Last Sunday, while Inglourious Basterds was robbed of its Best Original Screenplay Oscar, it at least got some love with probably the least surprising win of the night when Christoph Waltz’s long-awaited victory finally arrived. Yet while his Colonel Hans Landa is one of the film’s chief delights, I just wanted to put the spotlight on another Nazi villain in the film who, I feel, has been eclipsed by Waltz’s one-of-a-kind performance. That character is the Gestapo Major Dieter Hellstrom, who, like Landa, but in his own way, is capable of exercising a mesmerizing screen presence. Played by German actor August Diehl, his main moment of glory is easily the deliciously tense La Louisiane sequence in which, beer boot in hand, he excruciatingly ratchets up the tension for Michael Fassbender’s rendezvous with Diane Kruger. He also appears earlier in the film when he picks up Mélanie Laurent’s Shosanna and takes her to lunch with Goebbels and company in the “German Night in Paris” chapter.
The majority of Diehl’s work consists of films and TV projects I’ve never really heard of. However, among the more prominent things he has done is The Counterfeiters, the recent Austrian film that won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (in which he ironically plays a Jewish concentration camp prisoner), and Mouth to Mouth, an indie movie which also features Ellen Page between her breakout role in Hard Candy and her “star-making” one in Juno.
I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of Diehl’s stuff, and in the meantime will continue to enjoy his underrated, terrific performance upon further re-viewings of Inglourious Basterds.
Oh, wow, you’re right – that guy was so good in Inglourious Basterds. I HATED him. Which was the point. I’m feeling all tense again just thinking about that scene.
I’ve been meaning to see The Counterfeiters, too, but haven’t yet.
And the connection is made! I thought he looked familiar but couldn’t peg him – nice work Marc! I really enjoyed THE COUNTERFEITERS – solid work there too!
August Diehl is the best living German actor, like with Gael Garcia Bernal or Louis Garrel his one film away from becoming a real great star who can make great american films as well, actually Bernal has already been in about 6 masterpieces so he’s not too plused.
Amazing actor. In Love in Thoughts(Liebe in Gedanken) he was especially good.
YES! I so agree – Waltz was the real star, and now that everyone knows that, the next viewings of IB should make people notice August even more – I hope! (just as Shosannah’s boyfriend, Marcel, was portrayed in such a terrible “performance”, the actor really cant be proud – and I’m French, so no preconceived hatred here). The German really stole and made the film (in the performance field of course, not talking about the writing or directing, huh). BUT, back to Diehl, I personnaly discovered him in “Love in Thoughts” (I almost missed that movie, it was on TV once, but finally didnt watch it, and one day, few months later, at the mediateque, I see a film who catches my eye, pick it up, and then realize it was the same movie whose synopsis in the tvguide interested me etc) so I watched it alone at home, and loved it, converted my friends to it, even watched it like 3-4 times a day etc and just adored August (even if Daniel “Zoller” Bruhl, also in it, was excellent too) – I’m training to be an actress, and his art just hit me. Then I started to check his other films, and followed his news. When I saw he was about to be in another ww2 movie (I’m very interested in that historical era) (yet another, because he also did, still portraying Nazis, “The Ninth Day”, and more recently, “A Woman In Berlin” (more of a guest appearance), both from real events), directed by Tarantino (!!) – yep, I came to know the IB project by August first, not QT himself
– I just couldnt wait (and Daniel Brühl’s in it too? cool…).
I think it’s a shame he hadnt a bigger role, but you can see everyone was impressed by his talent, I’ve watched some interviews of Tarantino, Brad Pitt, Micheal Fassbinder etc and his name veeeery often comes up when they talk of talented German actors who deserve to be known and to work abroad etc.
We’re gonna be able to watch him soon in… “Salt”, with Angelina Jolie… I’m afraid this movie is gonna be worth watching only for Diehl’s performance in it…