Munich, Hotel Bayerischer Hof: Oliver Masucci, born 1968 in Stuttgart, welcomes a relaxed conversation about his new film: He plays the leading role in “Schachnovelle”.
With “Schachnovelle” director Philipp Stölzl staged the last work by Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) for the cinema;
Oliver Masucci plays the leading role.
In the interview it becomes clear how much this subject concerns the actor, who long belonged to the ensemble of the Vienna Burgtheater, embodied Rainer Werner Fassbinder in “Enfant Terrible” (2020) and became internationally known through the Netflix series “Dark”.
His first encounter with Zweig's novella was not exactly easy for the son of an Italian and a German, he says.
When did you first come across Stefan Zweig's work?
Oliver Masucci:
That was when
I
was at school - and it was involuntary.
Because at the time I had the feeling that I didn't speak the German language and that I am actually an Italian child of foreigners.
I was often teased with that.
In response, I pushed German away from me because I thought: I can't do that, I'm Italian.
Were you worried that the texts would overwhelm you?
Oliver Masucci:
Yes.
If you are marginalized, at some point you will take up such a position and marginalize yourself.
I thought: Oh no, I'm the Itaker, my papa can't, I can't.
Nobody in my family had a high school diploma;
I did not have a bourgeois education and was the first in our country to go to high school.
When did your relationship to German-language literature change?
Oliver Masucci:
It took me to trust myself to do it.
When I had to read aloud at school, the sentences dissolved into words and the words into letters for me, which then danced in my head.
That changed when my German teacher brought me into the theater group.
By moving into other roles, I was suddenly able to speak freely.
At the drama school, I first had to read through everything that I had pushed away at school.
At that time, for example, television, which at that time only produced nonsense, was a long way off for me.
I wanted to be where the lyrics are.
How was the re-encounter with the “Schachnovelle” for Philipp Stölzl's film?
Oliver Masucci:
I read it on the flight to the casting and wasn't sure if I really wanted to deal with schizophrenia.
Because when it comes to this topic, you can't just put on a face.
I also have schizophrenia in my family, my Italian uncle hears voices from his childhood and we haven't gotten to him for many years.
You then automatically think about whether you have the disposition to do so yourself.
What made you decide to take on the role anyway?
Oliver Masucci:
The fact that schizophrenia is the excuse a soul chooses when the suffering is so great that a person can no longer bear it.
Then you look for a parallel universe in which you can exist.
My character, Dr.
Bartok, ultimately wins through schizophrenia against her tormentor, the Nazi - at the price of her wits.
That's the exciting thing about this figure.
How do you characterize Dr. Bartok?
Oliver Masucci:
Bartok is a fighter who doesn't want to give in to perish.
It is not about the money entrusted to him by his clientele, which he wants to hide from the Nazis.
He is interested in the uncouth manners of these people - he is not a resistance fighter.
But?
Oliver Masucci:
A man from the people who is wronged - and he reacts by saying to the Nazi commandant: You are such an asshole, such a rude booze - I don't want to submit to you.
It's something very personal.
The only way out is to escape into schizophrenia.
He plays Russian Roulette for the price of his own wits.
The film looks much deeper into the abyss than Stefan Zweig does ...
Oliver Masucci:
Yes, that was the premise.
You can never film literature one-to-one - you have to make a choice.
Plus, you're seducing the audience in a way that the template doesn't.
We take the audience on a journey.
It is striking how precisely the details of this trip are designed. We see, for example, how more and more cigarettes are collecting in the night box, so that everyone knows how long Bartok has been held captive ...
Oliver Masucci:
The cigarettes in the night box were set from the start.
The script was very elaborate.
Stölzl is a director who comes from the stage design: a visual guy who has prepared incredibly intensively for the project.
Bartok has cigarettes but no fire. Snap your finger in the roll as if you were holding a lighter.
Oliver Masucci:
The flick was created at the moment.
That's the icing on the cake that the actor can add to such a carefully crafted script.
Dominik Graf has just filmed Kästner's “Fabian”, Stölzl the “Schachnovelle” and Detlev Buck the “Felix Krull”. Is it a coincidence that these three great texts of the German-language literature of the 20th century are coming to the screen right now?
Oliver Masucci:
I don't know whether we can draw conclusions about our time from this.
These substances are always there.
Zweig and Kästner tell of the rise of National Socialism - and with it of the strengthening of extremes ...
Oliver Masucci:
I don't think the creative minds say: Oh, the discourse in Germany has become more acute, let's do “Fabian” or the “Schachnovelle”.
But of course we as viewers look for the connection with today.
And it's true: disputes have become more radical - also due to Corona and the vaccination debate.
That scares me, I don't like extremes.
But we live in a time that is very polarized.
Can art work against it here?
Oliver Masucci:
Yes. Art has to name things. But that's difficult because these days you are pushed in one direction very quickly. Unfortunately, art sometimes does that by itself, it excludes itself. I once played the Fassbinder: He couldn't be classified into left or right, but simply observed social processes and thought about them. Such people who look at our lives through the electron microscope are rare at the moment. Today everything is pushed into drawers or corners far too quickly. We as a society have to be careful that we don't demonize people whose opinions differ from the assumed mainstream.