Local 706 - The Artisan

Fall 2022

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THE ARTISAN FALL 2022 • 37 A SURVIVOR'S TALE Spanning three decades of a real man's true life story, The Survivor tells the harrowing tale of Harry Haft, a man who was taken prisoner by the Nazis during the Second World War, and forced to fight in 'Death Matches'; bare-knuckle brawling to the death. Whoever wins, lives for another day. The loser dies. Harry Haft fought and survived many fights before escaping the Nazis, fleeing Europe, and making his way to America. In the United States, he became a professional boxer. Always searching for his lost love, a woman who in his heart he knew was still alive somewhere, he traded the story of his dark past to a newspaper writer who promised him publicity in exchange for his captivating story, an attempt for Haft to reach the attention of the woman he loved and lost. Fighting his way up to the real Rocky Marciano and into his middle age, ghosts and demons of his past haunted him in a world that had not yet invented the term PTSD. Harry Haft is The Survivor, more intact physically than mentally. The make-up work involved character and prosthetic make- up with appliances, dentures and hairpieces to transform actor Ben Foster into the likeness of Harry Haft. Then aging that B Y J A M I E K E L M A N | M A K E - U P D E S I G N E R PHOTOS: HBO FILMS, EXCEPT AS NOTED character make-up creation with more appliances, older-looking dentures, gray hairpieces and lots of paint. The fights and boxing utilized many trauma swelling make-up prosthetics, blood work, contusion colors, and invisibility make-up—full body tattoo cover on an actor who in real life has over a dozen large body tattoos. For actor Ben Foster, this role as Harry Haft included a weight loss and then gain of 60 pounds to tell Harry's life story. Ben Foster hired me as his make-up designer while we were working on a prior movie together. We started building and sneaking in make-up tests on our downtime to figure out how to make Ben look like Harry. The key areas we wanted to transform were the hallmarks of Harry but also of boxers: permanent brow swellings and a battered nose. Additionally, Mr. Haft had a pronounced mouth muzzle where Ben did not. Rather than appliances around the mouth, an area especially vulnerable to make-up breakdown and edge flaws, we affected the change from within the mouth utilizing dental plumper dentures to change the teeth and push out Ben's lips and mouth. These special dentures were made by Yoichi Art Sakamoto. The teeth also needed to happen sooner than later because Ben needed to learn

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