Story coming from Variety today is of Russian film FIRST OSCAR World War II drama inspired by the true story of the making of documentary
The movie will be out March 24th
“Moscow Strikes Back,” winner of an Oscar in 1943, the first year when documentaries had their own Academy Award. Out in March, it follows two student cinemato- graphers, Ilya Kopalin and Leonid Varlamov, who, as the Nazis approach Moscow, refuse to be evacuated and instead volunteer to be front-line cameramen capturing the horrors of war and bravery of the Soviet soldiers. The second storyline unfolds in the U.S. where one of the members of the Academy Awards selection committee tries to persuade his colleagues to launch a new category for Best Documentary at the upcoming
First Oscar will get an international distribution as well
Oscars event. Sergey Mokritskiy directs the film. Young Russian actors Tikhon Zhiznevskiy and Anton Momot play the lead roles with Michael Lerner, Robert L. Wilson, Jordan Laesch also in the cast.
Hollywood went totally red during the war with everybody making documentaries and moving pictures praising Russian efforts like The North Star done by John Huston and Gregory Peck's first starring role Days of Glory. Everybody paid dearly during the Red Scare/McCarthy years when they were accused of being communists and blacklisted
Weren't some of them Russian spies? John Wayne, or who was it? Some of them, like Richard Burton, shot a number of WW2 films in Yugoslavia as well, celebrating our massive victories at Sutjeska and Neretva etc. Burton even played Tito.
That is a hard question that many in modern American culture fear to tackle. Some were bona fide Communists at a time when being Red was a fad. Aside from Lillian Hellman, I don't think any of the Hollywood crowd was very harmful. Some had their careers destroyed, Charlie Chaplin had to emigrate. Sir Richard was not American, therefore his political sympathies (If he had any) were no concern to the government. Former Yugoslavia was what the Czech Republic is now, paradise for period and WWII films. It was the only Communist country that allowed Western films to be shot on her soil. Epic films like Dr. Zhivago and television series like The Winds of War were filmed there. About spies, there was a Soviet agent galore, but you could find more infiltrators in Washington than in Los Angeles. The Duke hated “pinkoes” so much that he created the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and was a supporter of the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee. He testified against his peers, and was so active that the kGB sent agents to eliminate him.
I just have to correct you, we were never a communist country, but a socialist one, although communist party was on power. It is a huge difference and also a reason we were destroyed by the western powers in the 90s. Zhivago was shot in my Vojvodina. We still have a lot of Hollywood movies shot here, there are always some huge stars stalking our streets LOL as we have cheap workers and tons of locations and we are very prone to corruption which is practical for producers LOL
i stand corrected. Sorry to hear about the corruption in the film production. You have a lovely country (i'm talking about landscape) so I understand that it can provide location for epic films.
Not in the film production but in the whole society lol we are famous for nepotism, for bribery and all you can think off - all of that eases the production if you are ready to pay :) We have had a massive decline in spirits and morals ever since our dictator came on power. He even has a national TV with a reality programme made of legitimate prostitutes and convicted criminals, and they become role models to kids. Half of his ministers have been revealed to have fake degrees and nobody does nothing because he has the general attorney working for him.
God bless those cameramen who put themselves in the middle of war zones to give us a first hand account of what's really going on. It's nice that the documentary was recognized and appropriately awarded.
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Interesting to see a Russian film won an Oscar..doesn't sound political correct to me...LOL
ReplyDeleteProbably because it was WW2 and they were allies, don't think they would be so open to give it to them today, sadly.
DeleteOscar vinner film and Russian film. (Very interesting, isnt it?). Film's trailer looks nice but still i am not sure.
ReplyDeleteAnd without it there probably wouldn't be a documentary category at the Oscars.
DeleteHollywood went totally red during the war with everybody making documentaries and moving pictures praising Russian efforts like The North Star done by John Huston and Gregory Peck's first starring role Days of Glory. Everybody paid dearly during the Red Scare/McCarthy years when they were accused of being communists and blacklisted
ReplyDeleteWeren't some of them Russian spies? John Wayne, or who was it? Some of them, like Richard Burton, shot a number of WW2 films in Yugoslavia as well, celebrating our massive victories at Sutjeska and Neretva etc. Burton even played Tito.
DeleteThat is a hard question that many in modern American culture fear to tackle. Some were bona fide Communists at a time when being Red was a fad. Aside from Lillian Hellman, I don't think any of the Hollywood crowd was very harmful. Some had their careers destroyed, Charlie Chaplin had to emigrate. Sir Richard was not American, therefore his political sympathies (If he had any) were no concern to the government. Former Yugoslavia was what the Czech Republic is now, paradise for period and WWII films. It was the only Communist country that allowed Western films to be shot on her soil. Epic films like Dr. Zhivago and television series like The Winds of War were filmed there.
DeleteAbout spies, there was a Soviet agent galore, but you could find more infiltrators in Washington than in Los Angeles. The Duke hated “pinkoes” so much that he created the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and was a supporter of the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee. He testified against his peers, and was so active that the kGB sent agents to eliminate him.
I just have to correct you, we were never a communist country, but a socialist one, although communist party was on power. It is a huge difference and also a reason we were destroyed by the western powers in the 90s.
DeleteZhivago was shot in my Vojvodina. We still have a lot of Hollywood movies shot here, there are always some huge stars stalking our streets LOL as we have cheap workers and tons of locations and we are very prone to corruption which is practical for producers LOL
i stand corrected. Sorry to hear about the corruption in the film production. You have a lovely country (i'm talking about landscape) so I understand that it can provide location for epic films.
DeleteNot in the film production but in the whole society lol we are famous for nepotism, for bribery and all you can think off - all of that eases the production if you are ready to pay :) We have had a massive decline in spirits and morals ever since our dictator came on power. He even has a national TV with a reality programme made of legitimate prostitutes and convicted criminals, and they become role models to kids. Half of his ministers have been revealed to have fake degrees and nobody does nothing because he has the general attorney working for him.
DeleteGod bless those cameramen who put themselves in the middle of war zones to give us a first hand account of what's really going on. It's nice that the documentary was recognized and appropriately awarded.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice and surprising, these days they would probably get killed if they recorded the truth.
DeleteI'm really surprised that this footage exists! Well deserved of the recognition it received.
ReplyDeleteWe applaud them!
Delete