Unity by Michael Arditti

master shot. Then it’s relit. Then we do a close-up. Then it’s relit. Then we do a reverse shot. Then it’s relit. And, each time, the actors are left to kick their heels. Do emphasise to any budding Bogarts or Bogardes in the form how essential it is that they develop a liking for crosswords . I shall never again sneer at film stars who complain of exhaustion (all that ‘working on a trawler is nothing compared to the trauma of filming The Cruel Sea ’). In a twelve – and sometimes fourteen hour – day, they face the camera for a matter of minutes and yet they have to remain in a constant state of alertness. On reflection, it’s less like waiting for bread than waiting for a bomb.
    Talking of Dora (or should that be thinking of Dora? See, I can read you like a book), let me tell you that she’s amazing. I swear that, given half an hour, you’d be crazy about her and I don’t mean in that gay man/icon kind of way. She’s exactly what you’d expect from all those Ealing films. It’s almost a shock to see her in colour. The husky voice is every bit as seductive off-screen as on. 38 The champagne curls and retroussé nose are every bit as charming. Far from damaging her looks, the laugh lines (her actual laugh is deliciously dirty) add authenticity. Lord knows how old she is. Fliss, who hasn’t taken to her (do you detect a whiff of the hen coop?), says that she starred in her first film before the War, so she has to be knocking sixty. You’d never guess. I made the mistake of suggesting that it must be because she’s small-boned. Ouch! She certainly makes no concessions to age and has been openly flirting with younger actors. One of them, Liam Finch (a.k.a. Oswald Mosley), actually asked her how old she was. ‘It all depends where you measure from,’ she purred. ‘How about birth?’ he replied.
    She even tried it on with me – not in so many words, I admit, but, hey, I’m a writer; my middle name is Subtext. I was explaining how I’d been going out with Fliss for nearly four years. ‘I know,’ she said. Though I can’t imagine how, since I’m sure Fliss didn’t tell her. What’s more, she made me promise not to tell any of the Germans in case they regarded us as freaks. ‘But as a distinguished conductor once asked me,’ Dora said, ‘“are you mono or stereo?”’ ‘Mono, I’m afraid,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m an old-fashioned guy.’
    After that diversion, I had better take you back to the set, although I’m not quite sure to which part. I’d like to say something about Wolfram’s techniques, but I must stress (as should you) that they are highly idiosyncratic. He never plans his shots in advance. Indeed, he rarely visits the location at all before the shoot. He storyboards (in lay terms, sketches the camera angles) the previous night or early in the morning or, sometimes even, while they are setting up (it’s not just in private that he likes to live on the edge). But – and this is crucial – he has spent weeks prior to the filming talking to Heike and Gerhard and the rest of the team about how he intends everything to look. He trusts them enough to leave them to take care of the details. Which is one of the reasons that they work for him time and again. The other is their absolute respect for his vision. They insist that, appearances to the contrary, ‘he knows exactly what he wants’. To them, that is the pinnacle of praise.
    He grants similar licence to his actors but it is not always so welcome. He encourages them to rehearse for far longer than most directors – and directs them far less. Then, barring accidents (see above), he likes to shoot in a single take, which, as you can imagine, places the entire unit under tremendous strain. He claims to be less interested in technical perfection (‘Fuck perfection . Life isn’t perfect.’) than in spontaneity. His watchwords are the three ‘a’s: ablauf; aktion; athmosphare (or, in English, the two‘a’s and a ‘p’: