Horst Naumann the German Number Six Voice

Transcription

1 Horst Naumann the German Number Six Voice Interviewed by Uwe Huber; translated and transcribed by Arno Baumgärtel "It is a virtue as well as a responsibility to do it as well as you possibly can, making it translate believably into German and so the character remains intact." - H.N. Horst Naumann was born in Dresden, Germany, in His early film roles were in DEFA productions, the state-owned German Democratic Republic film company. In 1958 Naumann fled the GDR and went to the Federal Republic of Germany. His filming and television career took off in the early 1960s. He also did side jobs working as a dubbing artist. Among others his voice was that of Lex Barker, Leslie Nielsen, Sean Connery and Pierre Brice ("Winnetou"). In the mid 1980s Naumann became a household name with a wider audience as a doctor in the TV series DIE SCHWARZWALDKLINIK ("The Black Forest Hospital") and also as the ship doctor on board the German variant of the series LOVE BOAT known as DAS TRAUMSCHIFF, both produced by the TV station ZDF that also broadcast NUMMER 6 in Throughout the years Naumann would also continue playing on the theatre stage. In 2003, after 50 years of marriage, his wife Christa von Arvedi passed away. He has been married to Martina Linn-Naumann, the stage manager of the small Duisburg theatre "Säule" ("Column") since At the time the interview was conducted Naumann had watched three of the 17 PRISONER episodes: "Arrival", "The Chimes of Big Ben" and "A. B. and C." "TODAY'S ONLY SNIPPETS" WHEN THE DUBBING WORK STARTED UH: Mr. Naumann, how did you get started with dubbing films? HN: I did dubbing when I was still living in the east, in East Berlin. We did beautiful great Russian films, fairytale films, the titles of which I don't know any more. You'd have to learn

2 entire book pages of text... Something which today is unimaginable! Today's only snippets, snippets..., one line, next line! Those lines running in front of you on a screen, all you do is read it. I have to say that I wouldn't want to do this today. Completely automated, it's awful. And it's nothing to do with human work. So, that's how I got started, learned how to do it and earned me my spurs. And when I was on the other side, in West Germany, this knowledge was very helpful. Everyone was enthusiastic. That's why I did so many dubbing jobs. I made money and in the beginning there was nothing else one could do. UH: So then, it all started by the end of the 1950s in Munich, the dubbing studios of Munich. Which ones do you remember? HN: There was the Aventin studio, the Arri studio, outside in Schwabing. There were a lot of others, smaller ones... Lots of them. They were popping up like anything because there really was a lot waiting to be dubbed. And the companies that were founded were all trying their best to prey on the situation. An awful lot to do. We were a gang of people who'd meet out there day by day. We'd spend some quite enjoyable hours together and occasionally have one little schnaps or two. People also used to smoke a lot anyway, it was terrible, insane of course. Because the dubbing room would be filled with smoke so you could barely see the screen through the mist, all the smoke. That was later banned because it was simply unbearable. A STRANGE, MORE THAN STRANGE SERIES UH: Which one of the dubbing directors do you remember? HN: Sachtleben, Brinkmann... Brinkmann also with NUMMER 6. A strange - more than strange - series we dubbed. One which - err - trying to understand it, it's still hard for me, even today. Even on watching it today. I think it's brilliantly made - the concept, the way it was done, all those crazy characters, the whimsical situation, including the Prisoner who, more or less, is trapped in himself. But even today I haven't reached a conclusion. It's great how it was made, fascinating. And I got hooked again although I must say I haven't watched all episodes. I wouldn't allow myself that much time for it. But it's an absolutely great thing. THE END IS THE BEGINNING UH: Now that you've been watching a number of episodes, after so many, many years, you mentioned recently that the end of it was like the beginning. At the end we're back where we got started. HN: Basically yes, sure. Now then, finally he thinks he's overcome all his troubles, all those tricks and all that, he's stood the martyrdom and what they were trying to inflict on him, break him or coerce him into something he doesn't want. He thinks he's done with it. Does he really believe he'd gotten away into freedom? He went away with one lady who enticed him. There was that big wooden box in which they were lying, side by side separated by a wall. Then he opens a door, wants his freedom and winds up in the same garden* where they had taken him in the beginning and made him a prisoner. The Prisoner Number Six. It all starts again. * HN refers to "the Village" as such, apparently not knowing its name. When No. 6 walks out of the office, supposedly in London, the path leads him through a front garden of sorts (which was the MGM studio backlot). A POLITICAL ISSUE BEHIND IT IN THE BROADEST SENSE

3 UH: What do you think people at the time were thinking as to what it was all about? HN: I think there's a political issue behind it, in the broadest sense. The kidnapping, alienation, the changing of people's minds by the use of medical drugs or making them do something else. I truly believe that there's quite something behind it. Brainwashing, as we'd call it today. I don't know whether it's this what's behind it but surely there must be at least some of it. THE DESIGN OF NUMMER 6 UH: What did you think of the visuals of the series that were totally different from everything people had seen, the visual aspect, the design? HN: The whole plot involved people trying to force Number Six to conform, it was constructed for this purpose, let's put it that way. One can see it on the map of that - I don't have the name of it, there's a name, that whole area... Isolated by intention. They have parades in it... You can see it. It's crazy. They all must be crazy, actually. REMEMBERING JOACHIM BRINKMANN DIALOGUE DIRECTOR OF THE GERMAN VERSION UH: Do you remember Joachim Brinkmann? HN: Yes. UH: What kind of personality was he? He wasn't only a dubbing director, I think he also did documentaries. HN: Well, that's something I really cannot answer. I know him from the dubbing studio, in the first place. He used to do films that were not as easy to handle like most others, so to speak. He'd work with us. He was a specific personality, so you'd need to form your own picture of him in order to see what made him tick. But working with him was absolutley wonderful, the way he told us to do things. Of course, he'd try to explain things. But, taking the stories as they were, there wasn't much left to explain. All this remains peculiar and it remains strange as well. But I like it that way. [laughing] What I don't know is how the director, main actor and the author, all in one, was able to get along with all this. I wouldn't be able to do it, actually, lacking in experience, perhaps not enough foresight of life. You may say it's completely crazy and there's a serious background to it and, maybe, a political side angle too. However, I never endeavoured to try and get it all straight. THAT'S HOW DUBBING WORKS UH: What was it that you saw of the series while doing the dubbings? Was it only your own part you could see? HN: Yes. That's because I, when I saw it, all those sequences the processions they were doing, pomp and circumstance, costumes and things I never got to see them back then. Only his [Patrick McGoohan's] reactions. But that's how dubbing works. "VILLAGE" THE TRANSLATION

4 UH: A while ago you mentioned, quite nicely and a little cryptically, that this "area" did have a real name, yes. And there is one in English, it's just the Village dorf [in German]. HN: Yes. UH: Village, Dorf. Now, Brinkmann, he was a genius, he did not translate the word "Village", as one would have it, like "Dorf", because it isn't appropriate. HN:... yes... UH: In English "Village" is different. And he [Number Six] in the prologue scene would always ask: "Where am I? In the Village. - Sie sind da." ["You are here."] He [Joachim Brinkmann] always used a circumscription for it. He never used the direct translation. Now, I'd like you to, please... [HN asked to repeat famous lines.] HN: "You are here." - How could anyone explain what that means? All right, you've arrived. But, where did I come from? He was made unconscious, more or less. But again, that's something left obscured. We're not told as to who did something or not; the famous stream of gas through the keyhole and everything... Great thing. Oh yes, I'm able to relate to that. Now he's out cold but: who did it...? [smiling, waving his arms: not the slightest notion]. [Naumannn reads the opening prologue.] PLEASE REPEAT! (46 YEARS AFTER) HN: Whenever I've got something like this, if it's a role, I read in the... [dialogue script] about how it is supposed to be. Now, if you tell me, well a bit more rigorously... Give it to me! [HN takes the paper from UH.] Does this appear anywhere? UH: Yes. It's in the first episode. HN: Alright... Who's telling who? UH: Number Six to Number Two. HN: Oh yes.. Just wanted to know. UH: Mind you: aggressively. HN: [reads the text, ponders] Yes, err... UH: He says it aggressively... HN: Yes, yes, I know, I understand. I was just thinking about how to put it, the speed and so. Going to read again... [HN speaks the German version of: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."] UH: Very good! HN: Was it? Also the speed?

5 UH: It was! HN: Good. UH: Very good. That's exactly the speed. Exactly. [HN once more repeats the text with a different accentuation. - Smiling.] UH: Wonderful! [In 2010 Franco-German TV station ARTE for the first time dubbed the four missing PRISONER episodes Free For All, A Change of Mind, The Schizoid Man and Living In Harmony. The question who would become the voice actor for Patrick McGoohan's Number Six was resolved by hiring German actor Bernd Rumpf for the job and not Horst Naumann. Naumann, however, had been invited to do a test. He confirms this in this interview. He also says that his voice was considered too old in order to adjust it to the dubbings of He clearly denies, however, having been offered the role of Number Two in one of the four episodes. There had been some speculation about it.] UH: At some point you quit dubbing. Why so? THE END OF THE DUBBING WORK HN: I was too busy. I said, now that I'm in the Black Forest [German TV series: THE BLACK FOREST HOSPITAL] and with the LOVE BOAT commencing [German TV series: DAS TRAUMSCHIFF] why should I carry on running around, making money here and there? No, you've reached the point when it's time to settle down, take more easy. It isn't that I wouldn't have loved to go on with it but basically, it was a decision of rationality. Besides, many production managers would say, 'No need to call him, he isn't going to be available anyway.' That's how it came about. [credit sequence: "The Chimes of Big Ben"] HORST NAUMANN WATCHING NUMMER 6 UH: That car became a cult item, that Lotus 7. HN: Yes... Now, here he's on the way to his boss, he resigns. That's as far as I understand everything [hand movement, laughing]. UH: The opening scenes, everything's so quick, many people didn't... HN: [head shaking]...realise. UH: Did you immediately understand it or was it only from the second episode? HN: [nodding] Yes, perhaps. Ah, well, here it is again, the famous stream of gas, yes... [Number Six losing consciousness]. Ops! [prologue starting] HN: Information. Information, of course! That's the Village.

6 UH: That's Walter Reichelt's voice [dubbing for Leo McKern]. HN: Walter Reichelt. - I'm trying to get his picture but... Oh yes, now here's the famous airbag. And here is Number Two [on screen: Leo McKern]. 'The new Number Two, all right.' [end of the credit sequence; Radio-Village announcement: "Good morning, good morning...!"] UH: Brainwashing, isn't it. HN: Yes, I see. I say it. IDENTIFICATION WITH HIS OWN DUBBING WORK HN: It is a business. A commercial as well as an artistic process, to put it this way, in order to create the German version of a foreign product. You listen to it, don't you, you hear the mood which the foreign actor was in while he was acting and speaking. And one has to try to pick it up and trace it. That's it. It is a virtue as well as a responsibility to do it as well as you possibly can, seeing it translate believably into German and the character remains intact. ONE PRISONERESQUE OCCURRENCE IN THE "GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC" [STASI = in the GDR the secret police, dreaded by people. HN wrote about it in his autobiography published as a book in 2005.] UH: That's an impressive picture about your STASI experience, in your book... HN: I only wrote what I was going through, what happened. Nothing else. UH: Thrilling. HN: Yes, it was indeed thrilling. When those people arrived for the first time, then they returned... I was at the opening of a film in Dresden. We were accommodated in a hotel where they would also hold the press conference and so on. Suddenly some reception employee came to me and called me to the telephone. I went to the reception and here they were again, the STASI people. 'We wanted to ask you how you are doing today. We're here, too. Perhaps you can spare some time to talk to us...' So it went. I said, 'Now, leave me alone!' It continued until eventually I got loud and upset. [waving hands:] You've read this in my book... UH: They knocked at your door, didn't they? And your wife Christa [HN's first wife, Christa von Arvedi]... - she was trembling with fear. HN: Of course she was. Sure. Everybody else would have been scared. STASI was a strong keyword. But eventually the point is reached when you tell yourself, no matter what's going to happen, I'm fed up with it [very decidedly]. 'Now, you can hit the road and try somewhere else!' [HN explains that he, and another actor, was probably privileged being under a permanent contract with DEFA which, at the time, was rather unusual. Almost every company run by the state was under surveillance by covert STASI agents.] So, I went to the Central Committee [of the ruling GDR party "SED"] and I had a letter with me to

7 Mr. Ulbricht [GDR party leader and head of state] as he was the supreme personality in the east. In the letter it read, 'My name is... and I feel threatened by our government body. I cannot stand all this psychological pressure, I can't work any more, can't tell anybody because there's no trust. I'm asking you... for a conversation.' I handed over my letter and I even got a receipt for it, a curious thing, to be true. And they told me, 'We'll get back to you.' But there was nothing. Then the famous 20th [Communist] party congress took place in Moscow where Stalin was disempowered, and so on. About six weeks after this event a letter arrived, referring to my visit, saying, 'We ask you to visit us at the Central Committee office, room I- don't-know.' Good Lord, I thought. But something had happened at last. So I went there, my passport was seized. There were two armed guards, one to the left, one to the right, leading me down through corridors and further corridors where the guards were replaced by two other guards. Because they, too, weren't supposed to know what was going on. The enemy never sleeps. They led me to a small room, there was a desk, a table, an armchair, a window and a set of bookshelves. 'Wait here!' Well, I waited. Suddenly the bookshelves started rotating. Isn't it funny, all those associations coming to mind... like from a well-worn film. A little man appeared. The bookshelves rotated back to their closing position. He approached me and said, 'Good afternoon, Herr Naumann...' I've never been a "comrade". 'My name is Paul Herber. You've written something... You'll understand that, because of the events in Moscow, our Prime Minister currently isn't able to... It is my duty to hear what you have to say. What is it all about?' I told him all that nonsense and our conversation got on quite well. Then he said, 'Like you, we are quite concerned about the security forces becoming a state within the state. That's something we cannot tolerate and we don't want this to happen. Please... - what were the names of those gentlemen who came to see you?' As a matter of fact and according to their standard procedure they hadn't introduced themselves. He went on, 'Now, go back home. Nobody's is going to bother you again, certainly. If someone does you should apply to me, Paul Herber. Here is my name card...' Like this. I went home, got my passport back. Outside I thought, 'Oh, oh... Take a deep breath!' [hand gesture] In fact, nobody ever came to me again. But half a year later my contract with DEFA was terminated. I didn't receive any role offers, neither film nor radio. Nothing. There was one programme, however, "Der Schwarze Kanal" with Mr... [looking for the name] Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler. [Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler was a presenter on GDR TV, known for his notorious programme "Der Schwarze Kanal" "The Black Channel". He commented on Cold War issues in general and the two Germanys in particular, always in a polemic and biased manner. As such he was chief propagandist of the GDR.] But this I didn't accept, of course. I did not need that money. Then I said to myself, now they don't want you around anymore, so let's try something else. It took us two years until we made it to West Berlin in the end. And I'm convinced they kept me under surveillance all the time... [waving hands]. [By that time, in 1958, there was no Iron Curtain dividing the country nor the city of Berlin, just a rather ordinary border. There was still commuter traffic from the east to the west and back.] My wife and I were in Adlershof which is the last suburban train station in East Berlin before you reach the borderline. As usual, I was carrying some stuff with me that I wanted to get to the west. On the train, next to the sliding doors, there was a glass wall behind which were the first seats of the train. I'd always keep standing there with my back to the glass wall, next to

8 the exit, so I'd be able to get out quickly. One day, the train had already been given the "Go" signal, the police and the STASI people, they were everywhere, got on board where I was. They put themselves back to back to me, with that glass wall I mentioned between us facing the people on the train. They shouted, 'Everybody from this point get out of the train!' It was only me who was allowed to remain on the train [wiping brow gesture with his hand]. And that's it, that's THE PRISONER! Yes. That's basically something from THE PRISONER. [HN writing autographs.] SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS UH: Do you know what people in the Village say to each other as a salute? HN: Yes, one moment... What was it like? [looking up, hand gesture] Wir sehen uns! Interview conducted on April 8th, 2015 Interviewer: Uwe Huber (Koch-Media freelancer) Camera: Jakob Legner Length of edited video approx. 38 minutes; processing by Marc Christiansen FREUNDE & FÖRDERER DER SERIE NUMMER 6NUMMER 6 released in Germany on DVD/BD by Koch-Media