15.
September
Thursday 15th September 2022
Author: Hartmut E. Lange
Narrator: Krista Posch
Illustration: Tobias Kubald
Publisher: Susi Weichselbaumer
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A break during the filming of a film set in Bavaria. The director, the cameraman and the main actor break away from the team and discuss the next scene. A cell phone rings. The cameraman takes out his smartphone. WITHOUT looking at the display it says: Sorry, I have to answer this – Hollywood! Of course, neither Universal Studios nor Warner Brothers get in touch, it’s his daughter. The dream of a career in Hollywood – always good for a joke. But sometimes it comes true.
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Filming in Hollywood
Berlinale 1981. The curtain closes at the Zoo Palast, thunderous applause resounds: for the opening film “Raging Bull”, and for director Martin Scorsese. In the audience there is also cameraman Michael Ballhaus. He whispers in his wife’s ear: I’d like to shoot with that. Decades later he writes in his memoirs: It was like wishing you could go to the moon.
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Ballhaus plays in the top flight of West German cinema, famous directors have benefited from its expressive images, in particular Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He made 16 films with Ballhaus – they are also known in America.
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Two years after. Ballhaus is shooting in Portugal when he rings the phone in his hotel room. And then, on the other side of the Atlantic, Martin Scorsese asks if Ballhaus would like to make his next film. Scorsese is struck by the dynamic imagination of the German. And he knows that Fassbinder used to have tight budgets, but Ballhaus has always made great cinematic works of art. Scorsese needs such a comrade in arms because he is in crisis.
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His latest films have been praised by critics but despised by the public: two financial flops! Scorsese is in desperate need of a win. The film on the program: a comedy. The place: Manhattan. The budget: modest – 4 million dollars. The task: huge. Only 40 days of shooting! Scorsese has 500 shots planned for “After Hours”. This means 12 to 14 settings per day. I usually go around 5 to 6 years old, he admits with a questioning look at Ballhaus. The Berliner nods: We can do it!
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Small film, great career
“After Hours” was released in American theaters on September 15, 1985. The film is not a blockbuster, but it has grossed more than double the production costs. Scorsese not only wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but – above all – the confidence of the producers.
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For Ballhaus, the film becomes a ticket to Hollywood. On the west coast, word has spread that Scorsese has this fast and efficient German cinematographer. From now on, Ballhaus will tour with the big names in the industry: Francis Ford Coppola, Wolfgang Petersen, Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese again and again.
32 films in 20 years, he was nominated for an Oscar three times.
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Even pop stars just want to be photographed by the best. Ballhaus shoots music videos for Madonna and Bruce Springsteen and a 90-minute video for Prince. The film is called “Under The Cherry Moon” and was panned by the press. A critic thinks: if there is a reason to watch this film, it is because Michael Ballhaus photographed it.
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