Bruno Ganz: "Women are nice to me"
Bruno Ganz, the prince charming?
Mr. Ganz, do we want to go for a walk?
Suddenly he stands in the hotel lobby. Alone, slim, dark-clothed. An inconspicuous man with a famous face. Around him are people with yellow cards around their necks. In the café Roberto Blanco sits with his entourage. On this Tuesday in November Bruno Ganz is also a guest in the "Bayerischer Hof". He gave interviews all morning. The sky is blue and the English Garden is not far. Mr. Ganz, do not we prefer to go for a walk? A conversation while walking? And we are outside already. Bruno Ganz progresses quickly, knows his way around the city. He worked on the Munich Kammerspiele and made a "crime scene". He now lives in Zurich and Venice. As we walk through a shopping arcade, the actor stops in front of an Armani shop. Bruno Ganz is known for his excellent suits. He strokes the brown-black wool of his coat and explains that the Armani suits used to be more beautiful, more comfortable, with a good silhouette and fine fabrics. Today they are "more difficult," he says, cut to waist, as if they were only made for 16-year-olds. Bruno Ganz will be 70 years old this year.
It's good for me when my eyes are green.
We continue. The actor charmingly takes over the lead - "this way, Madame, into the green," he says with his unmistakable voice, that gentle yet accentuated melody that may sound so special because German is a second language for the Swiss. Bruno Ganz wears the coat open, it is above all the passers-by who look for his eyes. A friendly, shy cognition, no gape or loud amazement. Women like him. In an interview he once said that many letters came after the film "Bread & Tulips". He said he was the "fairy-tale prince of the mature woman".
A conversation while walking with Bruno Ganz
Bruno Ganz makes no comments about himself.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Prince Charming?
Bruno Ganz: Oh, you know. I'm not the type to write to women "hello, my name is Corinna" and stick a photo of yourself in the letter. But yes, women are nice to me. They are smiling at me. Just like now.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What do women find attractive about you?
Bruno Ganz: I do not comment on myself!
Bruno Ganz looks strict. Demand futile. If he does not want to, he does not want to. He rubs his hands, not with the cold, he says, but with joy.
I'm really affable today. You know, I can do it differently. I can be stubborn and closed. How nice it is today. We have November. A terrible month! I have just come back from a film shoot from France. It rained a lot.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Your new movie "Latte Farben vor Schwarz" is now released, and you have already made a new movie?
Bruno Ganz: Yes. It's almost a bit much right now. Grandiose and terrifying at the same time. That should have happened to me earlier - and not now at my age. I do not like all those rituals, these appointments and red carpets.
Walking is good for thinking, says Bruno Ganz.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: When you turn as much as you do now, how do you find your way back to everyday life?
Bruno Ganz: Everything is clear while you're working. You live according to a call sheet, a so-called schedule. 14 to 15 hours are planned, and the rest is asleep.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: And then suddenly you're back on your own doorstep ...
Bruno Ganz: Yes. On the one hand, I was looking forward to this moment. Finally peace, no more text-learning, sleep late. But it is not so easy. I often feel like hollowed out, exhausted and driven at the same time. It will take a while for me to recover. I can certainly do something with myself when I'm not working. Because I like to go, I can organize my days well.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Walking?
Bruno Ganz: Yes, I like to go and do a lot, even for hours. I like being outside, that's how it used to be. But now it has become even more aware that it is good for me when my eyes look at green. It's good for thinking, for textual learning, for my body. When walking I see more. This rhythm suits me.
Bruno Ganz, the loner?
Bruno Ganz and Senta Berger in "Full Colors in Black".
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: How should you imagine yourself as a wanderer? It is said that you are a loner
Bruno Ganz: Sometimes, not always. I hiked with Peter Handke a couple of times. Some ladies were there too. But I've also walked alone from Munich to Salzburg. 120 kilometers in seven days.Incredibly beautiful. A single highway, otherwise only nature, no human, just a fox.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Do you need a goal while hiking, the summit?
Bruno Ganz: No. I do not like the mountains at all. Hills, even rivers, I prefer. With Ruth (Ruth Walz, photographer and partner) I like to go along the Havel in Berlin. But I can also go for a walk in cities. Last time I was traveling in Paris. Without a goal. I just made sure that a metro is within reach if I get tired.
In the film, the two play an elderly couple.
The Munich Hofgarten. An avenue with bare trees and box-shaped shrubs that shine in the sun in autumn. On a park bench, a man in lederhosen reads the daily newspaper. Mothers with prams sipping on their to-go coffees. A normal Tuesday afternoon. Next to Bruno Ganz you feel a bit like on a Sunday walk. Something festive and at the same time cheerful is in the air. He controls the game. The game between man and woman, which is often only hypothetical, but gives the everyday life its shine. As a dome building appears in front of us, the actor mimics a city guide and explains in Bavarian: "See the Parliament." A couple comes to meet us. The man says aloud to his Japanese companion: "This is a famous German actor!" Bruno Ganz smiles mischievously and points to me, no, not that he is the famous German actor, "she is famous". He laughs, together with the stranger, takes a step towards him. A conversation unfolds, about Japan, a country that pleases him, says Bruno Ganz, a culture that he adores. Most recently, he spent four weeks on the island of Shikoku for "Ode to Joy", a film about German prisoners of war during the First World War. Unfortunately it was a bad movie, says Bruno Ganz, as we move on. And explains, as if he, the bearer of the Iffland-Ring, one of the highest honors a German-speaking actor can receive, must justify a failure:
Bruno Ganz: Film - that's a completely different medium. I had to learn that first. In the theater, the mediation needs other ways. Larger resources are needed. The game in front of and for the camera is very intimate. The camera sees everything ...
Leonie Benesch (left) plays the granddaughter of Bruno Ganz in "Full Colors before Black".
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: ... probably the smallest weaknesses. Did you first have to learn to stand on the screen yourself?
Bruno Ganz: There are vain reasons not to like each other. When you get older, sometimes you do not like to look at yourself. And I see things that I do not like as an actor. This is different with "Full colors in front of black". I like the story, and I like myself and Senta Berger.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Even though you're playing an older couple and you're almost naked? The camera is very close, showing every fold. Andreas Dresen, the director of "Wolke 9", once said: "The society is getting older, but it lacks the corresponding images."
Bruno Ganz: I have not seen "Cloud 9" yet. But he is right. Sophie (Sophie Heldman, the director) told me these scenes should be, just like that. She wanted to see the body in its vulnerability. We did not go to the limit. Nobody is exposed.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You play Fred, who has cancer, but does not want to be treated and so his wife and children are offended. He says, "I do not want to spend the last years of my life as a patient." Is that selfish?
Bruno Ganz: In our society everything is constantly being talked about, everything is public. I think that you have the right to decide about yourself. His egoism is understandable and also has to do with his illness. Prostate cancer is growing slowly. An operation does not necessarily extend the lifetime, but carries high risks.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: The couple opts for a joint suicide. This is disturbing, among other things, because both are not exactly tired of life. Especially Fred. At the graduation ceremony of his granddaughter, he dances like a young god.
Bruno Ganz: Yes, the dance scene (he laughs). I was skeptical. I rarely dance, it can not really. I had no idea what kind of music is played at such a graduation party, and thought that I would have to take dance lessons for it. Then I came to the shoot and said: Now turn on the music. What a surprise: I found her so horny (Bruno Ganz actually says "awesome") that I immediately felt like moving. The Senta has just curled her nose and seemed a bit hesitant. I said to her: Yes, we are two elderly people, no matter, we throw ourselves in there now. And then she got pleasure too.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: How did you feel about the couple's decision to self-determine the time of his death and kill himself?
Bruno Ganz: There is still a lot of Christian education in me that rejects that. And another shyness, the origin of which is hidden to me, defends itself against it. But I am split and ambivalent.
I can still play death so many times, and yet I'm at a loss as ever.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What's the other side of the coin?
Bruno Ganz: We live in big cities, we move away from nature, we become virtual, we abolish God. It is very autocratic, as we believe, that we could control, govern and control everything. In Zurich there is Dignitas, a kind of euthanasia company. People travel to Switzerland to die - that's quite a touristy aspect for me. On the other hand, I can not say anything against it if someone can not stand it any longer if he wants to die. I think it must be possible and allowed for such people to be helped.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You've been playing people with incurable diseases more often lately - in "A Strong Departure" on the side of Monica Bleibtreu, for example, or as Tiziano Terzani in "The End is My Beginning". So you have dealt a lot with the subject of death ...
Bruno Ganz: Yes, but I can not come to a conclusion. I can still play death so many times, and yet I'm at a loss as ever. More and more often, however, the idea that he can be extremely terrible attacks on me. If I imagine it would happen in the middle of a crowded Zurich tram or Berlin subway, terrible. Yes, this is getting closer and closer. Death bothers me. But it does not crush me.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: And hopefully you will not die in your next movie either.
Bruno Ganz: No (he laughs). But on the contrary. There I play a riding instructor who blows to Hungary with a younger woman.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: That sounds like it was fun.Bruno Ganz: And how! Bruno Ganz looks at the clock. The courtyard garden empties. What's left are a few boule players and a thin sickle moon. In the run we hurry back to the hotel. To the next interview. On the way, on the roadside, sits an accordion player and plays with sad eyes a cheerful melody. Bruno Ganz stops and reaches into the pocket of his coat.
To the person: Bruno Ganz
Bruno Ganz is considered one of the most important German speaking actors. Already at the age of 23, he worked at the Bremen Theater with directors such as Peter Stein and Peter Zadek. The native Swiss wrote theater history in the 70s at the Berlin Schaubühne. Later, with his role as Faust in Stein's 21-hour staging at the Expo 2000. In the meantime, Bruno Ganz has withdrawn from the theater and completely committed to the film. With "The Sky over Berlin", "Bread & Tulips" or "The Downfall" the actor became known to the general public.
