They try to find a way to express themselves and live their emotions and passions. It’s impossible to lock away feelings and emotions. That is what I believe - that love will always find a way. Can you talk about that theme in your film? I appreciate how the characters subverted authority to achieve their desires. That is why we tried to be precise in every moment and gaze. The space is so limited we are not distracted with other things. I am interested in watching them, and I like these limitations. It’s all about the people and their faces and bodies. There’s not much to do in a prison or in a cell.
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What can you say about the use of silence in the film? We can read so much in the silences.
HOW 2 GAY MEN MAKING LOVE FULL
Artificial light is so full of life and color. It’s always about finding the right tone to the right emotion, and Crystal Fournier did an amazing job with the lighting, but it’s also important to stick to reality. The atmosphere is very important to me because I tell stories more through atmosphere than through words. The colors, we wanted to find the right way between these two genres, the prison film and the love story, and not to make prison such a sad place. This is what we tried to find - how close can we get - especially when it comes to the explicit scenes. I think we shouldn’t avoid voyeurism in filmmaking, but I think it’s important to find the right distance. I think Hitchcock said, “We are voyeurs,” and that’s why we go and see a film. I think filmmaking is all about exploitation in a way. Can you talk about your approach to telling the story visually? What strikes me most with “Great Freedom” is your strong visual sense, the way you use space, color, and lighting, as well as film clips, peepholes, and other devices to create a palpable atmosphere and voyeuristic quality. In the ‘50s he has a rebellious attitude, and in the ‘60s, he is very resigned. In 1945, he is a broken man coming out of a concentration camp and going into prison.
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It was what we wanted to create - how his life changes over 25 years. This is all connected to Hans’ development. How did you develop each of Hans’ relationships in the film? Each man has a different emotional impact on him. We feel the tenderness Hans has with Viktor, Oskar, and Leo. We try to go in between these two genres, we wanted to create the rawness and ugliness of the law enforcement and the tenderness of the love story. I’ve always seen “Great Freedom” as a mix between a prison film and a love story. What observations do you have about prison films as a genre? His body shows and reacts to this imprisonment and the suffering and trying not to be too confined. You can’t imprison the mind, only bodies. That is something he is very good at, and it fit well to the prison genre. How did you work with Franz Rogowski on the character? He is often quiet, but his body language is very expressive.
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It’s a strange way of criminalizing someone. He has no other choice than to be himself. I found that interesting - he is locked up for something he can’t change. They all showed this attitude of being “unbroken.” That is what influenced us to create Hans’ character. We did quite a bit of research and we met a lot of victims who were imprisoned back in the ‘60s. Can you talk about creating a gay character who lived freely, even behind bars?
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Yet your film presents Hans’ dignity amid all of his suffering. The film concerns a shameful period in Germany’s history, when gay men were targeted, criminalized, and dehumanized. In a recent interview, Meise talked about making his film about finding love when one is confined and oppressed. The film shows his experiences and relationships with three very different men behind bars - Leo (Anton von Lucke), an assignation from 1968, Oskar (Thomas Prenn), his lover in 1957, and Viktor (Georg Friedrich), a straight man whom he knows in each time period. It is not his first time in jail he had previously been incarcerated for “deviant sexual practices” in 1945 and again in 1957. Director and cowriter Sebastian Meise’s remarkable drama opens in 1968 when Hans Hoffmann (a superb Franz Rogowski) is sentenced to two years in prison under Paragraph 175, which criminalizes homosexuality. “Great Freedom,” available for streaming on MUBI May 6, is a tough and tender film set almost entirely in a German prison.