Production Design In Germany
Soundless (Lautlos): one of the past year's film productions. It is a film that plays a disconcerting game with clarity and insight, mystery and enigma. A thriller about people with no permanent place. Atmospheric and dense. Rigorous and cool. By no means ornate, but concentrated. A film whose artistic design is sparse, positively minimalist. And yet probably unintentionally, a suggestion is made in one comment that the female protagonist (Nadja Uhl) makes to the silent, mysterious figure (Joachim Król) who has saved her life; a suggestion that arguably sums up the thoughts of every set designer, film architect or production designer: «I would like to see your apartment. It would tell me more about you.»
Apartments, rooms, environments - or should we say scenes, locations and sets - play their own special part in the story of the films they are created for.
A STEP BACK IN TIME
Flashback to 1926. It is the heyday of the German silent movie. Many lasting masterpieces have been made within only a few years: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1919), The Golem (Der Golem und wie er in die Welt kam, 1920), Dr. Mabuse (Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, 1922), The Street (Die Strasse, 1923), and The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924). These are followed by several more before the start of the thirties, including Metropolis (1927), The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, 1927), The Woman on the Moon (Die Frau im Mond, 1929), and Asphalt (1929). All of these films, each in their own way, drew vitality from the power of their sets, scenery and décor. The concept of film architecture was already in the air around that time, although no one had taken it up seriously. This was left to Walter Reimann in the year 1926. Together with Hermann Warm and Walter Roehrig, he was responsible for the sensational, avant-garde film set for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In his key essay Filmbauten und Raumkunst (Film Constructions and Interior Design), he searched for a common denominator to spell out the ideal achievement of a film's set or décor. His ideas culminate in an emphatic «job description» for the film architect of the future, for the person responsible for the direction of lifeless objects: «Man and his environment must have equal rights in any film, which means that they must be treated with equal affection, care and devotion, for only in this way can a film convey the perfect, powerful impression. When referring to the décor and sets, and demanding - from a purely factual background - that more value be credited to lifeless objects, of course I am only referring to sets which develop from the content of the manuscript and demonstrate an artistic standpoint. Scenery which flaunts itself egoistically in order to suppress the actors with its own interesting antics and bombastic overkill, or distracts us from the thread of the narrative, should be removed, for it only exists to do damage to the film and the producer's purse!»
At around the same time as Walter Reimann, Fritz Lang also commented: «We do have architects - but nothing else looks too good.» And Luis Bunuel wrote, after he had seen Fritz Lang's Metropolis: «From now on, the place of the stage designer has been taken over by the architect.»
In retrospect, the cinematic era of the Weimar Republic - when giants of German film architecture ranging from Otto Hunte (films include The Blue Angel/ Der blaue Engel), Rochus Gliese (Sunrise) to Robert Herlth (Tartueff) celebrated their greatest success - may seem like an epoch of systematic work and excellence. But during this period as well, the most splendid scenes actually often emerged as a result of quite incredible improvisation. In the archives of the Film Museum in Berlin there is a 1,000 page (unpublished) typescript; the memoirs of Erich Kettelhut. Here it is possible to read, for example, the following anecdote concerning his work on Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen: «But the dragon also had to breathe fire. For this purpose, it had a tightly shutting tin box set into its huge head. In turn, a rubber tube at the back of the box led down into its rump and ended in a bellows mechanism. At the opposite side of the box there was another opening, and attached to this was a small basin enclosing an acetylene-burning apparatus. The burning box could be filled with lycopod seeds through the mouth, and the acetylene flame was ignited through the mouth, too. If one pumped a powerful gust of air into the tin box using the bellows, the easily inflammable lycopods flew through the external opening into the flame. This was how we created the two to three meter long tongues of flame produced by the fire-breathing dragon. When I write it down, it reads as if it was - indeed it is - all so easy and natural, so I ask myself why it seemed so complicated and problematic at that time, why so many ideas failed before this simple construction worked properly.»
These comments illustrate the way that film architecture has always involved links with other arts, crafts and technology. The film architects were the great multi-talents in the German film studios of the twenties and early thirties, and as Henri Langlois saw it, artists such as Robert Herlth, Erich Kettelhut or Otto Hunte were veritable magicians: «The metaphysics of décor are the secret of German film. And in these films, based on composition alone, the film designer - like an alchemist - causes a new, self-contained world to emerge through his magic. He is the radium without which no doctor could heal, he is the philosopher's stone without which no film author could still his longing.»
STORYBOARDS OF THE PAST
Let us take an exemplary film: Asphalt (1929) by Joe May. The architects were Erich Kettelhut, Robert Herlth and Walter Roehrig. A central scene: playing a traffic cop, Gustav Froehlich convicts the elegant, sophisticated Else Kramer (Betty Amann) of jewelry theft. He intends to take her to the police station, but she persuades him to accompany her to her apartment by pretending that she needs to collect her documents. Else Kramer's apartment tells the policeman something about the woman that he wanted to arrest, and the film passes it on to us - we follow his eyes as the camera pans the room - the information that the apartment tells him about her. In addition, the room participates in the subsequent seduction of a minor officer of the law by an experienced coquette. The architecture is an active (that is, narrating) rather than a passive (narrated) element of the film. The film architects' designs are not intended simply to be recorded like a stage set, but to participate in the production; camera positions, cadrage, light-dark effects and the positions of the characters are already included in the sketches and drawings, which are thus similar to today's storyboards.
At the close of the silent film era there was already a dialogue, albeit modest, between film architecture and the real architecture of the modern age, but from then on the latter was only to appear as if by mistake, or to indicate the world of evil: rogues live in modern surroundings, and sometimes they even furnish their homes with tubular steel furniture. In the German films of the thirties, certainly, the associations with modern architecture were anything but good. Speed, mobility and circulation were threats, and the film architects - a strange contradiction to their own working methods and materials - opposed them by backing the massive, the stable and the static. The eras of Wilhelm II and the Third Reich are reflected in much film architecture from the thirties and forties - at least those sets which are representative of the times. They also reveal the flight from the real world and the architectonic self-intoxication inherent in both systems. The dominant factors in the lines and style of the sketches, and in the productions of the corresponding film scenes are lethargy, placidity and paralysis.
GERMANY AFTER WWII
Move on to Germany after the Second World War: it is a country between continuity and change, and this also applies to film architecture. When the American army conquered the Munich suburb of Geiselgasteig, it encountered heroic opposition. It is true that the porters at the Bavaria Film Studios had fled long before, and that the secretaries who had remained surrendered immediately. But in front of the only studio that was still in operation, a brave recording director faced the Americans: he asked them to please wait five minutes before invading the studio, for they were in the process of recording a highly complex scene and the director was certainly not prepared to capitulate until he had finished his take.
This anecdote may have been invented. But at least it was invented well. It demonstrates the mood in which films were made directly after the war, a mood which also resulted in the specific look of such films. One example: the most important scene for The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Moerder sind unter uns, 1946) is set in an apartment in a half bombed-out house; when the camera leaves the house, it shows a world filled with bizarre debris and ruins, dramatically lit, and inhabited by fleeting shadows. This landscape is not intended to resemble the actual landscape of ruins in Germany's destroyed cities; and the actions of the film's heroes are not developed from the conditions of this scenario at all. The landscape merely illustrates the state of the heroes' souls. A ruined house in this film does not, by any means, represent a challenge to those who will be the ones rebuilding it. First and foremost, a ruin here is a projection surface for the ruined self-confidence of those who live there, and the shadows will not disappear when the sun goes up in the morning or someone finally screws a strong enough light bulb into the fixture.
In the early summer of 1948, a 19-year-old student from the State School of Architecture presented himself at the Bavaria Studios, declaring that he wanted to become a film architect. He found it soothing that things in the film world were only built for ninety minutes rather than for eternity. The notion of architecture for eternity was too closely connected with the name Albert Speer, in his opinion. The young man looking for work was called Rolf Zehetbauer. Bavaria was the first stage on a pilgrimage through the German studios - from Munich via Hamburg to Berlin.
From 1949 onwards, Zehetbauer made a huge number of films as a film architect, during the fifties he sometimes even worked on a new film every two months. The Berlin-based CCC Studios run by Artur Brauner provided him with regular work. This work went into a large number of «off-the-peg» films, but also into some highlights of German cinema at that time: Canaris (1954), The Rats (Die Ratten, 1955), The Devil Came at Night (Nachts wenn der Teufel kam, German Film Award 1957 for the Best Set Design) and Scampolo (1957). Forty-five years on, Rolf Zehetbauer recalls those days as a period full of flops, mistakes and bad luck, but also as years which were among the most productive in his life. For example Grand Hotel (Menschen im Hotel) from the year 1959: «At that time it was really one unreasonable demand after another. But that was also a great contribution to the learning process - learning how not to do things. While I was working on Grand Hotel (1959) by Gottfried Reinhardt, which was an absolute all-star production with Heinz Ruehmann, Gert Froebe, O.W. Fischer and Michèle Morgan, the producer Artur Brauner said to me at one point: 'You're to build me a modern hotel!' I didn't understand the order at all, but at that time Brauner was not bothered about everything being suitable or just right: 'That's not so important. Modern is cheaper than style!' He was right, of course, and so unfortunately I did as I was told. I still remember when Heinz Ruehmann came into the studio on the first day and went up to the reception desk. He could hardly see over it, because we had built the reception desk in the style of a bar. He was very angry. I hummed and hawed: 'Sorry about that, I was following Mr. Brauner's orders.' - 'And you didn't insist?' - 'No, I suppose I'm too weak.' Then Ruehmann went up to Brauner, who said to him that we could only make the film in a 'modern' way because 'style' was too expensive. So we scaled down the modern reception desk to Ruehmann's size and filmed in a truly 'modern' way, just as planned.»
In 1972, Zehetbauer received the OSCAR for «The Best Achievement in Art Direction» for Bob Fosse's film Cabaret, and during the seventies he worked together with Wolfgang Petersen (films including The Never Ending Story), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Querelle) and Ingmar Bergman (From the Life of the Marionettes). Zehetbauer also built the now famous Berlin Street on the grounds of the Bavaria Studios for Bergman's The Serpent's Egg.
EAST VS. WEST
By contrast to the Federal Republic, where for some time it was only possible to enter the professional field of the set designer, film architect or production designer via «associated» studies - for example stage set design or interior design -, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the work of the scenographer had already become a firm aspect of film training in the fifties. The DEFA was also a practical training institute based on the traditional system of «construction sheds». This also meant that the prevalent uncertainty in West Germany with respect to terms used to describe set design was unknown in the film architecture and production design of the GDR film world. The difference between these two worlds may be easily ascertained when reading Peter Schamoni's homage to the film scenographer Alfred Hirschmeier (Karbid und Sauerampfer, Goya, Solo Sunny etc.) on the occasion of his great exhibition «Spielraeume» in the GDR Academy of the Arts in the year 1989: «I cannot recall a film designer ever having been given such an official, public honor in the Federal Republic of Germany. I know that you do not like the term commonly used there, the 'Filmausstatter' (film decorator), at all. It is very close to the characterization commonly made in France, the 'decorateur', and I understand only too well that you vehemently reject that label. When working on our two joint films Spring Symphony (Fruehlingssinfonie) and Caspar David Friedrich - The Boundaries of our Time (Caspar David Friedrich - Grenzen der Zeit) - which I could never have realized without your great experience in cinematic art - we agreed to call you a 'Szenenbildner' in the credits, since 'Buehnenbildner' (stage designer), or so we agreed, would sound too much like the theater. 'Szenenbildner' corresponds roughly to the English term 'set designer'. But even this expression does not do justice to your comprehensive work, since it fails to indicate your influence on the creation of the entire aesthetic and emotional atmosphere of any film that you are committed to. Your colleague Rolf Zehetbauer - who is revered in a similar way at the Bavaria Studios in Munich as your work is valued at the DEFA in Potsdam-Babelsberg - is referred to as a 'film architect' in almost all publications. Personally, I would prefer the title that is common in America, that of 'art director', for you. This title refers to the person working on a film that is responsible - the boss or director - for the entire field of 'art'. (However, in the English credits to my most recent film Schloss Koenigswald, Rolf Zehetbauer did not want to be listed as 'art director', but as 'production designer').»
CLARIFYING THE JOB
Toni Luedi, from Munich, (Endstation Freiheit, Forbidden, Der Baer etc.) has now been working towards clarification of his job description for two decades. The first graduates of the further training course in «scenography» that he founded at the Technical College in Rosenheim received their diplomas in 1993. However, Luedi's inexhaustible activities are not only aimed at maintaining interests in the profession, but should also be understood as a film-political intervention, as part of a strategy to ensure long-term quality in German film: «The set designer is expected to be able to do everything, to be simultaneously an artist and an organizer, a diplomat and a craftsman, a magician with a small budget and a technical genius. And: set designers also need qualified colleagues, they need 'art departments' - not necessarily for their well-being, but certainly to assure high-quality, professional film productions.» The institute is now part of the Academy of Television & Film in Munich.
The film academy in Babelsberg, of course, continues to be a top address for those interested in training as production designers, and not least, the International Film School (IFS) in Cologne places an emphasis on this field. The IFS has a well-developed self-image, and this is best described in a statement by the production designer Dean Tavoularis (The Godfather, Hammett etc.): «Production design calls for both halves of the brain. Only ten to twenty percent of the job is about inspiration, the rest is organization and transpiration. The task of the production designer is a visual realization of the screenplay, in close agreement with direction and camera, keeping to the budget and the time plan. His decisions - for example whether the filming is done in real settings or in the studio - not only determine the look of the film, but also a considerable part of the production process. A production designer does not only require artistic ability and craftsmanship, but must also demonstrate communicative and organizing talent. He must be able to observe and to be curious. But above all, he must have an enthusiasm for and a love of film, without which the completion of these tasks is impossible.»
In recent years, these schools, a large number of parallel activities, several books on the theme, and the energetic input of a range of personalities from film, art and architecture have gradually meant that production design is no longer, by any means, the wallflower of the German film business.
Especially recently, a large number of German films have been making their impression with some truly appealing sets, not splendor and complexity, but the emancipation of a department that enjoyed little regard between the sixties and the eighties into a confident creative force. Examples are the spatial creations by Uli Hanisch for films including The Experiment (Das Experiment) or The Princess and the Warrior (Der Krieger und die Kaiserin), by Lothar Holler for Sun Alley (Sonnenallee) or Good Bye, Lenin!, by Simon Boucherie for Soundless and by Kade Gruber for all the feature films by Christian Petzold. The latter once said of his collaboration with Gruber: «He doesn't plaster the paint on thickly and powerfully like Rubens, but uses small amounts with great precision, like Vermeer.»
A NEW GENERATION
A new generation of production designers has emerged in the field of popular audience films, as well as in the arthouse segment of German cinema; designers who have established themselves confidently in a wide range of cinema and television productions. They include dynamic, practiced individuals like Christian Goldbeck (The Edukators/Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei), Tamo Kunz (Head-On/Gegen die Wand), Bernd Lepel (Downfall/ Der Untergang), Bernd Gaebler (Seven Dwarves/Sieben Zwerge - Maenner allein im Wald), and Claus Kottmann (Dreamship Surprise/(T)Raumschiff Surprise), who either graduated from the training institutes mentioned, or have emerged by means of a «contract between generations» from the circle of masters such as Rolf Zehetbauer, Toni Luedi, Jan Schlubach (Barry Lyndon), Goetz Weidner (The Devil's Architect/Speer und er) or Albrecht Konrad (Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe).
But by contrast to the older representatives of their trade, biographical and professional detours have proved significant for the young designers. Rolf Zehetbauer explains: «I don't think it is necessarily an advantage if you arrive at this profession via the main route. The barriers that these young people have had to negotiate almost certainly leave traces behind, and they have also enriched their style. I would like to say, adapting Picasso's words slightly: Those who only know something about production design, know nothing at all.»
To conclude, let us take a look at Seven Dwarves: all the sets of this silly but surprisingly warm-hearted film were built in a (relatively small) Cologne studio, and they adopt the irreverence of the screenplay and actors in a delightful way. They take the deconstructive game with tradition one step further: when the story falls upon the world of Grimm's fairy-tales with cannibalistic desire, the set of a moonlit clearing in the fairy-tale wood conjures up recollections of Siegfried's ride through the studio forest in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen as well as of the digital clash of swords in The Lord of the Rings. However, these «models» are viewed through an entirely hedonist lens: »We know about that, but we're going to do things differently.» One should make the most out of restrictions - the audience's appreciation has confirmed the success of this strategy.
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