Interview: Maria Schrader on Directing Austrian Oscar Submission 'Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe'
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 7:01PM By Jose Solis
Two years after The Grand Budapest Hotel put Stefan Zweig’s writing at the center of the Oscar race, the author himself now is the protagonist of Austria’s submission Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe. Directed by Maria Schrader, the film focuses on Zweig’s exile in South America after fleeing Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s, played with gravitas by Josef Hader, Zweig becomes one of the most powerful male characters of the year, in a performance that works on an intellectual as well as visceral level. Audiences who only know Schrader from her acting work, in films like Aimee & Jaguar, will be caught off guard by her elegant sense of framing, her impeccable pacing and the way she engages the viewer by avoiding going into any biopic stereotypes. I spoke to her about making the film, working with Hader, and what an Oscar nomination could mean for the film.
JOSE: This was a very hard movie to watch after the American election.
MARIA SCHRADER: Should I take that as a compliment?
JOSE: Yes!
MARIA SCHRADER: (Laughs)
JOSE: It’s the kind of movie we need to watch more than ever! When you first set out to make it were you inspired by the rise of the right in European politics for instance?
MARIA SCHRADER: No, the film took a long time to make, I had the idea in 2011, the co-writer, producers and I knew that stories of exodus and radicalizing would be relevant forever because people keep repeating themselves. But we didn’t count on this kind of actuality we face now. We finished shooting in the summer of 2015 and then we had all these blocks of refugees arriving in Europe, which in a way was the opposite of what happened 70 years ago when millions of people left the continent. Now Europe seems to offer hope for many people, they want to be on the right side of the Mediterranean. You can never predict things like these.
There’s a scene where we hear about all the great thinkers and writers who left Europe during the Nazi regime, people like Thomas Mann, Bertol Brecht, Albert Einstein, Zweig of course. Who do you think are the modern equivalents of those thinkers?
I do believe we have those thinkers now, intellectuals who stood up in Austria when all they had were right wing candidates and a green candidate. Lots of those writers named in the movie were accused of not writing about what was going on, they kept writing novels. One of the great voices I follow today is Slavoj Žižek, he meets Zweig when he says it’s important to withdraw. Everyone has an opinion and interfering in public discussion has become so easy that it’s meaningless as Žižek calls it, it’s just trying to cover the vacuum of real democracy. Withdraw and the bigger picture will show that things like the Trump election will hopefully create a stronger democratic force.
In the film people demand an opinion from Zweig. As an artist have you ever felt that audiences expect too much from artists, are artists obligated to share their political beliefs?
I don’t think there are such obligations, there are thousands of ways to deal with it. Zweig was not a non-political person, people knew his stance, but he refused to attack and he was a master of nuances, refusing to say if something was black or white. I find it questionable that he refuses to condemn Hitler’s Germany, but at the same time in the film I show about speeches that were given that we have never heard about. Zweig’s work was very political, maybe his work had a bigger impact, things like The Royal Game might have been more powerful for instance than speaking up, joining a talk show or clicking to like things. I respect people who refuse to join talk shows and put complex things in two minute speeches, we need people who resist this and choose to look at complexity.
Your screenplay was very nuanced too, you give Josef Hader the gift of finding his character in moments of silence, rather than big speeches. It’s a quiet performance that speaks so loudly! What was it like to work with him?
It’s beautiful when you put it that way, I’m very touched. Josef Hader is a superstar in Austria, he’s a stand up comedian who is also very popular in Germany. He’s very sharp tongued, ironic, bright and funny in a very intellectual way. He started writing screenplays and in movies embodies the same kind of persona he has onstage, so when he took on this part it was a sensation. He had never worn historic clothes for instance, he’s so popular that the character is more like an encounter between Zweig and Hader, they’re both equally prominent figures from different centuries. I’d call it a casting coup, some people never thought he’d be able to do it, but the film was quite successful. I hoped he would do the film because it would help us avoid the idea of a biopic, I knew Josef would bring what was needed to make this an encounter between intellectuals. Josef told me he mostly says no to projects he can’t control, but he understood why I wanted him to make the film. He knows of wanting to be an island as an artist, and asking to give opinions. We didn’t do much to prepare, we talked, he read a lot, did his own research. We went over the script for weeks, he took French and Spanish lessons and we just talked through the process.
Are you excited about the prospect of an Oscar nomination?
I’m very happy that Austria picked the movie, it was also submitted for the Golden Globes. I went through this process as an actress in Aimee & Jaguar, and were nominated for the Globes. There are so many aspects influencing this procedure, campaigning and all that. I’m happy to show the film in America and I’d be happy to be in the shortlist, but most of all I really want people to watch the movie. The beautiful thing is that wherever I’ve taken the movie, it already feels like home, it’s not a “foreign movie” because the story we talk about is about exile, a heritage we share all over the world.
Other Foreign Film Oscar Interviews
Singapore - Boo Junfeng on the prison drama The Apprentice
Cuba - Pavel Giroud on the Havana HIV drama The Companion
South Korea - Kim Jee-woon on The Age of Shadows
Finland on the boxing drama The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki
Italy - Gianfranco Rosi on the prize-winning Fire at Sea
Foreign Film Contender Reviews
Death in Sarajevo - Bosnia & Herzegovina | Neruda - Chile | Mother - Estonia | Elle - France | Toni Erdmann - Germany | The Salesman - Iran | Chevalier - Greece | Sand Storm - Israel | Fire at Sea - Italy | Desierto - Mexico | A Flickering Truth - New Zealand | Apprentice - Singapore | Age of Shadows- South Korea | Julieta - Spain | My Life as a Courgette - Switzerland | Under the Shadow - UK | From Afar - Venezuela
Reader Comments (3)
I want to see this. Zweig wrote Letter from an Unknown Woman, and the adaptation with Joan Fontaine is the best movie of the 40's.
I had to look it up, but this is the same Maria Schrader who played the manipulative aunt in the German TV show DEUTSCHLAND 83, which popped up on the IFC channel in Summer 2015. Very enjoyable show. I've read that the showrunners plan to jump ahead to 1986 for the second season, but don't know when they plan to start up again.
I'm not a big fan of biopics but this one is excellent. Funny, thought-provoking and moving!