REALITY CHECK: An interview with Das Experiment director Oliver Hirschbiegel and star Moritz Bleibtreu By Warren Curry 9/10/02   Part 2 of 2

Oliver, what were some of the elements of the book that made you want to adapt it into a film?

Oliver: What I liked right from the beginning was that the whole thing is like a Shakespearean play in a way; like a Shakespearean madhouse, dealing with believable characters and the whole thing was set in Germany. That was just a combination that I could not resist. Any filmmaker getting this novel would have said, "Yes, this is definitely something." I had a lot of difficulties getting the script right, but I never really doubted that decision. I was fascinated right from the beginning.

Is there any message you're trying to communicate with the film?

Oliver: No -- I don't like that attitude. I try to tell the story in a believable way and always try to stay honest with the audience, so I don't fall into the trap of using clichés or speculative elements. I never betray the audience.

From what I understand, you're more influenced by American directors than German directors.

Oliver: Yes, Hitchcock, Hawks and Huston are my masters. They are still the most important teachers I had.

What is it that attracted you to their films more than, say, Werner Herzog's?

Oliver: They were straightforward, no-bullshit storytellers. Huston sometimes did strange things, but still he was a straightforward storyteller, never cheating on the audience. That's just something I admire so much. Actually, (Rainer Werner) Fassbinder was really fascinated with that too. They trusted the actors and the material, and these days that doesn't seem to be the case so often. People tend to rely on CGI, special effects, exploding helicopters and fast-paced car chases, but that's not what I think is a movie. The movie world deals with dreams and visions and makes you forget about the rest of your world for two hours. Maybe that's a generation thing, but our film was watched by the kids, basically. Most of the audiences we had in Germany were between 15 and 25.

Although the entire film appears to be one that must've been extremely difficult to make, can each of you point to one specific scene that was the most taxing?

Moritz: Not really. For me, what I really learned in my career is that when you read a script there are scenes that appear to be difficult and other things that appear to be easy. Then the stuff that you think will be so difficult isn't. You'll say, "Wow, this is over? C'mon, this is the most difficult scene in the film, it can't be good." There are these so called "key scenes" for your character in a script, and always when I play these key scenes, I go off the set and say, "I fucked up." Then I watch it and think it was o.k., sometimes. Other times (scenes) that seem like nothing, really turn out to be the worst. Like stupid little things; for instance, the scene where I was buying the glasses. My God, that day I was about to crack -- nothing worked. The actors didn't work, the set didn't work, the props didn't work -- nothing worked. Basically, it's the stuff that you think will be very difficult turns out to be very easy and the other way around.

Oliver: It's difficult for me to say. Moritz says that I appear to be so calm when I do the job, but the truth is I shit my pants every morning when I go to the set. Anything you do basically is a challenge. Of course, I know that anything could mean a problem or a difficulty, so I'm just watching and trying to cover my back. I can't recall a particular scene (that was the most difficult) -- probably the last bit we did. The last two days of shooting, which were the long chase and the beating up of Berus, and that was more for schedule reasons. That was pretty tough, because we were all exhausted already and then we had to shoot all of these things in two days that usually require four days of shooting. That's always a big task, because it's so easy to lose it as a director then and say, "O.k., we got it, let's go on, we have to get finished." To find that difference between, "I got what I need or I need another one," is a huge pressure on your shoulders. In the end, when the film is finished, no one will ask you about how many days of shooting you had. No one cares if you say, "Yeah, but if I would've had four days for this scene it would've turned out to be good." That's a pressure no one should underestimate.

Also, I understand that as the production rolled along, the line between the actors and their characters started to become blurred. Is it true that a lot of the actors were even in character off-camera?

Moritz: For me, particularly, no. I have to say that if we started with that, we would have fallen into the same trap as what the whole movie is about -- the movie is about not falling into this trap. But, it's true -- after three weeks of shooting, we were sitting at lunch break and going, "That's strange. There are the prisoners and there are the guards." People wouldn't mingle -- it was really strange. I do not believe so much in method acting. I'm more of an actor who tries to give himself up to the moment without planning and without using too much of myself. I don't believe in running around in character on the set.

Oliver: On the other side, you were Mortiz Bleibtreu in a crowd of actors, so your position was kind of like Tarek.

Moritz: Of course, if I have to stay in character, I stay in character. I'll run around for maybe 20 minutes in character, but I'm not this person who goes to sleep in character. I hear sometimes that a lot of actors do that. I always tried to keep up the fun level and tried to make jokes whenever I could. Every actor has a different working approach.

Oliver: Christian Berkel was pretty much Steinhoff all the time. And Berus (Justus Von Dohnanyi) as well.

Moritz: It's something I respect very much as an approach to acting. It's not that I don't respect method acting, but for me it's just not something that really works. I did my acting studies in New York and found out there that that is not my approach.

Oliver: It happens all the time, basically. A good actor has to get inside the character. Even though he slips out of the character after the sequence has been shot or at the end of the day, in a way, he stays that person. I can tell from the way they talk and the way they carry themselves. I know them from other films as well and then I know them as private people. In this case, it was a little more obvious because they formed these two groups. Part of the reason for that was because I told them to do their homework and be prepared anytime to come up with a line or an idea.

How do you think American audiences are going to respond to this film?

Moritz: I have no clue; I just don't know. I just hope for the best. I know that with the success of Run Lola Run in my bag that it's possible, so I just hope for the best. I do not know enough about American people to come up with a guess.

Oliver: I had the pleasure of being here for the first screenings with like a normal audience last year. These screenings went so well and the response was so good that I have high hopes.

(Click here to read Ryan Kugler's review of Das Experiment)

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