Campus Circle, LA
March 14-27, 2001
By Christina Radish

In the midst of the World War II battle for Stalingrad, Russian soldier Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), an ordinary man who happens to be an extraordinary sniper, suddenly finds himself at the center of a world conflict. Vassili, with the help of Soviet political officer Danilow (Joseph Fiennes), becomes a Russian hero and, at the same time, a key German enemy. The Nazi's best sniper, Major Konig (Ed Harris) is sent to kill the man who has given a face to the international conflict. While the battle rages on around the two snipers, Vassili and Danilov find themselves in love with Tania (Rachel Weisz), a Soviet soldier.

Based on a story of real-life hero Vassili Zaitsev, Enemy at the Gates tells one of the most famous stories to emerge from the World War II. Nearly 60 years after the Battle for Stalingrad, Zaitsev remains a national hero whose skill and courage as a sniper are indisputable.

The historically based film found British star Jude Law in search of both sides of the story.

"I suddenly realized that I knew it all from the British point of view, and that seems the same the world over," Law said. "Americans often know about the war from the American point of view. That's sort of the way history seems to be taught, so I really knew very little, and when I started investigating it, I realized I knew even less about how the repercussions led to the Cold War which only ended, in my opinion, five or ten years ago."

"It's important that a film about the Soviets was made because we have all hopefully matured and grown and moved on from the fear of the Commies. This particular story transcends that. It's not about a Russian. It's about an every man who is taken out of his natural surroundings and put into conflict. It's about how you deal with that and how you survive it," Law said.

Filming Enemy at the Gates gave the actors a sense of realism of the era.

"It's probably as close as you can get without getting killed," Joseph Fiennes said laughing. "It's such an epic film, the scale of which allowed the actor to become totally submerged in what felt like the reality of the situation."

"The recreation of Red Square in Stalingrad was this monumental set with billowing smoke two hundred feet high in the air, gunfire, dead bodies. The temperature was freezing and we were all covered in mud. What it did was lend an idea, a morsel, of what it might have been like in those conditions for those young men. You would have to multiply it by a million to come up with something even close, but it gave you a flavor of just how abhorrent and extreme those conditions were for those young men," Fiennes said.

Law admitted to feeling like he was living out a childhood dream of playing a soldier.

"I was indulging myself for the first couple of weeks and then the cold, the filth, and the intensity of this took over. It was definitely a boyhood dream for the first couple of weeks of putting on fatigues and training with the rifle, which started a good month or two before we shot. It was pretty intensive," Law said.

The realism of the sets and the intensity of the subject left the actors with more than a sense that the shoot was just another job.

"I don't think that acting is like a jumpsuit that you carry with you and zip in and out of at the end of the day. I don't think that you can. I think that you take it with you," Fiennes said. "In respect to this film, the only thing that I got rid of at the end of the day was the dirt when I showered, but that's about as far removed as you could get."

Law revealed that the realness of the shoot did get frightening at times.

"It was thrilling because you are sometimes asked as an actor, 'Do you find yourself in a situation where you believe and you forget that you're acting?" Law said. "This wasn't acting. It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life, actually. I wouldn't ever presume that I knew what the Battle of Stalingrad was really like because it was much more dangerous and filthy and cold and terrifying, but that was a really exraordinary, very scary experience."

In discussing what attracted him to his character, Fiennes said, "For me, Danilow was an intellectual. I rather loved the journey and arch that he goes through, which is that he is confronted with these human emotions which confront his intellectual approach, i.e. in propaganda. He finds what is valued for the cause of the party and manipulates and fabricates a hero in order to boost the morale of the troops and finds out, ultimately, that he is a puppeteer. And above him, he is being controlled by others, and I loved that political conflict."

"I think Danilov was fascinating because of his contradictions. I felt that he started from a naive and pure place that was based on the belief of the utopian idea of the Communism, but then came to understand that at the end, Communism under Stalin, or Stalinism, was just as bad as the evil he was fighting. I liked that revelation and the human conflict. He was very difficult and compelling and a wonderful character to portray."

In much the same way that Zaitsev becomes a manufactured hero, actors are manufactured into stars as a result of the publicity they receive. Having become the sex symbol after his role as playboy Dickie Greenleaf in 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley, Law has first-hand experience in that matter.

"I'm certainly aware that this persona that I know isn't me is created by what's written and the accumulation of images - photos and articles, analysis, opinions - that are put out there," Law said. "Unfortunately, it's just that that's part and parcel nowadays of what it is to be in the performing business, whether you're a musician or even if you're in sports. It's just that's the world that we live in."