Berlinale 2016 – Honorary Golden Bear for Michael Ballhaus – Süddeutsche.de

• The German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus receives at the Berlinale 2016 Honorary Golden Bear for his lifetime achievement.
• Ballhaus was master cinematographer of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, later he turned with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese .
• Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick praised the 80-year-olds as “congenial partner” of its directors.

Berlinale jury honors Michael Ballhaus with the Honorary Golden Bear

When a German cameraman gets a film award, the American media is normally not value message. In the case of Michael Ballhaus is different. The German is a star himself: He was the favorite cinematographer of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, turned with Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. And so the industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter reported now about the fact that Ballhaus is obtained at the Berlin International Film Festival 2016 Honorary Golden Bear for his lifetime achievement. One of the most important film awards at all.

To the 80th birthday of Michael Ballhaus The man who Hollywood to Drive brought

To him tore themselves directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Martin Scorsese. A birthday greeting to the Star-cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who has even conquered a piece of Hollywood.

“We are honoring Michael Ballhaus as a cameraman, who was a congenial partner and its directors whose work is unique”, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick justified the decision. In honor of 80-year-olds will be shown at the ceremony on 18 February in Berlin “Gangs of New York”. The film with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role – Director: Martin Scorsese – brought Ballhaus 2003 Oscar nomination

His career

Ballhaus was born in 1935 as the son of two theater actor in Berlin. , Aged 20, he observed the shooting of the film “Lola Montez” and decides itself to be cameraman. Because there are no relevant training in the fifties, Ballhaus learn instead the profession of photographer. About a camera assistant at the former Südwestfunk it comes to television, working quickly up to the director of photography

Ballhaus rotates two movies -. And encountered the late sixties the distinguished Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It is the beginning of a collaboration that brings 15 films and both men make known beyond the borders of Germany.

Hollywood takes notice of Ballhaus. Martin Scorsese makes him his “director of photography” (including “After Hours”, 1985, “The Color of Money” in 1986, “Goodfellas”, 1990, “The Departed”, 2006). However, Francis Ford Coppola (“Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, 1990), Robert Redford and Wolfgang Petersen trust him the image directing at, Redford and Petersen several times. With Volker Schlöndorff Ballhaus filmed in 1985 “Death of a Salesman”.

On three Oscar nominations it brings the German cameraman (next to “Gangs of New York” for “Broadcast News,” 1987 and “The Fabulous Baker Boys “, 1989). Can win a golden boy Ballhaus not – that he receives 2007 as the first German the price for his life’s work of the “American Society of Cinematographers’, the American Association of Cinematographers

mellowed Star

. Its last price, an honorable mention of the Free Academy of Arts Hamburg, Ballhaus could not accept personally due to illness. Let’s hope that this will be in February in Berlin different. Not least because of the 80-year-old promises an acceptance speech that goes beyond a list of names. About Rainer Werner Fassbinder writes Ballhaus in his biography “pictures in the head”:

“I turned fifteen movies with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but in the family, whose patriarch, he was, in a circle of people he to be gathered and which he tried to dominate, in life as in the film: In this family, I was a stranger, at best, a guest I had a wife, I had children, I would not be the way married to Cooper “