Michael Ballhaus

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Michael Ballhaus (2007)

Michael Ballhaus (born August 5, 1935 in Berlin ; † April 11, 2017 there ) was a German cameraman who is considered one of the most important cameramen in German and international film. Ballhaus worked for German television in the 1960s and at the end of the decade became Rainer Werner Fassbinder's regular cameraman , with whom he made 15 films. In 1982 he went to the United States , later to Hollywood , where he became one of the most sought-after cameramen with his efficient, creative and at the same time sensitive way of working. He shot with many important US directors such as Martin Scorsese , Francis Ford Coppola , Robert Redford and Wolfgang Petersen . In 2007 he announced his retirement from Hollywood and since then has devoted himself to various projects such as promoting and training young talent.

Life

His parents were the theater actors Oskar Ballhaus and Lena Hutter , co-founders and until her death principal of the Franconian Theater Schloss Maßbach, named after its current venue . Through her he came to film through the theater. As a child he lived in Berlin, from 1943 in Coburg , where his parents founded the Coburg cultural group. He spent his youth in Wetzhausen in Lower Franconia , where in 1948 his parents had found a first permanent home for their private theater. Here he took part in a large family as an “artist commune” in many conversations at the dinner table about art. He made his first photographs of the stage sets and scenes of the theater performances, which were intended for the press.

Ballhaus was allowed to watch the filming of the film Lola Montez up close in 1955 . The director of this film was the family friend, Max Ophüls , and the cameraman was the French Christian Matras . This experience led him to decide to become a cameraman himself. After two years of training as a photographer in Würzburg, Ballhaus began working as a camera assistant at Südwestfunk (SWF) in Baden-Baden in 1959 . There was no training as a cameraman at the time. His first work was the television film O Wildnis (broadcast: December 12, 1959) for the SWF ; Ballhaus rose to the position of chief cameraman there within the next six years. During this time he met the director Peter Lilienthal , whose early films he photographed. His first film there was made for Lilienthal ( Abschied , 1965). Until 1967 he was chief cameraman at SWF. In 1968 he shot his first feature film, the comedy Several times a day with Dieter Hallervorden . Between 1967 and 1970, he taught for the first time at the Film and Television Academy Berlin until 1970 by his second feature film your caresses Ulli Lommel met, which in turn him with Rainer Werner Fassbinder brought together. The first film for Fassbinder was the southern melodrama Whity , which was released on June 2, 1971. Ballhaus made 15 films with Fassbinder alone, which made him known on the film scene beyond Germany and also opened doors for him in the USA.

United States

Well-known directors became aware of him through work on several independent productions in the USA. Again it was a directorial work for Lilienthal ( Dear Mr. Wonderful , 1982), which took place in New York, and then opened his way to the USA through John Sayles (Baby It's You) . From the film The Time After Midnight 1985 he was the director of photography for Martin Scorsese . His efficient and at the same time creative way of working made him a sought-after cameraman. Michael Ballhaus was the director of images in over 80 films. He worked with Mike Nichols , Volker Schlöndorff , Wolfgang Petersen , Francis Ford Coppola , Jeanine Meerapfel and Peter Stein , among others . In 1988, he received his first Oscar nomination for his work on News Fever. Two years later he was nominated again for The Fabulous Baker Boys . He received a third nomination in 2003 for Gangs of New York . In 2007, Michael Ballhaus was the first German to receive the coveted prize for his life's work from the American Society of Cinematographers (American Association of Cinematographers).

Projects

At the Berlinale 2006

In 1996 Ballhaus took over the department management for the camera course at the Hamburg Media School (at that time still a postgraduate course in film ). In cooperation with Achim Poulheim , he continued this activity even after the HMS moved.

On the sidelines of the Berlinale in February 2007, Michael Ballhaus announced his retirement from Hollywood to primarily produce and teach films in the future. Ballhaus had already passed on his experience to young cameramen as a regular guest at the Berlinale and as a lecturer at the Berlinale Talent Campus and the German Film and Television Academy Berlin . In the same year he also worked on the Ballhaus project , an initiative for climate protection, which used cinema and television commercials to encourage the economical use of energy.

From 2010 until his death he was head of the camera department at the University of Television and Film Munich . In 2010 he was a visiting professor at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg .

In 2014 he retired from the film business. On March 11, 2014, Ballhaus made public that he has had glaucoma since 1996 and is progressively going blind; reading is no longer possible for him. On March 17, 2014 Michael Ballhaus published his autobiography Bilder im Kopf - The Story of My Life , which he wrote together with co-author Claudius Seidl .

family

With his autobiography at the Leipzig Book Fair 2014
Michael Ballhaus's grave

In 1958 Michael Ballhaus married the actress and production designer Helga Betten ; her two sons Sebastian (production assistant) and Florian Ballhaus (cameraman) are also active in the film industry. Michael Ballhaus has worked with his son Florian in over 20 films. Florian Ballhaus was, among other things, chief cameraman at Flightplan and The Devil Wears Prada . Michael Ballhaus worked with Florian Ballhaus as well as with his other son (Jan) Sebastian for the film drama Outbreak - Lautlose Killer . In addition to his apartment in Los Angeles, he had also lived in Berlin-Zehlendorf since the 1980s, and his two sons went to school here. Since 2007, his main residence has been in Zehlendorf, while his sons live in Los Angeles.

His wife died on September 28, 2006 in Los Angeles . Looking back on his life, Ballhaus always referred to the close, trusting professional and not just private role of his wife, with whom he worked for many decades. Coming from the same industry, she was already involved in the production process as an outfitter at the location of the Fassbinder films. According to him, she played a major role in his professional success.

Five years after the death of his wife Helga, Michael Ballhaus married the director Sherry Hormann on October 28, 2011 . In May 2012 we started shooting the film 3096 Days about the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch , the world premiere of which took place on February 25, 2013 in Vienna.

Michael Ballhaus died peacefully in his Berlin apartment on April 11, 2017, after a brief illness, according to his publisher. His funeral took place on April 29th at the Dahlem forest cemetery in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district of Berlin , where film colleagues and politicians also paid their last respects.

At the suggestion of his friend Michael Ballhaus, Peter Schneider wrote a novel biography about Antonio Vivaldi and dedicated the work to him.

Ballhaus was the brother of Nele Maar .

Working method

Ballhaus considered his greatest talent to be the ability “to know how to tell pictures and visualize thoughts”. That is why his favorite directors were those who can think in pictures, especially Martin Scorsese . Regardless, he saw it as necessary for all cameramen to be able to visualize a story in their minds.

In addition to the long-term cooperation with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ballhaus became known for its innovative technology of the "360-degree camera movement", the so-called "Ballhaus gyro". This technique was invented by Claude Lelouch in 1966 , but Ballhaus did not make it popular until 1974, when he first used it in the film Martha . During their first meeting, Fassbinder had the duo Margit Carstensen and Karlheinz Böhm turn around again so that the impression of a vortex was created. Scorsese later became aware of Ballhaus through an eight round trip with integrated zoom around a dancing couple in James Foley's film Reckless (1984) .

At Fassbinder, Ballhaus learned to work very quickly and effectively, not least because Fassbinder always suffered from a chronic lack of money. This tough school earned him the reputation of always being able to keep to the budget. “Working with Fassbinder was a very important school for me. On the one hand, because we had very little money and only shot what was really needed. On the other hand, Fassbinder was forced by it and also forced me to be quick. "

Ballhaus made it very important not to develop his own style, as he loved variety and wanted to adapt to each film individually. However, he restricted this statement somewhat in 2000, as his great respect for the actors forbade him to position the camera too close and thus frontally in front of the actors. Therefore one could also speak of a “ball house touch ” .

Memberships

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Michael Ballhaus's star on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin

literature

Films about Ballhaus

  • Close up. Gero von Boehm asks Michael Ballhaus. Talk, Germany, 2014, 50 min., Moderation: Gero von Boehm , production: interscience film, Servus TV , series: Close Up , first broadcast: February 19, 2015 on Servus TV, synopsis by interscience.
  • alpha forum: Michael Ballhaus, Director of Photography. Talk, Germany, 2010, 43 min., Moderation: Christoph Lindenmeyer, production: ARD-alpha , series: alpha-Forum , first broadcast: August 5, 2010 in BR-alpha, table of contents with conversation text and online video from ARD-alpha.
  • 100 years Babelsberg - what does the future of cinema look like? Talk, Germany, 2012, 60 min., Moderation: Volker Panzer , production: ZDF , series: nachtstudio , first broadcast: February 12, 2012 on ZDF, summary by ZDF, ( memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), with Michael Ballhaus, Volker Schlöndorff , Dieter Kosslick , Stefan Arndt .
  • Michael Ballhaus - A journey through my life. Documentary, Germany, 2008, 60 min., Script and director: Vera Chekhova , production: tp Filmproduktion, BR , NDR , WDR , SWR , first broadcast: November 29, 2008 on Bavarian TV , summary by ARD .

Web links

Commons : Michael Ballhaus  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files


conversations

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ April 11th according to obituary notice , April 12th reported in the press seems to be incorrect.
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Ballhaus. Camera operator. In: Akademie der Künste (Berlin) , accessed on January 16, 2018.
  3. ↑ Michael Ballhaus. In: Filmportal.de .
  4. ↑ Michael Ballhaus, Claudius Seidl: Pictures in the head: The story of my life. 2014, page 10.
  5. ↑ In contrast to his statement of 15 Fassbinder films in his autobiography, Ballhaus assumed 16 films with Fassbinder in a Deutschlandfunk interview on the Berlinale in February 2016 (offline); " 16 " is repeated e.g. B. in: Camera legend Michael Ballhaus is dead. In: ndr.de , accessed on January 16, 2018.
  6. ↑ a b c Belinda Grace Gardner: Breaking the rules. In: Hamburg Media School , Interview with Ballhaus, 2010, p. 18, (PDF; 98 p., 4,642 KB), accessed on February 21, 2016.
  7. ↑ a b c d Thomas Binotto: Emotions move the camera. Workshop talk with the cameraman Michael Ballhaus. In: film-dienst / filmportal.de , No. 12, 2000, (PDF; 10 p., 160 KB), p. 7.
  8. ↑ Christine Jeske: Michael Ballhaus - the man of pictures. In: Main-Post , May 9, 2014, interview.
  9. ↑ Michael Ballhaus, Claudius Seidl: Pictures in the head: The story of my life. 2014, page 29.
  10. ^ A Conversation With Michael Ballhaus. (No longer available online.) In: American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). November 20, 2006, archived from the original on May 12, 2016 ; accessed on March 18, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Marion Schmid / Herbert Gehr, The Quite Normal Chaos: Conversations about Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89487-227-6 , p. 194.
  12. ^ DW: Star cameraman Michael Ballhaus teaches in Hamburg. In: Die Welt , June 5, 2009.
  13. ^ Michael Ballhaus climate project. ( Memento of March 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: Landesfilmdienst Baden-Württemberg e. V.
  14. ^ Henning Zühlsdorff: Michael Ballhaus will be visiting professor at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. In: Leuphana University of Lüneburg , Science Information Service (idw) , March 16, 2010.
  15. ↑ dpa : cameraman Michael Ballhaus does not want to make any more films. In: Focus . February 26, 2014, accessed March 18, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Cameraman Michael Ballhaus slowly goes blind. In: Der Tagesspiegel . March 11, 2014, accessed March 18, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Katja Nicodemus : “I would have liked to see more.” Interview with Michael Ballhaus. In: The time . March 23, 2014, accessed March 23, 2014 .
  18. ↑ a b Michael Ballhaus Biography (1935-). In: filmreference.com , accessed February 26, 2015.
  19. ↑ Florian Ballhaus. Cinematographer. In: IMDb , accessed April 24, 2016.
  20. Jump up ↑ Outbreak (1995). In: IMDb , accessed April 24, 2016.
  21. ↑ Armin Lehmann: Prominent inquiries. Michael Ballhaus: "Zehlendorf is not stuffy." In: Tagesspiegel , October 25, 2014, interview.
  22. ↑ Isabell Jürgens: Michael Ballhaus moves to Berlin. In: Die Welt , April 17, 2007.
  23. ↑ Herlinde Koelbl : "My sister felt my pain." Michael Ballhaus on the death of his wife after almost fifty years of marriage. In: ZEITmagazin , No. 46, November 11, 2010, interview.
  24. ↑ For example in the radio program Redezeit of the WDR5 , April 2006.
  25. ↑ Verena Lueken : The indispensable. On the death of Helga Ballhaus. In: FAZ , October 9, 2006.
  26. ↑ Michael Schacht: Film-ready wedding in Zehlendorf! In: image . October 28, 2011, accessed March 18, 2014 .
  27. ↑ Nadine Wojcik: Film artist Michael Ballhaus has died. In: Deutsche Welle . April 12, 2017, accessed January 16, 2018 (with photo gallery).
  28. ↑ Photos: The grave of Michael and Helga Ballhaus. In: knerger.de .
  29. ^ Andreas Conrad: Waldfriedhof Berlin-Dahlem. Cameraman Michael Ballhaus is buried. In: Tagesspiegel , April 29, 2017.
  30. ↑ Peter Schneider: Vivaldi and his daughters. Novel of a life. For Michael Ballhaus . Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2019.
  31. ↑ Armin Lehmann: Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus: “Naturally passionate!” In: Tagesspiegel , February 18, 2016.
  32. ↑ a b c A moment like a vortex. How Michael Ballhaus and Rainer Werner Fassbinder invented the circular camera. In: 24 - Knowledge portal of the German Film Academy , video interview, 18 min., With transcript.
  33. ^ Arnold Hohmann: Michael Ballhaus - Who dances with the camera. In: WAZ , July 8, 2009.
  34. ↑ Circle travel. In: Film Lexicon of the University of Vienna , accessed on February 26, 2015.
  35. ↑ Quotation in the 2009 annual report: Breaking the rules. In: Hamburg Media School , Interview with Ballhaus, 2010, p. 19, (PDF; 98 p., 4,642 KB), accessed on February 21, 2016.
  36. ↑ a b Rainer Rother : Homage 2016 and Honorary Golden Bear for Michael Ballhaus. In: Berlinale 2016 .
  37. ↑ a b Ballhaus, Michael 1935– In: encyclopedia.com , 2005, accessed on February 26, 2015.
  38. ↑ American Society of Cinematographers Roster. Current Officers and Members. In: American Society of Cinematographers .
  39. ^ Members since 1950. In: Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg
  40. ↑ Michael Ballhaus receives the honorary award for outstanding services to German film at the GERMAN FILMPREIS 2012 ( Memento from May 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  41. ^ Category culture and media. ( Memento from February 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) and thanks from Ballhaus. ( Memento of February 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: Clean Tech Media Award .
  42. ↑ Dpa : So far Bambi Award winner known 2009. ( Memento of 14 November 2012 at the Internet Archive ). In: Naumburger Tageblatt , November 24, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Ballhaus, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 2017
Place of death Berlin , Germany