Vienna Blood: (Vienna Blood 2)

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In season one, Amelia was a patient of Max’s and she’s since recovered. She is stable and healthy, working well and kind of on her own in Vienna. But she doesn’t mind. Carlo Dusi, Managing Director of Endor Productions, comments: “It was a pleasure and an honour to film three more fantastic stories from the brilliant Steve Thompson across Vienna and Budapest and have the opportunity to bring more of the world originally created by the great Frank Tallis in his Liebermann novels to a global audience. We cannot wait for viewers worldwide to discover Max Liebermann and Oskar Rheinhardt’s latest adventures through Matthew Beard and Juergen Maurer’s incredible performances, once again under Robert Dornhelm’s magical direction. The new season also features a range of wonderful supporting characters, both old and new, and we hope that our loyal Vienna Blood audience will love the new season as much as we all loved making it!" For me, setting is everything. First there is the broad, colourful canvas of Freud’s Vienna. Then there is usually some form of ‘closed’ community - anything from a secret society to a fashion house. There is the world - and then smaller worlds nested within the greater world. Once I’ve got a setting, plots arise spontaneously. A setting will suggest specific themes for exploration, and impose helpful limits. The dramatic space in which the characters operate will be clearly defined. In the drama we make one or two decisions which are different from the original novels. When we first meet Max and Oskar in the first novel written by Frank, they’re old friends and they’ve been friends for a long time. I was interested in their first meeting because Oskar, immersed in the world of police investigations and crime, was not necessarily going to meet Max that easily. I was interested to find out how they had met and I wanted to write about that. When we first met him, Max was on the path to marry vivacious Clara, but meeting Amelia Lydgate changed all that. Max’s attraction to the dark side of the human brain impacts both on his interest in Vienna’s criminals and his relationships. The deeper Max journeys into other people’s madness, the less he’ll know himself. Oskar Rheinhardt, Police Inspector - Juergen Maurer

Vienna Blood was my first production during the pandemic. The production team and cast were already into it by the time I got there. It felt like a well-oiled machine for something that was a very new experience for all of us. I’ve nothing to compare it to but it felt like the very best experience you could have during a bad experience, if that makes sense. It was so well handled. The Covid team was great and the producers were all great so you didn’t feel unsafe. I felt very safe and taken care of.

Luise Von Finckh (Clara Weiss)

I’d love to write more Liebermann novels, but whether I do or not rather depends on opportunity and time. For the past five years I’ve been otherwise engaged writing psychology books - a clinical memoir, a philosophical book that summarizes what the great psychologists can teach us about coping with life - and I’m currently working on a book called Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna And The Discovery Of The Modern Mind. It’s several things: a Freud biography, a book about Freud’s cultural context - and also, a book about how Freud and his Viennese contemporaries influenced how we think and live today. When the series first starts (in the year 1902), Max is in his late twenties and a disciple of Freud. He goes to Freud’s apartment on Wednesday nights to have meetings. Him and some other doctors talk about their observations on the darker side that humans have. All three films are so totally different. One is set in the world of high fashion and questions the friendship of our two main characters because Oscar starts to be very suspicious of his friend's interest in the murder case. The second film is about guilt and paying the price for having behaved morally unacceptably once in life. That ghost will never leave you. And the third one is about politics, accusation, manipulation and blame. It is a very interesting situation, because nationalism is something we all hate, or I do at least. Our suspect is a nationalist but is very sympathetic and turns out to be friendly towards our protagonists. He's so friendly, good looking and a smooth operator that you forgive him. The banality of evil. With our makeup designer, Michaela Payer, we have moved with the years. My hair went from being worn down, to more up, to more liberated. That's also because of the period and women being freer in their looks, I would say.”

Oskar Rheinhardt (40s) is a half-Slovak Police Inspector with something to prove to his superiors. Oskar is more a doer than a thinker and has a strong physical presence. Despite being occasionally irritated by Max’s discursive approach to crime solving, Oskar is savvy enough to know that Max’s intuitions will help his career prospects. We have a certain kind of chemistry and it’s really great. Everything we do in dialogue together is brilliant. As we proceed with our relationship as actors it gets more and more detailed, and with the routine comes lots of fun also. The Max and Oskar scenes are my favourites! The second, and I think perhaps more interesting theme, is that Freud's Vienna was a pre-apocalyptic Vienna in the sense that it was edging towards the First World War. And the First World War was an absolute catastrophe. And they knew that they were heading towards some kind of catastrophe because the Habsburg empire was full of tensions, was fraying at the edges and there was a sense that something bad was coming. And the Viennese had a very curious response to it, in the sense that they were partly nostalgic looking to the past, partly revolutionary looking towards perhaps some new world, but mostly they behave in a kind of fairly irregular and counterintuitive fashion in terms of maybe drinking more champagne, having more balls, having more sexual liaisons and generally sort of partying to the end. And I suppose that curious atmosphere of a world that is approaching an apocalyptic end, and how people respond to that atmosphere was very influential while I was writing the books.I came to Vienna to study science. I was told this city was more enlightened. I see little evidence in the way I’ve been treated here. I ask you plainly - do you think I’m insane?” It’s a whole different side of life. And I think any father would worry about his son in this situation. But funnily enough, in these three films, Mendel gets involved a little more in Max and Oskar's work. It's a bit of a departure for him. Max is very intellectual. He's immersed in his science and the world of crime. But when we see him with his family, it grounds Max in such a joyous way. The Liebermann family have their own little rituals, their own sense of fun, their own sense of humour. This beautiful relationship between Max and his father that the two actors play, this gentle ribbing, this gentle humour that they have - expresses Max's humanity perhaps better than anything else in the show. I think that's critical. Max may be the brain of the show. But when we see him with his family, that's when we understand its heart. Any film that I do which is a period movie has to have relevance for today’s problems. If that’s not the case we wasted an opportunity. Yes, it’s nice to see beautiful costumes and Vienna at the turn of the century and recreate all that stuff. But without learning something for today’s problems it’s a pointless journey. And Leah is making her voice heard. It was great putting Leah at the centre of the Liebermann business. The dynamic between her and her father is so beautifully played by the two actors. It's really nice to see it. And Max is enormously relieved that Leah has taken over his role in the family business and his father isn't going to nag him anymore!”