by FIlmInk Staff
An Australian short film starring veteran Australian actor and singer Marty Rhone, dubbed one of the most unusual and controversial films of the year, has been nominated for a prestigious award at the 2023 Cannes World Film Festival.
Trial and Error, produced and directed by young Aussie filmmaker Tamir Anshtein, is a finalist in the Best Short Film category and tells the story of an unpunished fictitious war criminal Werner Dietrich.
Dietrich seeks admonishment, yet also redemption, by staging a fake trial where he sets out to justify his heinous crimes.
The film was shot in just one day in a dark warehouse in Melbourne last October, and required Rhone to speak continuously, virtually uninterrupted for the entirety of the film with a German accent. Rhone also had just 13 days to prepare for the role from the time of the audition to the shoot.
The performer, who has had a long and distinguished film and stage career, and also achieved heart-throb status back in the ‘70s singing his mega hit, ‘Denim and Lace’, says the shoot went smoother than he’d expected and required few retakes.
“Some sections of the script were done in blocks of dialogue, so I did get breaks, but nonetheless it required a great deal of concentration, and by the end of the day I was mentally exhausted,” says Rhone.
Director Anshtein required little persuasion that Rhone was right for the part, having heard the actor pull off a perfect German accent during their first Zoom meeting. Having been warned that the role was ‘complex yet subtle’, Rhone was up for the demanding task.
“When I first read the script, I realised that my character’s aim was to seek redemption for his heinous war crimes and some form of absolution, but the script was so well written that despite all his excuses, underneath it all, the embodiment of this Nazi comes through,” says Rhone. “A leopard never changes its spots, and I knew capturing those subtleties in the portrayal would be a challenge.”
Rhone says having watched the classic film, Judgement at Nuremburg, as a teenager and many other films on Nazi war criminals, what he wanted to avoid at all costs was to portray the character simply as a ‘bad guy’.
“I wanted to try and bring out his evil in a restrained way. I felt no sympathy whatsoever for the character because the fact that he stages and pays for his own fake trial is an attempt to manipulate. But I could not allow my personal views to come out in my portrayal. I had to be true to the character and try and capture his naïve, dishonest and immoral personality.”
With an eclectic career spanning from the days of Number 96, Class of ’74, to The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Wentworth and parts in major US series Bull and Harrow, Rhone is currently working on another soon to be announced project in the States, his most major role to date.
“It’s great to still be working in the industry, as it’s never over till it’s over,” he says. “What I have attempted to do throughout my five plus decades-long career, whether it’s acting or singing on stage, is to keep re-inventing myself and to stay relevant. I work hard at my craft and it’s roles such as Werner Dietrich that sustain my enthusiasm and love for my profession.”
