30/11/2007

It is passed on from actor to actor by the owner’s last will after his death. Bruno Ganz is the current holder of the ‘Iffland-Ring’, the most important and honourable distinction for a German-speaking actor. He inherited it from Josef Meinrad in 1996. Independently from this outstanding award, Zurich-born Bruno Ganz has proved his talent and virtuosity by playing extremely contrasting characters. The critics never doubted his importance and influence - he has been successful both on stage and in cinema, where he has been alternately working since 1960. More than once he has played both the good and the evil in a devoted and persuading way. In particular, his interpretations of the angel Damiel in Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) and of Adolf Hitler in The Downfall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bernd Eichinger
interview: Joachim Fest
interview: Oliver Hirschbiegel
film profile] (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004) can be seen as two of his major roles in cinema.

Wings of Desire

In Wenders’ film, the guardian angels Cassiel (Otto Sander) and Damiel, invisible to everyone but children, protect and comfort the citizens of the divided city of Berlin. Damiel falls in love with Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a circus-artist, and decides to become mortal in order to feel and live like a human being - taste coffee, feel the cold of the winter and touch a woman’s neck. Damiel is a humanist; a compassionate, consolatory angel. Well-balanced and with a great enthusiasm for rare everyday occurrences, the film draws a portrait of Berlin and its inhabitants during the time of the Wall. Bruno Ganz’s performance is restrained; minimal but with detailed facial expressions and smooth movements. Very charismatic. His poetic language underlines the spiritual context of the plot. After Damiel’s transformation into a human being, changing the film from black & white into colour, his body language changes accordingly. He is energetic, enthusiastic, more positive. Damiel’s language becomes more ironic, turning from the sophisticated to the familiar. He is determined to find his love: “Only the amazement about man and woman made me human. Now I know, what no angel knows.”

The Downfall

It was not only Bruno Ganz’s performance of Adolf Hitler, but simply the act of producing a film around this person which caused controversy in the international press. The Downfall is about Hitler’s last days in the bunker in Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Hitler is still obsessively trying to fight the Soviets who have already entered the city centre, and refusing to surrender. Bruno Ganz has been praised for his interpretation of a choleric, tyrannical man, with the shaking hand, wild gestures and his typical loud and pointed language. Nevertheless the director and producer were strongly criticised for their human portrayal of such a controversial person. Even Wenders commented on the film, explaining that he was astonished by the belittlement of Hitler’s representation because he provoked compassion, a feeling you shouldn’t have in this context. Moreover Hitler’s character was not punished, nor consequently criticised; all the dead victims were shown, but his and Eva Braun’s corpse were hidden.
Bruno Ganz had doubts about playing this role, as everybody he asked advised him not to do it. But in the end he managed to make the separation between him playing a role as an actor and taking a distant political position to Hitler. Finally he admitted that as a Swiss it was easier to play this role. If he had been German, he was not sure he would have wanted to play Hitler.

In the future Bruno Ganz is going to be involved in American film productions, mostly covering the romance and drama genres as in Youth without Youth (2007), the newest film by Francis Ford Coppola and Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex (2008) by Uli Edel. The films are both placed in the context of war and terrorism, not an unfamiliar setting for Bruno Ganz. It is likely that he will turn these characters into unique personalities, whether they be good or evil.