Battle of Neretva.

‘On Neretva in occupied Europe, we have fought one of the most famous and most human battles – battle for saving the wounded. The fate of the revolution was at stake, and here the brotherhood and unity of our nations won’.[1]

 

The brave Partisan Army.

In the beginning of 1943 Hitler ordered the destruction of the free Partisan Republic of Yugoslavia. The German high command had become concerned about the possibility of an Allied landing in the Balkans. This was of particular concern due to the substantial resources they were extracting from Yugoslavia, including timber and copper. In the event of an Allied landing, resistance forces in Yugoslavia would be likely to interfere with German defensive operations as well as continued resource extraction. Hitler’s orders were to take no prisoners sparing neither the women nor children. The partisans and thousands of refugees, including the wounded and these sick with typhoid, left the city’s behind and begin a hazardous trek northward to the Bosnian Mountains. Their goal was to cross the treacherous Neretva gorge over the only bridge in an attempt to get to safety. Their trip was fraught with danger having to face German tanks and air force, Italian infantry, Chetnik Cavalry, disease and the natural elements. This mammoth exodus was an attempt to move a nation and its culture to beyond the iron grip of Germany and their allies and on to safety. Those that refused or could not join this gigantic migration were hung or shoot by the multinational force that was close on the heels of Tito’s brave partisans and his people.

Picasso's Film poster.

Based on a true story of WW2 that depicts the historically correct patriotic battles between the Yugoslavians and the combined enemy axis.[2] The first class cinematic depictions of this epic cross country flight and final battle was the most expensive motion picture ever made in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the seventh most expensive non-English movie ever produced. The budget for the extras alone would, I imagine, be able to finance a small modern day production! The movie has some familiar faces that European audiences will recognise including Yul Brynner as Viado the man in charge of the Engineers that booby trapped the roads and blow up the giant railway bridge over the Neretva River in Jablanica. A bridge that was actually blown up, rebuilt and blown up again but because of the excessive smoke coursed by the explosion the footage was never used, instead the scenes of the bridge being blown up that eventually ended up in the movie were shot using a small scale table size replica at a sound stage in Prague. We also have Orson Welles as the Senator in charge of the Chetnik’s, Curd Jürgen’s as General Lohring leader of the German High Command, Hardy Kruger as Colonel Kranzer head of the German ground forces and Franco Nero as Captain Michele Riva the Italian commander who deserts and joins the Partisans because of his hatred of the fascist regime. But the real stars of the film are the Yugoslavian and East European actors like the beautiful Sylva Koscina,[3] Segey Bandachuk, Lyubisa Sanadzic and Boris Dvornik, names that that you will not be quite so familiar with, but who make this movie totally convincing. 

 

The bridge.

The Croatian film director Veljko Bulajic who also wrote the screenplay directed the movie.[4] He is best known for directing state sponsored Yugoslav WW2 themed Partisan films and you can see why. The authentic battle scenes where the male and female partisans fight side by side must rank as some of the best ever filmed and certainly compare with modern WW2 films. I’m not always sure that the subtitles always allowed you to understand the subtleties of the story and the DVD transfer is a little lacking but this does not detract from a film that shows what state sponsorship of the film industry can produce. Watching the film you can’t help but wonder how man can do these things to each other?

 

Sylva Koscina.

See also Cinema Komunisto for further information on the Yugoslavian film industry.  

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[1] Marshal Josip Broz Tito President of Yugoslavia 1953-1980

[2] Pablo Picasso created the poster for the film.

[3] Her English film debut was in 1964 when she co-starred along side Dirk Bogarde in the comedy Hot Enough for June.

[4] The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Vertigo: The Best Film of the Decade?

Every ten years the film magazine Sight and Sound askes critics to nominate the ten greatest films ever made, from which they publish a list. This year 846 critics did just that. But if like me, and Hannah McGill, you watch an extraordinary large amount of differing films your find a list of ten greatest films completely imposable to compile and therefore a meaningless exercise and any way, what constitutes a great film? The Sight and Sound invitation letter stated: “We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten best films you feel are most important to film history, or ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema” which really does not help, could it not be just ten films you love watching? Again I repeat a meaningless task, but lets have a look at the top film.

For the past fifty years the number one film has been Orson Welles Citizen Kane (1941) a film that was shown at the RBC Film Club a couple of years ago. Why was this 71-year-old film constantly put up as the best movie ever made. Following the viewing I listed down what I considered to be the reasons:

Welles was only twenty-four when he made what is basically his debut film bringing to it the brashness and confidence of youth.

The film tells a great story, the life of a fictional character, Charles Foster Kane, who was allegedly based on the life of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. In retrospect it could have been Welles own life story?

The narrative structure is an example of screenwriting at its very best.

Gregg Tolland’s cinematography is one of the films real strengths. He developed a technique for deep-focus photography where the extreme foreground, centre middle ground and background were all in focus at the same time allowing the eye to focus on any part of the image.

A brilliant performance from Orson Welles as Kane with supporting roles that are flawless, drawn mainly from Welles own Mercury Theatre group.

Welles once stated in an interview that Hollywood is the enemy of art, a factory, and a machine that sucked in European talent and destroyed it. (Hitchcock was given as an example!) Welles recognised this and demanded freedom to make Citizen Kane the way he wanted to, without interference. This was the first and last time Hollywood allowed Welles this artistic freedom.

Welles masterpiece has been finally knocked off its perch in 2012 by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) but still to my mind remains an example of total cinema.

Waltzes from Vienna.

Let me make it clear right from the start that I am no fan of Mr Hitchcock’s oeuvre with the exception of possibly Rear Window (1954) any film which features Grace Kelly can’t be all bad. Jessie Matthews appeared in the only musical Hitchcock directed, Waltzes from Vienna (1934), and stated that even at this early stage of his career he was one of highest paid directors in British films and was already accustomed to being the ‘star of the show’ and could not stand competition from the films young star who was at that stage ‘Britain’s first film goddess’. He was taken to task at the time by The Times newspaper for treating Jessie as ‘a not too important part of the films design’ She summed him up as a domineering young man who knew nothing about musicals and said that she and her female co-star Fay Compton, were unnerved by him because of his sarcasm and his well known reputation as a practical joker. Due to Hitchcock’s lack lustre direction and his famous distrust of actors the film was a flop, panned by the critics and has since become regarded as the worst film in his career.

The best poster I've seen for Vertigo.

Because of Vertigo’s newly found status I thought I had better have a look at this venerated movie and to be honest I had no idea why it is regarded as Sight and Sounds greatest film of all time. For some reason it did not appear in the top ten films until 1982, coming in at number seven. Set in San Francisco it involves a detective John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson (James Stewart) who has a fear of heights and has been consequently retired from the police force and is then hired by an old friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to follow his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak). After rescuing her from the San Francisco River Ferguson finds himself becoming obsessed with this beautiful young woman, it’s a story that encompasses mental illness, love and murder. So far so good, perhaps not?

This Sunday afternoon melodrama is overlong, far-fetched and repetitive with a twist that you can see coming blindfolded. Watching this over long ‘psychological thriller’ can be compared with walking through a bog waste deep, slow and plodding, the whole thing would have been better edited for inclusion in one of Alfred Hitchcock Presents shown on the television from 1955 up until 1965. As normal with the Leytonstone born director his over use of Bernard Herrmann’s music to dictate the mood of the film is so obvious it actually nullifies the suspenseful moments. James Stewart, a passed master at the doe eyed school of acting perfected ten years earlier in the syrupy tosh It’s a Wonderful Life, portrays a character that’s far to old for his leading lady, in fact the 25 year difference is embarrassing. The film was not successful on it initial release and even Hitchcock was reported to have had reservations about the film, who am I to disagree, and I still none the wiser why this movie has been voted the best film of the decade? Maybe Hannah McGill article, published in the same edition of Sight and Sound is right and we really should not take a lot of notice of these canons?

Stewart with his much younger co-star.

Kim Novac with the give-away broach!