Under the sign of the swastika
Cinematography in Germany began with Babelsberg: last year this studio celebrated its centenary. In the post-Soviet space, there are few such film enterprises as this: the Czech Barrandov and, perhaps, the rapidly growing film complex in Budapest. Although history did not spare the Berlin film studio, in its 100 years it has survived monarchy, the Weimar Republic, Nazism and socialism, nationalization, “people's democracy”, the intoxicating freedom of the early 90s, replaced by the search for a “giving hand”… And now it lives in today's crisis times and even develops. What is its secret?
...Dark alleys of Babelsberg Park, the long and straight as an arrow August Bebel Street, and here is the main entrance to the studio complex (about 25 thousand square meters). At the checkpoint there is a screen showing the names of five international projects currently being filmed in the Berlin suburb. “Are you here for Eike Wolf?” the female security guard inquires, referring to the head of the studio’s press service, and continues with satisfaction: “Last year our business was going so-so, but this year it’s like a flood: filming after filming.”
As we walk to the huge Marlene Dietrich pavilion, one of the first with which the studio began, Eike Wolf explains why without Babelsberg it is impossible to imagine the German cultural landscape of the 20th century and, certainly, German cinema. Back in 1895, two months before the Lumière brothers showed their first short film “The Arrival of a Train” in Paris, at the Berlin Wintergarten palace the Skladanowsky brothers amazed the audience by screening short films using their own invention – the bioscope.
However, the bioscope turned out to be too expensive, and the Lumière projector won the market faster. But already in 1912, in the Berlin suburb of Babelsberg, the summer residence of Prince Wilhelm I, the future Kaiser, one of the first German film companies, Deutsche Bioscope, appeared, which began the history of the Berlin studio. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the studio produced a good hundred films a year, including Fritz Lang's cult “Metropolis”. Incidentally, it became one of Hitler's favorite films. A social thriller about the rich living in luxury and the “lower layer” – workers who spend their entire lives underground, not knowing that there is a bright world, probably reminded the Führer of his ideal of “ordnung”. The film was the most expensive and large-scale project in the history of German silent cinema (11 thousand people took part in the crowd scenes!) and nearly bankrupted the studio…
In 1924, the king of suspense Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of his films here, later admitting that he learned a lot from German directors. Starting in 1933, the studio became the favorite toy of Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich. The artists lived nearby in Babelsberg. A plot of quite cinematic character unfolded here: in one of the cottages hidden in the shadow of a pine forest, Goebbels secretly met with Czech film star Lída Baarová. The affair went so far that the secret became known, and Goebbels' wife Magda asked Hitler to intervene. The beautiful Baarová was ordered to leave Germany as soon as possible, and the Czech woman had to return to her homeland. However, their meetings with Goebbels continued – now at Barrandov, which after the occupation of Czechoslovakia was supervised by the Nazi propaganda minister…
In the service of peace and socialism
After the war, the film studio, named DEFA (short for Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, “German Film Production”), became one of the leading ones in the Eastern Bloc. Over more than 40 years of its existence under communism, about 800 feature films for adults and about 150 children's films were made here. Tamara Trampe, who was an editor and screenwriter for DEFA from 1970 until the studio's closure in 1990, relates:
– At first we made exclusively anti-fascist films – that was the times. But later there was an opportunity to make children's fairy tales, westerns (carbons from American ones), films about Indians (this theme was developed until 1983), television series. Our films were watched throughout the socialist camp, generations grew up with them, as with Mayne Reid or Jules Verne, and we produced, as it seems to me, a worthy product. In other countries of the socialist camp, they envied us – the standard of living in the GDR was higher than that of our neighbors, we were better dressed, went on vacation abroad, as if there were no Iron Curtain. And that the Stasi controlled our every step – who we meet, who we listen to, what we dream about – few knew. And they kept us on a short leash...
One of the first TV series in the GDR was the 1967 film “The Red Mountaineers”. Fritz Diez, better known to Soviet audiences for his role as Adolf Hitler in the film epic “Liberation”, played the main underground anti-fascist fighter. Interestingly, the Poles immediately entered the “socialist competition” and in the same year released the series “Stakes Larger Than Life” about the Polish intelligence officer Captain Kloss with Stanisław Mikulski in the lead role.
Naturally, Big Brother could not lag behind, and in April 1971 in Potsdam and Berlin they began filming one of the first and perhaps the most successful Soviet series – “Seventeen Moments of Spring”. The film was overseen by Yuri Andropov himself, and the task was to “catch up and surpass” so that the heroes of the intelligence services from socialist countries would pale before the image of our Maxim Maximovich Isaev. “Here, in Babelsberg, not far from Potsdam, in his cottage he lived alone” – this is a phrase from the beloved “Moments”. Tourists are still shown one of the cottages that supposedly appeared in the film.
In general, stories related to the cult series have become part of the mythology of Babelsberg. Many former DEFA employees recall the extreme thriftiness that reigned in Tatyana Lioznova's group. The Soviet filmmakers took almost all possible props with them to the GDR, including a Mercedes from the war era. German mechanics looked at the car and skeptically shook their heads… And on the very first day of shooting, the Mercedes broke down, and they had to ask for another car from the DEFA garage. The costume designer, a thrifty woman, brought several dozen boxes of clothing for the film's characters from the Soviet Union. None of it was meant to be washed; dirty costumes were simply sent by train back home.
There were also comical situations: once Vyacheslav Tikhonov left the hotel in a Standartenführer uniform, since the set was within walking distance, but vigilant citizens stopped him and wanted to take him to the police for "propaganda of Nazism." Tikhonov, who could not explain himself to the Germans, was saved by other actors who told the Germans about the film's idea. Since then, the hero of "Seventeen Moments of Spring" became a folklore character, with all the ensuing consequences: anecdotes about the immortal spy circulated around the studio – in the USSR they appeared later...
Speaking about DEFA, Tamara Trampe recalled the studio's most striking couple – Dean Reed and Renate Blume (Soviet viewers knew Renate for her role as Jenny Marx in the film "Karl Marx. The Early Years" and the series "Police Call 110"). She was a beauty, the leading actress of the GDR, one of Erich Honecker's favorites. He was a passionate fighter for peace, a rebel from Colorado nicknamed Red Elvis, much more popular in socialist countries than in his homeland.
Friendship with Honecker opened the doors of DEFA to the American and secured him the best roles – for example, he played Victor Jara in the film "The Singer" (1978). Dean and Renate acted together in the film "Kit & Co." (GDR – ČSSR – USSR), and it was from this collaboration that their tragically severed love began. In July 1986, filming was to begin on "The Bloody Heart," in which Dean Reed had one of the notable roles. But the singer was found lifeless on the shore of the lake where his house stood. The authorities declared it suicide, but the mystery of the singer and actor's death remains unsolved to this day.
"Dean was under the surveillance of the Stasi. Sincere and wholehearted, he truly believed in bright ideals. But when he got to know and became close to the top figures of the GDR and saw that they were actually hardened cynics, I think he broke down. He was planning to return to the USA. Perhaps the Stasi simply prevented that," Tamara Trampe suggests.
Harsh New Times
After German reunification in 1990, DEFA was closed. Renate Blume recalls that representatives from the West German agency responsible for privatizing the former GDR's property appeared, and everyone, down to the secretaries, was thrown out onto the street. According to the actress, everything was done heartlessly and too hastily; two and a half thousand regular employees were left without work: "To merge two countries, two societies that had been isolated from each other for decades overnight proved to be a risky experiment. And after the euphoria came the hangover. I was lucky, I found roles in the theater, but many East German actors simply left the profession. It was all painful and offensive."
During privatization in 1992, the Berlin film studio, then renamed Babelsberg, was bought by the French company Vivendi Universal. The French were lucky: one of the best studios in Europe fell into their hands. They undertook technical re-equipment, investing about 500 million euros. At the end of the 1990s, mainly TV series were filmed here, but the world did not let Germany forget its past: where better than Berlin to shoot war films 50 years after the war? Thus appeared, for example, the film "Enemy at the Gates" by Jean-Jacques Annaud and "The Pianist" by Roman Polanski…
But despite technical modernization and great opportunities, the studio remained unprofitable – Vivendi Universal was losing a million a year, and in 2004 Babelsberg was sold to the German investment group FBB. The new owners corporatized the studio, attracted investors who poured another 8 million euros into equipment, and changed management. Efforts finally began to bear fruit. And 2007 proved to be a turning point – 12 international projects were filmed at Babelsberg, including "Valkyrie" – about the attempt to assassinate Hitler with Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg, "The Reader" with Kate Winslet, "Speed Racer" by the Wachowskis, and others.
The annual output made in Babelsberg ultimately brought 90 million euros in box office revenue, and the studio's net profit was then about 6 million euros. But the following year again proved difficult – after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, many large companies pulled out, and planned projects collapsed like houses of cards. New ways had to be found…
Learning the Business
In the crisis year of 2008, the film studio together with Hollywood heavyweight producer Joel Silver developed a strategic plan for promoting Babelsberg. Now the studio's agents are frequent visitors to Hollywood, working to intercept promising scripts and big-budget projects, persuading directors to film in Berlin. Admittedly, so far only one out of ten projects ends up at Babelsberg, and the studio incurs considerable expenses. However, the strategy remains unchanged and is beginning to yield results.
The record was set in 2011 by the hundred-million-dollar "Cloud Atlas" by Andy and Lana Wachowski with Halle Berry and Tom Hanks. Today Babelsberg is a holding company consisting of 29 companies that undertake production from start to finish. For example, when Quentin Tarantino showed up at the studio with the script for "Inglourious Basterds," it was decided to carry out the entire cycle of work at Babelsberg. However, from the distribution of this contract, the Germans got nothing.
The film “The Reader” was a different story: the studio invested about 20% of the budget and even made some money. “It’s impossible to finance a film from a single source – nobody wants to take risks. It’s much more likely to raise the necessary amount by involving several investor companies, as was done for the films currently being shot here, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ or ‘Reykjavik’,” explains one of the studio’s directors, Carl Woebcken.
The Berlin studio can also count on a state program to support the domestic film industry. Tarantino, who spent 40 million euros on ‘Inglourious Basterds’, received 9 million in tax rebates. The German Film Fund (DFFA) reimburses filmmakers 16 to 20% of costs if at least a quarter of the budget was spent in Germany. If more than 35% of the film was shot here, producers can apply for a government grant of 4 to 10 million euros.
For Western Europe, this is significant: Germans give back the most. But in Hungary, where Korda Film Studios were built last year near Budapest for $76 million, foreign film crews are guaranteed a 20% budget return. Considering that average salaries in Hungary are much lower than in Germany (so extras and services need to be paid almost half as much), and that in Budapest you can film London, Paris or Rome – the architecture allows it – then the Berlin studio’s chances in competition with the Hungarians or the Czechs from ‘Barrandov’ are not very high.
“I don’t want to offend my colleagues in Eastern Europe, but the quality of our sets and materials is higher. Many craftsmen have been working here for over 40 years, so the biggest pride of Babelsberg is not that Tom Cruise or Kate Winslet shoot here. The main thing is that our best specialists stay with us. We can prepare sets that are not bad at all: for ‘Anonymous’, dedicated to the mysterious story of Shakespeare, for example, they cost 10 million euros, and then several other films used the ‘Shakespeare’ corner of the studio. Even if filming here is more expensive than in Eastern Europe, you can save due to better organization: we will need fewer shooting days,” assures the head of the press service of Babelsberg.
Yes, the technical equipment of the studio premises (Wi‑Fi everywhere) or the ultra-modern audio studio are objects of justified pride for Babelsberg. In 2011, for example, the first German 3D film, ‘The Three Musketeers’, was shot here; the studio can offer green/blue screen technology, where actors are filmed against green or blue backgrounds and then computer effects are added. About 130 media companies are concentrated around the studio, which participate in promoting films. And the annual Berlinale adds glamour to Berlin… The studio also invests in the Potsdam Film Museum and an amusement park to attract tourists to Babelsberg – all means are good when it comes to potential profit.
…Last year, Babelsberg’s profit amounted to 535,000 euros. This is not a brilliant result, essentially just break-even. But in a crisis, even that is an achievement.