Zürich in the mid 1950s: A young teacher named Ernst Ostertag (Matthias Hungerbühler) becomes a member of the gay organization Der Kreis (The Circle) whose publication unites the fragile yet vibrant post-World War II gay community in Switzerland. He gets to know cabaret singer and female impersonator Röbi Rapp (Sven Schelker) and immediately falls head over heels in love with him. Stefan Haupt’s moving film, The Circle, features a unique blend of narrative and documentary formats with the real-life Ernst and Röbi commenting on the scripted sequences of the film. The film deftly charts the increasing repression against homosexuals in Zurich as the two young and very different men fight for their love and together with their friends for the rights of gay people. In 2003, Ernst and Röbi made history when, both 73 years old at the time, they became the first legally married same-sex couple in Switzerland. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Ernst Ostertag and Röbi Rapp as well as director Stefan Haupt to discuss The Circle, Switzerland’s entry to this year’s Oscar race for Best Foreign Film.
Danny Miller: How bizarre is it to see these moments from your life flash before your eyes?
Ernst Ostertag: It’s amazing — every single time I see the film! Especially since we lived such hidden lives for so many years. And then, all of a sudden, this movie comes out and the response has been so overwhelming. Even more in America than in Europe.
Were either of you wary about having your lives depicted on screen?
Röbi Rapp: No, I think it’s fantastic. And we got the chance to spend time with these wonderful young actors and develop a friendship with them. And now here we are in Los Angeles talking about this great film. It’s all such a big surprise for us.
Ernst: It was miraculous to me how Matthias and Sven kept their own personalities but were still able to slip into ours when we were their age. I thought they were remarkable. And I have to admit that I nearly fell in love with Sven in the film because when I saw him, I thought, “Oh, this is exactly like Röbi!”
Stefan, was it always your intention to make this “hybrid” documentary/feature film?
Stefan Haput: To be honest, no, that was not the original plan. At first I was approached about doing a fictional film — a period piece based on Ernst and Röbi’s lives. It was going to be a co-production with Germany, we had the script and were ready to go when the money we were going to get from Germany fell through. In the end we only had Swiss money and we weren’t going to be able to do the film.
How did you come up with the idea of including documentary footage with the real-life Ernst and Röbi?
We were very close to giving up but, of course, we had met these two and really wanted to tell their story. By chance, we happened to film Röbi’s show that you see at the beginning of the film and we had filmed these interviews of them just to see what they remembered about the incidents that we covered in our script.
Those were just done as background material for the film?
Yes, and maybe it would be bonus material for a future DVD. But then, we suddenly came up with the idea of combining these two things. We realized what a good choice this was because the two of them make it all so authentic and also, there’s absolutely no archival footage from those years or from any of the balls so we had to recreate that anyway. We edited all of the documentary footage first and then we went scene-by-scene thinking about how we could meld those two different levels of filmmaking.
Fascinating. Did you get any flack from documentary purists?
You know, we never really thought about those labels, for us it was just a film. We probably considered it more a feature film than a documentary because around 70 percent of the film involved scenes with actors playing these roles. It’s funny to us how many people have labeled the film a documentary. We’ve won prizes at film festivals for best feature film and also for best documentary!
It’s really interesting to see the depiction of gay life in Switzerland in the 1950s. While the country seemed a lot more progressive than what was happening in the United States at that time, people are still hiding their relationships. Was anyone living completely out of the closet as a gay person back then?
Ernst: Nobody was out and in public as a gay person — that was unthinkable. That’s why there are no photographs about anything that happened in The Circle because it wasn’t allowed. We only used first names, often not our real ones, so we just knew each other by our “club names.” And there was a rule — it was even in writing — that when we met someone from the group on the street, if they were with someone we just walked by, without any kind of greeting or acknowledgment.
Wow. Even though the war was over and you were in Switzerland, was the specter of what had happened to homosexuals under the Nazi regime still in the air?
Very much so. Nobody knew if that kind of attitude would come back. Sure, the Nazis were “gone” after the war, but Hitler’s followers were still there. We never knew what might happen, it was all very much “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t say anything!”
I know there was a time when actors were reluctant to play gay roles for fear of what that might do to their careers. I assume we’re long past that these days, especially in Europe?
Stefan: Not always. At first we had chosen a very good German actor chosen for the role of Röbi but about a month after he was cast he called me and said, “Listen, I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to do it, I don’t want to play a gay role.” I talked to him several times on the phone for hours but in the end I just had to accept it. But in the case of Sven and Matthias who are both straight, they really immersed themselves into the subject, they had no problem with it at all.
I thought Sven Schelker was so great when he was playing Röbi in drag. Did you teach him all your moves?
Röbi: Yes, I had the chance to spend a lot of time with him. He’s a very gifted actor.
Stefan: The funny thing about that is that I was so focused on finding two actors who had a great chemistry with each other that I completely forgot to even ask Sven if he could sing. We all loved him and signed him for the role right away. It was only about a month later that I thought to ask him about that. He was amazed it hadn’t come up, but luckily, he is a very talented singer as well!
Could you ever have imagined when you were two young men in the Circle that you’d be sitting here today, legally married to each other?
Ernst: It’s like a fairy tale. Sometimes we just look at each other and say, “Is this really true or are we dreaming?” Believe me, at the time, nobody dared to even have the thought about reaching what we have now. We’re so happy that we lived to see these changes and I only wish the leaders of the Circle were here to enjoy it with us.
Are there still many people from the Circle around?
Very few, unfortunately, and they’re all over 90. We were among the youngest at that time. Most of them either became victims of AIDS or died of old age.
Do young gay people in Switzerland today know about the Circle?
Röbi: No, not really, that’s why it’s so great that we now have this film. I think the Circle was very important in the history of our movement.
Are there still right-wing groups in Switzerland that oppose gay rights?
Ernst: That only seems to become a problem when there are new laws being proposed that relate to gay rights. That’s when the right-wing groups suddenly appear with their referendums against any new laws that are designed to protect us. We call these people our “friendly enemies” because their opposition usually helps our cause!
Röbi, I thought the character of your mother in the film was so incredible. And how great to have an actress the caliber of Marianne Sägebrecht playing her!
Röbi: I was so thrilled to have Marianne playing my mother. She is so wonderful.
Stefan: Our producers wanted her from the beginning. We were so lucky because we sent her the script and she responded right away that she wanted to help us. She felt that gay rights was such an important issue and she totally identified with the character.
Ernst, your family was probably more typical to many gay people’s experience. Was it painful for any of them to see how your family members were depicted in the film?
Ernst: Those that are still alive are very supportive. Remember, I only came out to my family when I was 70 — up until then had been living a very clandestine life as far as they were concerned. When I did finally come out, many of them were astonished and some of them were very upset that I hadn’t told them years earlier. They felt it wasn’t fair to keep this part of my life from them.
Did that make you feel conflicted about not coming out to them when you were younger and your parents were still alive?
I just couldn’t. There were many times when we were with my family when we tried to lead the conversation in that direction but they immediately changed the subject, they just didn’t want to talk about it. So I thought well, if they exclude us, they’re just excluding themselves from that part of our lives. But now we’re all quite close.
The film shows some terrifying murders that happened at the time that led to the repression and ultimate dismantling of the Circle. That must have been a very scary time.
It was a horrible time. Some of the newspapers turned those murders into a big scandal about our whole community just to sell their papers. They tried to make it sound like the entire homosexual community in Switzerland was involved with these prostitutes who were minors. And they depicted the prostitutes as these poor kids were being led astray by the homosexuals. So the victims became the persecuted. That began a witch hunt against us. It was a very creepy time.
Thank God we’ve come so far since then, for the most part. And your relationship withstood that difficult time. The longevity of your relationship is pretty damn impressive. What’s your secret?
Ernst: We’ve now been together for 58 years, I think, because we have always been honest with each other and we respect each other. I want to help my partner develop himself in a way that HE thinks is good and not based on what I want. I don’t want to change him at all.
Whoa, that’s it right there — the secret for all relationships!
Röbi: The main thing we want people to get from this film is that we weren’t that special, we’re just normal people. I hope people see that it’s not sexuality but love that carries the day.