MARTIN LUTHER - Joseph Fiennes
KATIE - Claire Cox
FREDERICK THE WISE - Sir Peter Ustinov
SPALATIN - Benjamin Sadler
JOHANN VON STAUPITZ - Bruno Ganz
PROFESSOR CARLSTADT - Jochen Horst
PHILIPP MELANCHTHON - Lars Rudolph
ULRICK - Marco Hofschneider
LUKAS CRANACH - Peter James Scollin
HANS LUTHER - Michael Traynor
POPE LEO X. - Uwe Ochsenknecht
CARDINAL CAJETAN - Mathieu Carriere
GIROLAMO ALEANDER - Jonathan Firth
ALBERT VON BRANDENBURG - Johannes Lang
KARL VON MILTITZ - Timothy Peach
JOHANN TETZEL - Alfred Molina
CHARLES V - Torben Liebrecht
VON DER ECK - Christopher Buchholz
OLD MONK - Joost Siedhoff
BARBARA CRANACH - Anke Schönlein
HANNA - Maria Simon
GRETE - Doris & Jessica Prusova
TERESA - Lena Krimmel
OTTO - Anatole Taubman
THOMAS THE BRICK BOY - Jindrich Fajst

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION:

Tuesday after Easter 2002. All activity is racing as through an hourglass toward the April 16th. Still two weeks exactly until the first clapper board for the huge adventure of an international film on the young Martin Luther would snap shut. The production- and creative team of the Neue Filmproduktion has been in the feverish phase of preparation since November 2001.

At this moment the third draft of the script is complete. The primary turning points of the story have been painstakingly prepared by the American and German production partners (Thrivent Financial For Lutherans and Neue Filmproduktion), and the producers were also unified on the question of how to hold to the fine line between historical or theological integrity on the one hand, and dramatatic license on the other hand. The re-working of several details and the sensitive choice with regard to certain actors or concrete locations were still undecided.

In one of the many production discussions during this period, the director Eric Till comments: "The history of the real Luther unfolded in one of the greatest revolutionary periods in all of human history, when the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance. It was the epoch in which Copernicus risked his life by laying out his cosmic theory, according to which the earth was not the center of the universe, when Gutenberg invented moveable type and Galileo was condemned for his physical discoveries by the inquisition. Pope Leo X and Charles V determined the political climate of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century and one often has the impression that our hero stood at the epicenter of it all. We should only keep that in the back of our minds," he further explained in a quiet voice, "because it will be more important for us to stick to the spirit of this man and his time with the facts as far as possible."

And the producer Brigitte Rochow continues: "The film should come close to the true life story without creating the impression that we simply want to illustrate a history book. Luther's life was neither dry nor dusty, but a turbulent, highly emotional and dramatic 'career' which was characterized by a disturbing tug-of-war between a strong faith and temptation, hardness and vulnerability, decisiveness and feud."

The story of LUTHER begins in the year 1505 with young Luther' s experience of a storm in which a bolt of lightning - "a fright sent from heaven" - landed quite close to him and prompted him to hang up his study of law and apply for acceptance the following day in an Augustinian monastery. The film narrates further Luther's pilgrimage to Rome (1510), nailing the 95 theses on the door in Wittenberg (1517), his resistance to Cardinal Cajetan's order to recant his theses (1518) and his appearance before Emperor Charles V during the Diet of Worms (1521).

Luther's life as outlaw - excommunicated and banned by Pope as well as Emperor - is also depicted in the film, as well as his "exile" in the tower of the Wartburg castle, where he translated the entire New Testament into German within eleven weeks, and his subsequent return to Wittenberg (1522), where at that moment peasant rioters destroyed churches and attact priests and monks.

Interwoven in all of these historical events: the life led by Martin Luther as a young man full of visions. Spirited with a deep faith, he was also embarrassed by serious temptations. To today' s audience his conflicts should appear timeless through the medieval cowl. What emerges here with LUTHER is an unknown picture of the German reformer and, indeed, anything but invented: because in this youth lay a truly perplexing power, and it broke out as uncontrolled as naive - "willed of God as well as a force of nature" (Martin Luther).

This perspective has of course been buried under a mass of pious teaching through the centuries, and is still to be found adhering to the famous portraits painted by Lucas Cranach of the old Luther: whoever knows only these must believe that the corpulent family man seen there had never been young.

An angry young man: Joseph Fiennes as Martin Luther.

From the beginning the producers know that the entire project would stand or fall depending upon the actor who would embody Luther.

It should be someone who could personify the format, the complexity and attractiveness of the reformer, without sweeping his human weaknesses under the carpet. "We wished for an actor", explains the American executive producer Dennis Clauss, "who would be several things at once while playing his role: as charismatic as he was ordinary, as shy as blasphemic, as playful and as earnest. And last but not least this as well: someone who would satisfy many more people than just the 'Luther Specialists', and by that guarantee that young people of today could identify with his interpretation."

Joseph Fiennes, who recently gave proof with "Elizabeth" and "Shakespeare in Love" that historical films can be just as exciting for young cinema audiences, has been seen as ideal for filling this role. Only if he would also see it that way, was yet to be seen. "On this one has to say", the German executive producer Alexander Thies says, "there was, thoughtlessly, never any alternative!"

In May 2001 Brigitte Rochow contacts Joseph Fiennes for the first time. At the meeting with his agent Ken McReddie it becomes apparent that Joseph had shortly before and with great regret turned down the role of Luther in a production of the same name by John Osborne at the London National Theatre, because it simply couldn't be fitted into his schedule. "It was one of these happy coincidences which one often wishes for, but which seldom actually occur. Joseph had developed a serious passion for this figure in connection with his involvement with the Luther-role in the theater. What pleased him beyond that was how we had fashioned the project so far and that our time plan fit in with his other obligations perfectly. He was then quite open to our request."

Joseph Fiennes follows the further script developments and project preparations with great interest and involvement, and he does not hesitate to exchange ideas about his role with the script writers Camille Thomasson and Bart Gavigan, as well as with director Eric Till: "I see Luther at first as a true ingénue in the best sense of the word. He did not enter the Church in order to change it, let alone to divide it. He was far too occupied with his own existential doubts. He was surrounded by over-dominant father figures. And he was faced with a great moral dilemma when he had to see that his convictions were held out as justification for the cruelties committed during the peasants' revolt."

Beginning of January, four months before shooting, Joseph Fiennes is in Berlin for a first costume fitting. The costume designer Ulla Gothe remembers how unbelieving she was when she heard for the first time who would play the leading role: "On the one hand I was of course impressed by the weight of the name. On the other hand I thought that he is far too slim for Luther." At the first meeting all doubt and tension melted away. Joseph Fiennes is already completely focused on the role and had hardly slipped on the first costume when something amazing happened: he was no longer an actor in a strange costume. He adapted himself to these clothes, shawls and cowls, felt himself in them as a young monk, pilgrim, scholar and finally reformer. He tried them out, tested the conditions the clothes must have placed on Luther's walk, his posture, his attitude.

Ulla Gothe remembers further: "Within ten seconds it was clear that our cooperation would flow naturally - with very high standards but without primadonna allures."

The ease and politeness of the leading actor should deeply impress all of the team members to the end of the filming. He played soccer with the electricians and the prop crew and made his television set available to everyone during the Soccer World Championships. He never demanded special treatment and when it was time, he simply took his place at the end of the catering line.

An historical Fresco

Alongside Joseph Fiennes the producers were able to win over a further line of stars for their ambitious intentions: Sir Peter Ustinov as Frederick the Wise, who didn't like Luther's teachings but who valued his clever mind and protected him from his persecutors without compromise. And then Jonathan Firth as Girolamo Aleander, his model of the papal legate and immediate antagonist of Luther. Beyond that: Alfred Molina as the indulgence seller Johann Tetzel and Claire Cox as Luther's later wife Katharina von Bora. The American and German producers saw to the international casting together, the casting of the German actors took place in Berlin: Uwe Ochsenknecht as Pope Leo X, Mathieu Carrière as Cardinal Cajetan, Benjamin Sadler as Georg Spalatin, Lars Rudolph as Philipp Melanchton, Jochen Horst as Professor Carlstadt and finally Bruno Ganz as Vicar Johann von Staupitz, Martin Luther's spiritual mentor.

The prospects of playing with Bruno Ganz had a special significance for Joseph Fiennes - he had not only seen the great German actor in various films, which he valued highly, but also begged for a video recording of the giant Faust production by Peter Stein for the EXPO 2000, in which Bruno Ganz played the title role for over a year.

A real trump card for this project is that all of the creativity involved, both behind and in front of the camera are driven by a simmering curiosity, and burning with a huge will to fix this historical subject with adequate contemporary style onto celluloid. The variety of the national experiences, of the artistic backgrounds, but also the emotional and intellectual associations which the cast and the crew bring with them leads to a wonderful parallelism of unity and diversity without detracting from the whole concept either visually or in its content.

Jonathan Firth for example argues about his figure as Girolamo Aleander, Luther's adversary of the same age: "I see him as an ambitions representative at a middle management level of the Vatican and certainly not as the dark figure of the Catholic Church. He sees certain abuses, which scourged Luther, in exactly the same way, and actually Aleander is only bitter that the other one came before him. Aleander is seated at the heart of power and cannot affect anything, while Luther, this defrocked German monk, shakes the Church inside out. The story of these two is one of personal and intellectual antipathy."

And the 82-year-old Sir Peter Ustinov explains that he suddenly feels so young as Frederick the Wise, like a half a century ago when he played Nero in "Quo Vadis". A few days before filming, when he was in Berlin for one of his many engagements, Ustinov argues: "History is impressionistic. Who Luther was and what he did can be inferred from the passion of his followers and hatred of his enemies. Luther was a great doubter, which made him into a heretic. On the other hand I ask myself," and the melted Ustinov smirk lets one on to his pleasure in the provocation which he shows so well, "whether Luther perhaps began his reformation first of all because the Catholics were not catholic enough for him. Besides, I have drawn a cartoon for our outstanding director which shows Luther nailing up his 95 theses. Just as he finished, he curses: "Damn, I just thought of a 96th."

And of course Eric Till also sees this film as the opposite of a religiously edifying piece: "Luther was a pioneer on many points, and he raised questions which still occupy us today, long before others raised them; for example the significance of conscience or of civil courage. Beyond that he was surely one of the most important initiators of the German language."

A Stumbling Block

"Please tell us it is a bad joke!" we hear Britte Rochow furious on the phone. The conversation continues for a little while. After a bit she slammes the receiver down...

For a moment, and certainly over interpreting, one suspects a Vatican plot against this film on Luther: in fact the film was supposed to begin with the four scenes of Luther's pilgrimage to Rome. In Viterbo and its surroundings the location scouts had arranged appropriate settings where, with the help of digital effects added later, Luther's gaze would pan across the opulent street scenery of Rome from a distance. And too, there should be various interior scenes in the film which portray the Vatican palace.

Everything was perfect and only lacked contractual confirmation. But before it came to that, the information came to Berlin that the administrations of Italian churches and museums has fixed Open Door days exactly on those days that were scheduled for shooting. After brief and hefty disputes it became clear that the officials were not willing to adapt to the needs of quiet and concentration of a film team considering the crowds expected to come through. The planning and preparation of weeks had to be thrown out completely. The shooting would have to begin on April 16th in Thuringia and Franken, Italy should come after that in order, the next stage would then be Bavaria and the last stop in Prague.

All in all an Open Door day in Italy made a complete rearrangement of the entire shoot necessary - with all the domino effects which it brought with it: "It was an effective lesson in advance which prepared us to be able to flexibly react to different mentalities", explained Peter Schiller, the executive producer of the film, with his own stoicism.


The last days before filming arrive

One production discussion follows another. Locations are rejected once again and again re-confirmed. Director Eric Till and cameraman Robert Fraisse rush from casting appointments to dialogue rehearsals, costume- and make up fittings. In between a meeting with storyboard artist Benjamin Kniebe and production designer Rolf Zehetbauer who is only in Berlin for one or two hours, because he has to give expert appraisal of a sequence of a morality play at the court castle of Frederick the Wise in the evening. This shooting will happen at the Veste in Coburg.

On the next day he will continue overseeing the construction of the great hall of Friedrich's castle on the sound stage in Bavaria, and one day later he is in Prague scheduled for a construction discussion with workers who should take over construction of the huge Wittenberg market place set. And it is still not decided how much green screen and digital effect should be used and at what height each piece should be solidly built.

The last preparations before the general start: props are prepared, sorted, packed. Vehicles are picked up, distributed, loaded. Fax machines and telephones are ringing continuously, e-mails fly around the world, one courier leaving holds the door open for the next one coming in.

All departments are working at top capacity. Some of what should be here has already been sent there, or the other way around - small problems which come with the territory and doesn't disrupt anybody's rhythm. Still it is comforting that the mobile office equipment for the unit base has arrived safely at the first film location. Even the installation of the computer and the endless cable connections have not been a huge problem.

Telephone calls seem like secret codes for those not directly involved: talk of exotic plug connections, special make-ups, special filters and washing instructions for rare materials. "LUTHER" is probably the most frequently mentioned word these days in the offices of Neue Filmproduktion (NFP), closely followed by Rauenstein, Coburg, Erfurt and the Wartburg - these are the most important locations in the first two weeks of shooting. In part up to 300 extras there should have medieval make-up, many of them tonsured, should get dressed, and not least of all integrated sensibly into the film scenes.

The last preparations are taking place on around two dozen fronts simultaneously. The atmosphere in the Berlin offices is somewhere between a travel agent's office, a General's staff meeting just before marching out to battle, and an operations management of a circus.

"A circus at least has the advantage", says transport coordinator Sebastian Leister, "that there one has a unified retinue which has to be moved. There things are set up, acted out, taken down and moved on. With us, for example, after the filming in Germany, some of the costumes have to be sent to Italy, a part has to be sent to the Czech Republic where they should be available for fittings. One is aware that at any moment a mistake could stop the filming completely. Although preparations do not start at the same time each and everyone is linked with one another. It will go on like that around the clock and without a day off during the next ten weeks. When one already needs vehicles to prepare the next set at a different location, someplace else things are already taken down and moved on. But the real focus of attention has to be the supply at the current filming location, to the point that one may have to quickly resolve an unforeseen problem. For example, if someone has to show up in the next four hours in Prague, or something has been held up at customs."

On the average 60 vehicles will be employed every day for the 200 colleagues, and the right material needs to be transported between the different locations of the project. There will be ten complete moves between which there are sometimes only three days, and altogether there will be 16,268 overnight stays for the entire team.

A sentence of Rolf Zehetbauer has already become a by-word: "The film is finished, it just has to be filmed."

The LUTHER-Roadshow

The first days give the impression of a huge tour across the German Castles and medieval towns on the border between Thuringia and Franken: Rauenstein, Hohenstein, the Veste Coburg and of course the Wartburg castle. It is also the opening of a shooting marathon: over 100 different sets will have to come together at the end of the filming. "Five times as many as in 'Cabaret'!", Rolf Zehetbauer moans and rejoices. He won an Oscar in 1972 for the production design of this film.

There is no castle in southern Germany and in the Czech Republic which Zehetbauer and his team have not considered since the beginning of the year. In many cases they had to recognize that these sites either had been rebuilt, renovated or - the other way around - possibly completely destroyed. "Take the Wartburg castle alone", grumbles Zehetbauer, "it has been completely ruined by renovation, beams pitch black, walls brilliant white. Impossible to film the Wartburg scenes there."

Spontaneously, production decides on a flexible concept for choosing locations. Nevertheless one finds oneself on Luther's actual trail in Thuringia. Then why rob one's self of this trump? Thus the production team will film in the Wartburg, but it will not be the Wartburg: it will show up as the great hall of the Residence in Worms; and the Veste at Coburg alike: it is ready for four scenes - but not for the Veste scenes themselves.

Many actors, among them Alfred Molina, have consciously absorbed the atmosphere of these locations: "To feel the biological, climactic, architectonic and social setting of this history, even 500 years later, helps one immeasurably to take in the connection to one's own role." Molina is also enthusiastic about the refinement and engagement with which each individual attempts to resurrect the time back then from out of the dust, as it were, and that far beyond the simple needs of the plot: "I only have to think of the market place where Tetzel appeared with his indulgences show. The entire place full of curiosities and people, then everything seems natural - and thus true. Each person in the team appears to have a real sensitivity for which color or size a certain thing must have had and where they belong in the picture."

And the make-up supervisor Hasso von Hugo, whose staff is made up of nine artists and up to 50 students from his make-up school, added: "To work up the raw and crowded quality of medieval life was an important part of our work, but not in order to state it with an exclamation mark, but to make experiential how much that was the norm then. Even high nobility only took a bath about four times a year. In general the people were quite dirty and had pretty bad teeth. There were quantities of vermin. One had no heating or penicillin - life expectancy was really short."

What that means in the particulars becomes clear on those days which could be seen as "great battle days" for the make-up and costume departments. On such days part of the 200 extras arrive by bus to become transformed into "medieval folk" beginning at four in the morning - a job which costume designer Ulla Gothe and her colleagues solve by creating various basic costumes - cowls, vests, long gowns - which can be altered by additions or subtractions according to need.

Beginning April 25th the filming takes place in the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt. It is a day which will be overshadowed by a dramatic event in the immediate vicinity: the shooting in the Gutenberg High School during which a former student shot 16 people and then himself: "The monastery is only four kilometers away from this school and we were probably just rehearsing the second scene when it happened," Peter Schiller remembers. "Several priorities were postponed then, of course. Many extras were affected or had a fear of being affected and we could only try to find an compromise in being fair to these people but also not to loose sight of our project."

On the following day, the 26th of April, there is a church service for the victims. Director Eric Till invites cast and crew to take part. Everyone follows.

The calendar shows the 13th of May. First day of shooting in Italy. In Pian Castagno, Viterbo and Caprarola the scenes of Luther's first immediate contact with the world of the Vatican take place. They are extreme pictures. Intimidating, confusing, commanding - as the young and humble monk, which Luther was at that time, probably experienced them then. The imposing nature of it, the decadence and majesty, but also the misery, the offensiveness and cynicism should leap out at you. Mannerism of color, light and material.

The set design is clearly different from the other parts of the film: "These sequences are the only ones which have to do with presenting 'beauty' and impressive pictures," explains director of photography Robert Fraisse. "The entire exteriority of that world must be expressed with force and clarity. Thus the opposition to the understated and mossy gleam we have apparently lent to the film otherwise becomes visible."

The Italian passage also tells of the significantly greater distance between our hero and the events transpiring around him. It appears as though the costumes and decor want to dominate - an intentional effect.

In Italy after five weeks of shooting and with a minimum of outside contact, the first symptoms of group rage creep in. Meike Schlegel, the second costume designer, narrates: "It was one of these great battle days. The whole night long we memorized the succession of actor dressings, first the Augustinian, later the Franciscan, still later this one and at the end that one. Then we get to the set and are greeted by 20 Franciscan monks. It is really embarrassing when I think about how we had to reprimand these people about why they should be there so early, where they did get their costumes and who actually allowed them to dress already? We were so blinded by our task that we simply could not imagine that there could be something other than our crew and that those were real monks who only wanted to perform their morning prayers."

At Pentecost the LUTHER-Crew returns to Germany. Studio shooting in the Bavarian studios in Munich. Six full days with one single move. For Rolf Zehetbauer, the former head of the production design department in Bavaria, this part of the shooting means a true "home game". With his 32 full-time colleagues he erected five additional sets for Frederick the Wise in addition to that of the giant chimney tower, among them the legendary relic chamber, a hall with monastery cells like Luther's tower room in the Wartburg. With each of these rooms Zehetbauer also attempted to get away from the "chocolate box" atmosphere which bothers him in costume films.

"We took impressions from paintings, embroideries and old documents," he explained. "The first film set, however, has to be drawn from the imagination. The sets "narrate" the characters who live there. We are making cinema. We want to create a believable fiction. There is this beautiful sentence of german writer Eric Kästner's, that one cannot judge a fiction according to whether it is true or not, but whether it could be so."

Another fiction: Martin Luther is looking for Frederick the Wise; the young heretic comes into the great hall in front of the aged Elector Prince and dedicates his just finished translation of the bible in German. Such a meeting, historians and theologians agree, never happened. Brigitte Rochow remembers vividly how hotly debated this scene was: "Camille Thomasson and Bart Gavigan opt for it, Eric Till as well. The actors, Sir Peter Ustinov and Joseph Fiennes love the sequence. The producers are undecided, the historical advisors are strictly against it. In the shooting script the decision fell on the side of historical correctness - the meeting of Luther and Friedrich should not happen!"

When Sir Peter Ustinov arrives in Munich he is sure to be disappointed that this scene was scrapped. He considers the decision anxious, and he thinks it is pope-ish, but he is determined to fight. Joseph Fiennes shares the assessment of his colleague and at supper with the producers in the Palais Montgelas the two of them conjure up a short improvisation of the scene out of a hat. Convinced in this surprising manner, the meeting will in fact be filmed on the following day: it is Sir Peter's last day and it is the last scene on the schedule. Shooting finishes only around midnight and after many overtime hours. Leaden weariness fills the sound stage, but still every one of the colleagues as well as the producers Dennis Clauss, Christian Stehr and Alexander Thies applaud the 'clever prince' and the 'heretical churchman' with standing ovations. "The bookkeepers of History will certainly reprimand us", Christian Stehr explains. "But we will greet that with happy hearts now."

End of May. The team leaves for the Czech Republic. It is the last and longest stage of the LUTHER shooting. The landscape surrounding Prague and its castles, fortresses, churches and forests appear like an Eldorado for the picturesque and production needs of the remaining sequences. Fortresses like Krivoklat, Svihov and Pernstejn or the church of Kolin are found intact both inside and out, without having been "beautified", and they each offer several motifs at the same time. Thus, for example, the approach and the front courtyards of Pernstejn can be used for the mass scene of Luther's arrival in front of the bishops residence in Worms, while at the same time the fortress will be renovated as auditorium of the Wittenberg University.

The diverse spaces in Krivoklat, on the other hand, can act as Luther's home in the Coburg Veste as well as a secretary's room in the palace of the Prince of Mainz or halls and walkways in the Bishop of Augsburg's residence.

Now it would be a mistake to believe that Luther's story is in place only as a background of imposing stone monuments of the Middle Ages, of the surrounding historically represented personalities, or in connection with significant historical events. All of that is there, certainly, but large parts of the story simply occur, as written in the script, before a landscape, on rivers, in the forest. And the Czech Republic also offers scenes with vastly greater potential than, for example, Germany, where it is practically impossible to film a long shot without an industrial region, a chimney, broadcasting tower or modern housing jutting into the scenery somewhere. The Luther biographer Richard Friedenthal has shown the extended wanderings though Germany which the monk had taken in those years described in the film. And Joseph Fiennes also insists: "Naturally the great epic proportions of the time and of the figure are extraordinarily arresting, but Luther was also something else: a simple man and in many respects he appears to us as a contemporary."

The greatest sympathies for the man Luther are perhaps represented in those scenes which he has together with the brushwood seller Hanna (Maria Simon) and her crippled daughter Grete, with Ulrich (Marco Hofschneider) the Augustinian monk he befriended or with the simple farmer Otto (Anatole Taubman). They are all fictitious persons. Shown in no history books, they could have existed nevertheless, to quote Eric Kästner once more. The creation of these parts of the story - that is, the personal contacts with Hanna, Grete, Otto and Ulrich, as well as the emotional and intellectual consequences which Luther gleaned for himself and how these then influence his public action - these were one of the greatest challenges which the script authors Camille Thomasson and Bart Gavigan saw themselves confronted with.

Let us take the story of Otto: his son hanged himself on the beams of a half-completed house in Wittenberg and Luther dared to inter the young suicide in sacred ground. In the film, these are the conflicts which give occasion for the event in which Luther can free himself from the punishing God and discover his saving recognition that God is quite different, namely, just and merciful.

In reality Luther found his belief in this central element of his faith through "days and nights of reflection on Paul's Letter to the Romans" (Martin Luther) in his Wittenberg study in the tower of the black monastery - an event which has entered history as the tower experience. "At this point", says Brigitte Rochow, "we consciously diverge from historical tradition. Imagine the scene once: there he sits bowed over the bible by candlelight, he pulls on his hair and at some point he jumps up and shouts: 'Eureka, I've found it! It is in Paul!' Every script writer who would dare to write such a thing should be sent into the desert."

The scenes of the hanged youth will be filmed at the beginning of July also in the Czech Republic: on the soccer field at a small place named Orech.

This terrain, with dimensions of 120 x 80 meters, has gone through an amazing metamorphosis in the past 40 days. Six weeks of building, painting and modeling allow this most obscure of the locations to become the medieval market place of Wittenberg - not completely, for the oval around the houses with walls and gates, guard walks and side streets have been solidly built to a height of "only" six meters by Rolf Zehetbauer's crew. The upper floors and roofs of the homes as well as the much higher nave of the church, rising into the air along with the tower, will be superimposed only in postproduction with the help of CGI-technology.

The market place of Wittenberg is the most imposing set of this imposing film. The set is also naturally along the path which was farthest from the original conception to the final realization: "It had been originally planned to 'build' the whole market place digitally and only to film in front of a green screen", Rolf Zehetbauer remembers, "however it slowly but surely became clear that despite the unfriendly weather forecasts, this in-between solution combining conventional set and digital completion turned out to be the most pleasant, and surprisingly the most economical solution. For Eric Till and Robert Fraisse, but also for Joseph Fiennes and the other actors, it is of course much easier when they can see the actual surroundings in which they are acting, rather than always having to run to the monitor again to make sure that it will look right in the film afterwards."

The 50th day of shooting. The clouds are building over Orech. Showers come down occasionally.

Followed by a steadicam camera, a worn and energetic Luther, dressed in a course monk's gown and primitive shoes, storms across the medieval square in Wittenberg - past basket weavers, meat cutters and candle makers, straight through scattering fowl and a docile herd of goats. Finally arriving in front of the great portal of the church, he produces a scroll and a hammer, drives three decisive blows and leaves his theses on the door of the church. He steps aside from the camera's view and remains grimly silent. The concentration was transmitted to the entire team accompanying him - about one hundred members and just as many extras.

Quiet dominates the scene. Even the ducks have interrupted their quacking. Only when the "Cut!" frees them and Eric Till shortly thereafter praises them all, Luther is slowly transformed again into Joseph Fiennes. Bodies relax. Satisfaction can be read in all the faces. With the filming of the nailing of the theses, probably the most well known scene in Luther's life, the last high hurdle in an enormously demanding course has been cleared.

The last straightaway is in sight. Still five-and-a-half days to the last day of shooting.

Yet again: why LUTHER?

As Alexander Thies stands just once more at the edge of the constructed market place on the afternoon of this 2nd of July and lets the impressions of the past weeks roll over him, he notices distinctly how much this project has been a realization of a vision for him: "Of course I am proud that we have mounted this project after three years of preparation together with our partners from Thrivent Financial For Lutherans", he explained. "Beyond that we believe that there are many momentous stories in Germany which simply had to be told. I am sure that young people will apreciate the emotion with which we offer our LUTHER. It is absolutely wrong to say that kids would not be interested in history. I believe that they just do not like it if it is hammered into their heads, merely staring at some 'Saintly figures in history'. And our 'historical heroes' would surely have nothing against it is we presented them a little less drily, as is usually the case."

And Eric Till continues these thoughts: "If one is occupied by this person and his ideas and conflicts around the clock for months, it is not impossible that one is a bit infected, so that one feels something of an attorney for those coming afterward. In any case we want to make him more accessible and to give the viewers a chance to find some connection with him. On the other hand we did not want to, we were not even permitted to be awed; Luther created from many sources and he did not always do it gently. Our intentions came from a desire to show him our respect. Whoever is respectful, looks for the core of the matter. Whoever is too much in awe, is simply subservient."

On July 8th the last clapboard falls on LUTHER. A decisive segment of a powerful project has come to a satisfying end for team, actors and producers. Professor Kurt Rittig, Executive Producer, gives thanks again to all those involved: "Filmmaking has to do with love of the subject and faith in the project, and faith, as love, have need of imagination; just so as history writing and of course a film like ours dealing with an historical figure. This imagination completes the facts fictively and makes them acceptable for a public. We have faith that this has succeeded."