American Cinematographer - April 2008 - 10

Global Village Re-creating a Concentration Camp for The Counterfeiters by Jean Oppenheimer Right (from left): Burger (August Diehl), Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), Atze (Veit Stübner) and Klinger (August Zirner) are among the prisoners forced to help the Nazis forge British and American currency in The Counterfeiters. Because the negative underwent a full bleach bypass, this photo doesn't accurately reflect the film’s look. Below: Cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels, AAC, BVK (left) checks the light on actors Andreas Schmidt and Markovics for a scene outside the prisoners’ workshop. W inner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, the Austrian film The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) takes place predominantly in a German concentration camp. Determined to avoid any hint of artificiality, cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels, AAC, BVK and director Stefan Ruzowitzky declined Studio Babelsberg’s offer to build the set inside a huge manufacturing hall. Instead, production designer Isi Wimmer built the barracks to scale in an outdoor area on the studio lot. “I was keen to suffer from uncontrollable weather conditions,” says Neuenfels (Lovelife, Lost Killers, A Map from the Heart). “Plus, we wanted to give the actors a feel for what it meant to be under arrest in such a place.” Communicating with AC from Berlin via e-mail, the cinematographer notes, “Stefan rehearsed with the actors for almost four weeks. Then, over two days, we shot all the camp scenes with a consumer DV camera. [Editor] Britta Nahler put it together, and Stefan and I created our shot list. We were then able to film those scenes in fewer than 20 shooting days.” Neuenfels also made use of a model of the film’s key set, a section of the Sachsenhausen camp comprising a dormitory, the counterfeiting workshop and a courtyard between these two areas. “[With the model,] I used some flashlights to play around with light, and I also faked the sun’s path so I could be prepared to react on set,” he says. “Also, I studied the interior [of the workshop] to prepare for some difficult camera moves. I love models; my father, Hans Neuenfels, was a theater and opera director who used to work entirely with models.” The Counterfeiters relates the true story of Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a skilled artist and infamous forger whose specialty was printing fake money. Long sought by German authori- ties, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where his skills proved useful to the Nazis, who wanted to destroy their enemies’ economies by flooding Allied markets with millions of fake British pounds and American dollars. (The war ended before the Germans were able to disperse the bogus banknotes on a grand scale.) “Stefan and I wanted to present this story with documentary directness,” says Neuenfels. “Consequently, we decided to shoot on Super 16mm [framed for 1.85:1] and shoot everything handheld. We concentrated on Sorowitsch’s point of view; it’s through him that we [witness] the terror of the camps.” Neuenfels did his own operating and used an Arri 16SR-3, Zeiss Superspeed lenses, and two Canon zooms (5–138mm and 8-64mm). Footage involving visual effects was shot on 35mm with a Moviecam SL, Zeiss Superspeeds and a Cooke 3:1 zoom. Structured as a flashback, the story begins and ends in 1945; the war is over, and Sorowitsch is visiting Monte Carlo. The plot soon shifts to his pre-war days in Berlin, his arrest and internment in Mauthausen, and his transfer to Sachsenhausen, the site of the Nazis’ counterfeiting operation. The filmmakers wanted to give each of these four sections a distinct look. Sorowitsch has come to Monte Carlo to try to recover from the war, and the camera observes the character from a slight remove. Soft filters enhanced the blue tones of a nighttime beach scene (which was further tweaked in the digital grade). As Sorowitsch explores the area, Neuenfels slowly added warmer tones. Inside the casino, he switches to crisp whites and saturated primary colors. When the film cuts to a crowded 10 April 2008 Top photo by Jat Jurgen Olczyk; other photos by Andreas Erben. Photos courtesy of Beta Film Gmbh, Sony Pictures Classics and Benedict Neuenfels.

American Cinematographer - April 2008

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