"The Counterfeiters" is the Oscar-nominated true story of the biggest counterfeiting operation in history -- one that was run out of a concentration camp during WWII. The Nazis took prisoners who were expert in engraving and printing and put them to work counterfeiting British pound notes, so that they could destabilize the British economy. The film is based on a memoir written by Adolf Burger, a printer and communist who worked on Operation Bernhard and helped to sabotage its efforts to counterfeit dollar bills.
I spoke with writer-director Stefan Ruzowitsky and Karl Markovics, who played the leading character, master forger Salomon (Solly) Sorowitsch.
It seemed to me that the title of the movie had many layers of meaning. The prisoners were making counterfeit currency but everyone in the movie was counterfeiting in some way. The prisoners and even the Nazi in charge of the operation were all pretending to be something they were not.
SR: This is something interesting, the thing that intrigued me for the first time about the story and the main character of Solly: Will he be able to counterfeit reality himself?
How did the idea of this movie get started?
In Germany and Austria this is not a well known story. It was a strange coincidence. Two producers within a couple of days approached me with the same story, each not knowing about the other. I felt this was destiny. This is how this German-Austrian co-production came about. The German producers bought the memoir of Berger [the printer] but I right away loved the idea of [Solly], a crook, a jailbird in a concentration camp; this is a perspective that I don't know yet that would be interesting.
The memoir is from the young communist, who was one of the youngest inmates and was a good friend of Solly's and for the last decades been traveling doing lectures, to tell his story.
Why did you decide to begin the movie the way you did, letting the audience know that Solly survives the concentration camp?
SR: I did not understand why I did it myself at first. It was instinctive. It starts with the ultimate happy ending, a guy after six years of a concentration camp arrives in a beautiful resort, meets a beautiful woman, with pockets full of money, and asks himself "did I deserve it, did I compromise too much, did I get too close to evil?" I wanted it to be compelling and suspenseful but not about whether he will live or go to the gas chamber. I wanted to make the suspense in how he will survive.
How has the movie been received in Germany?
SR: They don't [respond to holocaust movies]. The only country where it does not work is Germany. It made three times as much box office in the UK as it did in Germany, which is remarkable given that it is a German movie, German language, German actors. It is a misconception to say that they do not want to face the guilt. These are the grandchildren. Our generation is aware of the dimension of the crimes. We know there is a responsibility but it is difficult to know how to deal with it. [They ask] "What do I do with this knowledge?"
Karl, tell me about Sally, the character you play.
KM: I loved him at once. Really, I loved the script and I loved the character, as if I had waited a lifetime to get a character like this one, a real gift. Normally you get even in good scripts a raw model and you have a feeling there is much room to create. Here it was rather "Can I get familiar with the person which is done? It is really here in front of me. How can I be able not to seem but to be this character?"
And how do you approach that task? Do you do a lot of research?
KM: How I make it work I cannot tell; I never really ask myself when it works why it works. There are only sort of explanations. I started my career in mime theater so all my access to acting is emotional and through the body. It is not intellectual, not method, but impulsive and more animal. In every character the most important thing is between the lines, the unspoken, the way the character listens. To me what is important is not the guy who is talking but the guy who is listening.
What I look for most is when you have an over-the-shoulder shot, when all you see is the back of the character -- is he acting or is he just standing there? Does he have the tension or not? That is much more interesting than if he presents his lines well.
What do you look for in the projects you take on? Is there one theme you find yourself returning to over and over again?
SR: I did not think about it at the time, but in retrospect it's always this thing of the conflict between idealism and pragmatism. I work in very different genres. My last one was a children's movie, I did a horror movie, but still there are certain things that you will find again and again. There are always strong women in my movies, I always like to work with ensembles and groups, friendship is an important thing for me. And in none of my movies do you have a discussion of problems of relationships between men and women, which means that my relationship to my wife works well so I don't want it in my movies either.
KM: My work is the opposite of my private life, all the things I would not do and don't like to do in private. In private I am boring, bourgeois, and I love it. I am not in the bohemian cafes in Vienna but at home painting my walls, reading, cooking, driving my children to school. But in the movies there is the second life, there is the conception. As Stefan told me there is always the most important thing the relationship between me and you, the person on the other side which gives you a proof of existence, even the enemy, the mother, the beloved. It is very philosophical, but everybody is his own universe and sometimes we feel very lonesome because we are trapped in ourself, and the only way out is you, the person on the other side.
How does Sally change over the course of the film?
KM: At the beginning when we first see him he is easy-going but with no close relations, not even women. "I am my world and I feel well in this world, and I need you for having a good life. I ask how can I use you, but don't want you to come too close to me. I want to see everything but show nothing." In the camp for maybe the first time in his life he has to come into relation with other persons and decide if he wants or not to take responsibility for them. If his skills work, the others live for a certain time longer, life insurance for a certain extent. Everyone comes into relation with him and they know he is the one they need. This is much too close for him. Of course, even the boy in the train, he limits his involvement or tries to. But then he has a son, whether he intended to or not.
Tell me about the experience of making the movie. How do you keep enough of a distance from the tragedy to be able to tell the story?
SR: There is a romantic idea that every shooting day the whole team meets and weeps together about the tragedy of the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, it helps you a lot that you have all these professional procedures to do, pragmatic decisions, costumes, make-up. There were two moments when I felt the whole team was emotionally struck. One was when the normal inmates appear. The other was the day when we shot the scene of the party and the last counterfeiter was still alive was visiting the set. We all realized that it was about more than make-up and costumes; we're reconstructing a situation where friends of theirs have been killed and tortured.
What were some of the films that influenced and inspired you?
SR: Hollywood film of course, then when I was in high school I saw every Fassbinder movie. The films I like, European and American, try to be accessible but at the same time not become all silly.
KM: Brazil 
What is the best part of being nominated for an Oscar?
SR: It is wonderful! I like the idea very much that the Academy is the group of the finest film-makers, craftsmen, people you've looked up to all your life. It means more to me than a group of six jury members at a festival.
KM: I'm hoping to meet Gene Hackman.
What makes you laugh?
KM: My family! My son age 17, and daughter 15. It is never boring being at home and having dinner.
SR: I recently saw again La Cage Aux Folles
Photo credit: Richard Smith
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