BENNO FURMANN Climbing the North Face

If there’s something that distinguishes a new wave of German-born acting talent, it’s the risks these performers will take in the name of their art. Consider Thomas Kretschmann giving sympathy to a Nazi officer in The Pianist, Til Schweiger taking to the skies as The Red Baron, or Michael Fassbender wasting away to nothing as IRA martyr Bobby Sands in Hunger. But few Teutonic travails for the sake of cinema can match Benno Furmann’s latest adventure in his native land, as he puts all of his nerves, muscle, and emotion into one of most astonishing, and true mountaineering tales in anyone’s language.

The saga of Toni Kurz is on majestic display in North Face, which shows the real triumph, and tragedy that helped drive the “mountain” films that were a staple of German cinema during the 1920s and ’30s. But none of that set-bound nationalistic fervor could compare to the real dangers, and glory, faced by adventurers like Kurz and his best friend Andreas (Florian Lukas). Though both men might despise the Nazis, that matters naught to the devouring eye of the gathered German press, who see their climb up the Eiger’s north face as a triumph for The Fatherland. But their media circus turns into a deathwatch, as the mistakes of a Fascistloving Austrian team bring Toni and Adreas to the abyss between life and death. Pushed beyond the bounds of human exhaustion, their struggle assumes tragically operatic dimensions, one made even more harrowing by the fact that it’s essentially Furmann following Kurz’s perilous footsteps and desperate grips for real — a terrifying commitment to the part that might elevate this actor to the highest peak ever reached by an actor playing a mountaineer.

But then, you might say there’s always been something a bit haunted, and tense about this Berliner’s unique charisma. Furmann appeared in several German films before going to New York City in 1991 to truly get schooled in life, working as a bouncer and taking acting lessons at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Numerous films and television shows followed Furmann’s return to Germany, but it would be 2000’s The Princess and the Warrior that truly broke him out as an international “shooting star.” In 2003, Furmann got his biggest English language part as a supernatural “sin eater” opposite Heath Ledger in The Order. Furmann then made another worldwide impression as a German soldier, whose haunting voice helps create the Christmas Truce of WW1 in Joyeux Noel. American audiences have since seen Furmann as Inspector Detector in Speed Racer, then as a sword wielding soldier in the effects extravaganza Mutant Chronicles. This year, Furmann will return to the arena of World War One, but as a German POW on English soil in Jon Amiel’s Angel Makers.

But this month, it’s all about the perilous nooks and crannies that mean life or death on The North Face, which arguably stands as the actor’s most impressive film, and work to date — a mix of mountaineering reality and top-notch effects that certainly put Benno Furmann into the part.

Venice: They say people climb a mountain because it’s there. Was that why you wanted to make North Face?

Benno Furmann: Each one of us has a different calling. And I found it very philosophical about why some of them go up into the mountains. They test their wills, they test their bodies, and do what they do because of who they are. The guys in North Face wanted to do the impossible, and they paid so bitterly for it. For me as an actor, there are certain films that you just have to do. I’m a passionate outdoors person who likes to read the stories about the great adventurers of history. I was aware of this story because I’d seen the photographs of Toni Kurz hanging there. And making a film about him was a dream come true. It also made us confront problems we’d never dealt with before, because none of us had made a mountaineering movie before. So we had to start preparing for it right away, since we’d be going to the French Alps and Turkey to do technical climbing with this old equipment. Making North Face was a long, difficult, and joyful process.

They actually took pictures of Toni hanging there?

Yes. Today, you’d think it would be pretty crazy that he wasn’t rescued. Toni died seven meters diagonally to the point where they could have gotten to him. But you didn’t have helicopters or cell phones back then, none of the technological shebang. So it’s absurd from today’s perspective the way he had to die. And that loneliness was captured in this one photo they shot from the tunnel in the mountain. It’s a brutal and cold photo of a corpse grown over with ice.

How do you get yourself into that physical state? I’ve seen films where characters were exhausted, but never to the point you so convincingly get across here as Toni tries desperately to get rescued.

To imagine the loneliness and devastation that Toni went through, spiced up with the temperature and the fatigue, is a dreadful situation to be in. I felt for it very strongly for Toni, and to give it all I had. And the cold and discomfort you have while shooting a scene like that only helps your performance.

During the time of North Face, you had all of Leni Riefenstahl’s “mountain films” going on, which inspired real-life races to get to the top. Did you watch any of these pictures to prepare for your role?

Not really. The movies back then were very stylized. It was more like watching opera than actively being part of ascending a summit. You had this heightened kind of “reality” of mountains shimmering in the blue light. And that’s not what we wanted to do in North Face. We wanted to give the audience the feeling of how hard a rock is if you bang against it, how cold it is to grab a piece of ice, and how your hands hurt if you’re pulling on your last bit of rope. And I’m pleased that audiences don’t notice the connecting pieces between the studio and shooting at the mountain locations. It all goes together to be a believable, physical film.

Did you ever get into any life-threatening situations while shooting North Face?

There was a moment that I have to laugh about now. Mountain people tend to be a very careful lot. Their job is to take you up and down alive, which is how they make their money. And the more people that die, the worse their reputation gets. No one will hire you if you killed five people already. So the guys on the film took excellent care of us. But I remember one time I climbed down, where there were many ropes for so many people, from the film crew to the actors. Then after I’m down five meters, I hear one guy say, “Benno, don’t freak out, but your rope isn’t attached. You’re on the wrong one. Can you come up again?” I swear to you, I’ve never climbed so carefully, step by step, to the point where I’d come from! But nothing else like that happened on the shoot, knock on wood. We always knew that there was a hot bath waiting for us after a long day’s work. But that never happened for the people we’re portraying, who had one of the most brutal endings I’ve ever heard about in the mountaineering world, and in general.

When you watch films like this about the rise of the Nazis, the German heroes like Toni and Andreas reluctantly wear the uniform, while despising the party. Do you think you could ever do a film like this where the characters were heroic, as well as Nazi true believers?

No. I think there’s too much attached to it. And as an audience, if you knew someone was actively part of the machinery that was sheer evil, then you’d have a hard time feeling their personal pain, especially since that character would have so little feeling for the pain of others. Sure, there are films where you have antiheroes, characters who are being sidetracked into doing something wrong. But if the acting and directing are doing it right, then you still get a feeling for the person who amounts to more than his wrong actions. But in terms of Nazis, that’s very tough to do. I wouldn’t want to be a “good guy” like that, since it would be very hard to make an audience feel for their tragedy, especially if we’re talking about people who supported what went on in the concentration camps.

I think Christoph Waltz’s “Jew Hunter” in Inglourious Basterds is as close as a “loveable” Nazi that we’ll get.

You love him because he’s so wrong. But he’s a caricature in an over-the-top film. And Christoph Waltz’s performance is tremendous. You love to watch him because he’s so evil. And Inglourious Basterds doesn’t go with the standards of a classical drama to begin with. It’s a western popcorn picture spiced up with swastikas.

I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this, but there’s certainly an interesting metaphor here about two Germans trying to make it up the mountain. They don’t want to be Nazis. And the two people who lethally screw it up for them are Austrians, climbers who hail from Hitler’s home country. It’s another example of Austria messing up Germany.

I know exactly what you’re saying, but I think it’s more of a coincidence that Hitler’s Austrian. The people who are going to die shouldn’t be these particular Germans, but it’s just the way it happened. The Austrians, who were supported by the Germans, were teaming up with Toni and Andreas on the mountain wall. You don’t know why, because the people from the hotel could only see them through the magnifying glass. Maybe some of the Austrians were wounded, and they didn’t make it either.

In the end, do you think there’s something in the German blood that makes them want to climb these mountains?

No. I think that happens with anyone in the world who lives close to a mountain. It’s because they live in the valleys below these peaks that they want to widen their horizons by traveling up and beyond the mountains. It’s the same kind of natural impulse that you’d have if you live close to the sea. You’ll travel to see what’s on the ,other side. So if you live close to a mountain, you’ll travel up them to extend your world. I don’t think that’s a German theme.

You got your acting start in New York City with Lee Strasberg’s Institute.

Yes. I found New York to be a good place, and a lot of good things came out of that city. It was a fantastic time of my life. I set the goal for myself to become an actor. I went to drama school every day, where I failed and got up again. I fell in love with the city, and it was a very important part of my becoming who I am. So I cherish my New York years.

The first film that got you real notice was Tom Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior.

You have a handful of films that you do that you find important, and The Princess and the Warrior is one of the dearest to me, especially because it was the first film of mine to go to international film festivals like Venice and Toronto.

Another film that brought you international acclaim is Joyeux Noel, where your singer is one of the only soldiers in the movie who survives the World War I trenches.

People still give me Christmas trees wherever I go because of it! Audiences loved the film, especially in France and Germany. They’d come to me after the screenings and show me handwritten letters that their great-uncles and grandfathers had sent from the front. They’d tell their personal stories about what happened to them at Christmas Day when they spontaneously called truces. In a way, those soldiers were like the first hippies. They didn’t want to follow this road to war anymore, and their actions were gutsy and courageous. They said, “What are we doing? This is fucking stupid.” And they reached out to each other to celebrate Christmas, the festival of love, instead of firing bullets at each other. The movie is about the facts of what happened, about the hope. That’s a beautiful thing. And even though my character has special status as a singer, he wants to be at the front. He doesn’t want special treatment, because he feels that he’s part of something.

For me, one of your best, and most unsung roles is playing the immortal sin eater opposite Heath Ledger’s priest in The Order.

I flew to London to meet the writer and director Brian Helgeland. He liked me, although the studio wanted someone else. But he asked me to fly to Rome to do another audition anyway, even though I didn’t want to impose myself on a studio that wanted someone else. C’est la vie! But thankfully, I did the Rome trip, and they called me up to do the film. It was fantastic to work with Heath Ledger in Rome, in this ancient city that put out this vibe for us. I mean, how do you prepare for a role like that! You have to travel a road that’s strictly in your imagination. It was a shoot I enjoyed very much.

Like The Order, I wish more people saw Mutant Chronicles. Your futuristic Lieutenant did a kick-ass job with a sword.

I like swords and martial arts, all of that physical stuff. Since the film was low budget, a lot of it was improvised. But then, how do you shoot a film with so many green screen effects? There was barely a thing there. I even had more props doing Speed Racer with the Wachowski brothers. And that was a film that almost had literally nothing on the film stage besides a desk. Making Mutant Chronicles was like being on a theater stage really, where you pretend the room is there. But that’s the fun of it. You get together with actors to fire up your imagination to create this world. Mutant Chronicles was a bit like being a grownup child. ‘I have two Uzis and my sword, and I’m going to accomplish the mission.’ It was fun to do this kind of comic strip movie.

When you look at other German actors who’ve made it big in Hollywood, what do you think is the key to success for them?

I really don’t know, because I’m not successful enough in Hollywood to be answering that question yet. After all, if you’re shooting an American western, why would you hire Benno Furmann? But I’m always happy to be making movies here, especially because it’s so interesting when people from different countries get together to work creatively. They share a similar, artistic language that’s easy to understand.

Well, hopefully, you’re climbing that Hollywood mountain.

Thank you very much! ▼