Canadian premiere! One night only Thursday 19 May 2022, 6:30 pm at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox: “Confessions of Felix Krull” by Detlev Buck... "the gin and tonic among Thomas Mann adaptations.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Confessions of Felix Krull, wherein a handsome youth of humble origins rises in society through his connections made as an elevator attendant in a luxury hotel, is a perennially popular novel, written by Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann between 1910 and 1913 and from 1950 to 1954. It is an unfinished work -- a sequel was planned but never came to be. The first edition appeared in 1954, and the author still made changes to it. The final, third version came out in 1955. According to the 79-year-old Mann, it would be "no misfortune" if the novel, which was laid out in three books, "remained wide open."
"Thomas Mann's Felix Krull is one of his most popular and timelessly topical characters, whose charm and humour continue to enthrall readers and audiences alike. A new film adaptation for the cinema was long overdue, and we are pleased to be able to present an unparalleled A-list creative team for this, from the director to the screenwriter to the cast," says Krull producer Markus Zimmer about the necessity of remaking the classic of world literature decades later.
Kurt Hoffmann's 1957 film version with Horst Buchholz, Liselotte Pulver and Paul Dahlke as the threesome is considered a classic. The comedy won a German Film Award and a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Film. Mann's daughter Erika co-wrote the screenplay and also appeared in a supporting role. In 1982, Bernhard Sinkel presented a TV 5-parter with an international cast as an Austrian-German co-production.
The idea in 2021 was to continue the tradition, but also to show a new direction in which Mann can be brought to the screen in a contemporary way. The director and producer quickly agreed to hire Daniel Kehlmann (Daniel Brühl's co-creator on Next Door), who had already worked with Buck on Measuring the World, as screenwriter. "He knew 'Krull' inside and out and knew exactly which elements were essential to keep for fans of the novel and where you could vary to emphasize the timelessness that the character of Felix Krull has," Zimmer explains.
Preserving Mann's language while updating it and making it accessible to today's viewers was very important to the creators. "A large part of the target audience is Mann fans. So the language that readers know and love should be preserved," Zimmer comments. What makes a contemporary film adaptation, however, is "incorporating current elements and sensitively modernizing the language without losing its charm. Kehlmann managed just that." Buck describes what is special about the language "as a very sensual, rich artistic language, full of structure -- like music. In the dialogue, there are sometimes two sentences of Thomas Mann, two sentences of Kehlmann -- they read as if from one cast," the director enthused.
Actor David Kross also read the novel in preparation and listened to the four-hour audio book of Thomas Mann's own "Felix Krull" reading: "Kehlmann hit this language very well, the Mann essence in the dialogues. That's new for me, I don't have any classical stage training, I had to get a feeling for the language so that it comes across naturally. Even in scenes with a lot of text, you have to reach the audience, transport the emotion, even with slightly wooden language with long, very embellished sentences like Mann's."
What helped the actors: Buck's advice that you can "put the language on like a coat you wear every day."
Source: Warner Bros. Pictures Germany, DFF, © 2021 Bavaria Filmproduktion GmbH, Marco Nagel
Liv LIsa Fries, David Kross in "Confessions of Felix Krull" (2021)
