had one child. That was his quality. I think he could imagine being something to the extent of becoming it. Hitler is recorded using his normal voice in other meetings in addition to the Finnish one mentioned. You do service for three weeks a year, which is quite different from a normal army. RR: Wenders described Wings of Desire as one of his B-films, which would mean that to some degree, the actors in the film are playing themselves... BG: But that's what they do in his films... One of the main problems we had in making Wings of Desire was: how do you play an angel? He could move himself to be something. He could move himself to be something. Did people react to you in a different way? Decorating his kids. BG: No that was me. And he did things others would not have dared to do. You are out of the human community with that. That’s really very, very private between those two people. Then I was actor enough to say, "That’s OK, that will help. You ask a doctor if he can organise that you see patients with Parkinson’s and you sit there for hours and watch. He hesitated until the last moment, maybe five minutes before the scene was to be shot, and finally he decided to use the hat. When filming Wings of Desire, it was almost a kind of miracle that happened. RR: Concerning Marion's final monologue, certain commentators have discussed the fact that it is the woman and not the man who speaks at the moment of their first meeting. Go home and leave it. Nobody else does that. Bruno Ganz, Actor: Der Untergang. He died on 16 February 2019 in Zürich, Switzerland aged 77. There is nothing quite like the Iffland-Ring in this country. I thought: that's good work, not bad at all. I don't like remakes. Wouldn’t you like to have a part in this film?". Just the term is funny. To me they appeared very fair. Bruno Ganz, the Swiss actor best known for dramatizing Adolf Hitler’s final days in 2004’s “Downfall,” has died.He was 77. Bois had to leave the country. It can't be. I met a lot of them in the region of Los Angeles. En af skuespillerens sidste roller blev i Lars von Triers seriemorderfilm The House That Jack Built . I remember I had to fly back from Cannes to Salzburg very early the next morning, and I read the French and Italian newspapers, Libération and La Repubblica. Élete. I was very, very happy when I saw that sequence for the first time because it worked. Otto and I did a film together [Gedächtnis, 1983] about two actors, because we were afraid they would soon die - Bois is now deceased - and the other [Minetti] was just as old. or hungry? Evil, I don’t know what it is. I was quite prepared when I came. They did. Bruno Ganz, 24 March 1941 - 16 February 2019. I don't know what really happened. Ganz, left, as Hitler in Downfall, with Heino Ferch as Albert Speer. We were not on the street. So you walk in the streets and you're invisible. What is an angel? He saw the movie and he wrote me a second letter saying I came very close to the real person. Usually you play a character and then you think psychologically and you ask yourself, "What is this guy like? No one put it better than Joachim Fest, the great German historian of the Nazi period: “That really is Hitler.” It was on Fest’s essay about the last days of the Third Reich that the script of Der Untergang by producer Bernd Eichinger is based. I could partly understand him. Especially when he got old. But it’s not as intimate as it is with this seven-minute tape with this diplomat. And also that's the way Wim wanted it. It is stupid. He was a gambler as well. He had a sense for it - maybe for the cheap aspect of it but he had it, and it helped him because he used it. There were only four handovers in the entire 20th century. At that time he was king of Germany and he would do what he wanted and people were always pleased by what he did. Downfall mash-up: Hitler is informed he is Bruno Ganz: JASPER REES: Did living in Berlin help you making this film? Facebook is showing information to help you better understand the purpose of a Page. And Wim told me that he had kept that scene in the film for a very long time, but cut it out after the first rough cut. And I thought it made a strong contrast with the library space that was so celestial. That's the point. I remember really liking Peter Handke's lines, which wasn't always the case. You hear what people are thinking. But it was really very funny. No in that case, I was rather relieved. He was 56 when he died and he looked about 80 and he was completely destroyed. He would have understood that evil can fascinate people two, three, four, five hundred years later. "The highly estimated God-like cult figure, Wim Wenders," they just destroyed him. Once you were in the actual bunker, did you become inhabited by the character? When did you do your last military service? But he is not shouting there. The private conversation was actually with Mannerheim, the Commander of Finnish Forces during World War II. Facebook Twitter Pinterest. Bruno Ganz, born in Zürich in 1941, played the leading role in Wings of Desire (1987): that of the angel Damiel, who chooses to become a human being. Also unfortunately other things that Wagner had in mind as his anti-Semitism. It took me about a month. BG: It was quite touching… For example, here in England where the monarchy is very strong and very much alive, when actors play kings, they probably feel superior in relation to what they are normally. Nothing. I imagine that working with Wim Wenders isn't quite the same as working with the others. RR: I have noticed that Homer has a relation to Cassiel while Peter Falk and Marion are more connected to Damiel. As we would say, auto-suggestion. If they say, "Oh, you are an angel," it's like a miracle. Born in Switzerland in 1941, he spent the first several decades of his career amassing perhaps the most prestigious filmography in German cinema history, working with auteurs like Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders.He co-starred with Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier in the Nazi hunter sci-fi thriller ‘ The … The dying man scene is one of the scenes I find most touching. They can talk like this, and I would say, "OK, we are not going into details, respect and let’s stop here. It strikes me as a stupid thing to say. And kings are still human beings… But angels are something else. I had rather pity with him. NYHETSSAKER INNEN: BRUNO GANZ «Der Untergang»-skuespiller er død - Du har nettopp jobbet med sex, så det er ingen som synes synd på deg - Han er nok den karakteren jeg har foraktet mest selv or thirsty? BG: Yes, possibly. You seem very small in the film. I would be interested in anybody's recommendation of a better in-depth filmic study of a tyrant. How long did you spend researching, as it were, in the bunker? He did not know that he was recorded. 4,591 likes. That’s all we know about the Swiss army. I along with most found them funny, but at the same time thought what an astonishing job this man had done (Ganz not Hitler!) Why this was is completely hidden. It is hard for me to image how this scene could have been part of the film. BG: No, no surprises. Did you have to do the same thing in order to be him? That’s not because in Switzerland nobody was in this way involved in Nazis. So it was not easy to say yes. You can listen to him. It's strange. An Interview with Bruno Ganz on Wings of Desire[1]. Talking to Speer (pictured: Ganz with Heino Ferch as Albert Speer) he mentions it once. He’s not just portraying Hitler as a person or psychological things or where he came from. There's no possibility for psychological problems among angels. He tried to be witty, he tries to be ironic and the applause is huge. It was the German people who supported this man. Bruno Ganz (født 22. mars 1941 i Zürich i Sveits, død 16. februar 2019 i Zürich) var en sveitsisk skuespiller. Wim was concerned about that. That's it. I liked the shoot that day. That’s what I wanted. He invents the film while shooting... which costs a lot of money, a lot of material. And he did not know that he was recorded. Glad it was done in German with subtitles - it lended a sense of authenticity to the setting and, somehow, underlined the moments of rage and madness. But I was not scared to get closer to that decade of the time historically and I was not scared to get close to Hitler. Sorry guys I know I haven't posted any video recently. The costume designer had put some things together and brought them to Wim's office, and then we returned to the question of the new clothing after we shot the final scenes of Damiel as an angel and we did in fact manage to choose a new suit of clothes. 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