Deutsche Presse-Agentur
The German Wehrmacht is pushing the eastern front forward toward the besieged
city in the dead of winter - only the city is actually Berlin and it is the
year 2000 and the soldiers are all movie extras in Wehrmacht uniforms.
Shooting of Oscar-winner Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy At The Gates got underway on the outskirts of town the same day that the
50th Berlin Film Festival did, but Annaud has been notably absent at
the festival's Golden Anniversary parties and receptions.
"Don't have time for it," he shouted over the roar of artillery fire on the
"Stalingrad set" near Potsdam just west of Berlin. "I prefer making films
rather than talking about them at festivals." And overseeing a production
budget of 100 million dollars - the biggest- ever for a European film - he
prefers to stay close to the production.
"The only time I go to Berlin is for a couple of hours of shut-eye at my
hotel," he told journalists who were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the
huge set.
It is a perfect replica of Stalingrad under siege, the Stalin Memorial in
ruins from German artillery fire, the streets crowded with frightened
residents dashing for cover and Red Army soldiers scurrying to obey shouted
orders from officers.
The Gorky Theatre and the Pravda bureau have taken hits from German big guns,
glass and masonry litter the streets.
In the midst of it all stands the city's landmark 15-metre-tall statue of
Stalin, seemingly defying Hitler to topple him. Standing next to it, just out
of camera range is the director.
Annaud is a hands-on director, who likes to be in the middle of the action.
It was just the same with his award-winning The Name Of The Rose back in
1986, which starred Sean Connery and Christian Slater. And it was the same
with his Seven Years In Tibet starring Brad Pitt.
Enemy At The Gates stars Joseph Fiennes who played the title role in
Shakespeare In Love along with Jude Law, Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz.
Who is Jude Law? Never heard of him? You will. He was nominated this week for
an Academy Award for his supporting role in The Talented Mr Ripley.
Festival-goers emerging from Ripley screenings in Berlin this week have
agreed Law has the thespian talents - and the sculpted cheek bones - to carry
him far.
Watching the shoot, it is hard to tell which dictator is which as Annaud
grabs a megaphone and shouts instructions to actors and technicians.
Clad in a military green parka, baggy workman's trousers and sturdy boots
caked with mud, he looks very much like a man who tends to take charge. A mop
of curly white hair catches the snow flakes which, virtually on cue, have
started falling during the shoot.
"The crowd scenes are a cinch," he says later during a break. "It's mostly a
matter of seeing to it that the extras' costumes fit right and that the
effects come off right."
But he concedes he will have to change into something a bit less comfortable
for the interiors being shot at nearby Babelsberg studios.
"When I'm shooting love scenes with the leads, I don't lounge around quite
like this," he explains. "Odd as it may seem, the battle scenes are routine.
It's the love scenes which are a lot more demanding and make everyone more
tense."
Like Tibet, Enemy is based on a true life account, this time of a young
Russian soldier who was touted as a hero by the Soviet war propaganda
machine.
His name was Vassily and he is portrayed by Law in this production, his
friend and commanding officer played by Fiennes. Both men fall in love with
Tanya (Weisz) who has taken up arms to help protect her beloved city. Into
this love triangle steps the German Wehrmacht Major Koenig (Harris) bent on
depriving the Soviet propaganda machine of its star hero.
Annaud's Name Of The Rose screenplay co-writer Alain Godard stumbled across
the story of Vassily three years ago and immediately told Annaud about it.
And it turns out that the real Vassily even had a girlfriend," Annaud adds
with a grin and a shake of his head. "I couldn't believe it. Truth is often
better than fiction."
Authenticity is not enough, after all, or else Annaud would be making
documentaries.
Europe needs functioning film studios, he says, pointing to the demise of
Pinewood and the other major dream factories on this side of the Atlantic.
Even Rome's vast Cinecitta production centre, birthplace of so many Fellini
movies, is only a shadow of its former self.
"Cinecitta is dead," he notes sadly. "Just churns out pap for TV." Primary
photography for Enemy is scheduled to run through March at three sites
around Berlin and at the Babelsberg studios.
Thousands of details still have to be worked out, including the title. Enemy
At The Gates is only the tentative working title. If all goes according to
schedule, the film could be ready for an early 2001 release.
Meanwhile, break time is over and the interview is at an end. The shelling
resumes and a German tank rattles round the corner of a building, providing
cover for about 150 German infantrymen. "This is war," Annaud shouts to the
uniformed extras. "I want your faces to show it."
February 17, 2000
By Ernest Gill
Annaud is French, after all.
The rolling marshes west of Berlin where the exterior shooting is being done
are a perfect setting. "You can feel the East here, you can truly sense it.
You feel as though you are on the Eastern Front."
Authenticity is a key element here, just as it was with the Middle Ages
setting of Name Of The Rose and the Himalayan setting of Seven Years in
Tibet. For that matter, authenticity was the key to his 1988 L'Ours (The
Bear), the moving adventure tale of a Canadian Rockies bear cub alone in the
wilderness.
"What I like about this material is the authenticity," Annaud says.
"This is a true story. Vassily was a real person. And in the screenplay Alain
and I've written, we draw a young man full of optimism, full of dreams for
the future, a young that the Soviet propaganda machine has pinned a nation's
hopes on.
"I love the magic of the big screen," he says. "I don't go to the movies to
see facts, I go there to be transported to another realm."
There is another reason this film is being made here at the legendary
Babelsberg studios, where such classics as Metropolis and The Blue Angel
were made - rather than in Hollywood.
