| Battle of Neretva | |
|---|---|
VHS cover |
|
| Directed by | Veljko Bulajić |
| Produced by | Anthony B. Unger Henry T. Weinstein Steve Previn |
| Written by | Stevan Bulajić Veljko Bulajić |
| Starring | Sergei Bondarchuk Yul Brynner Anthony Dawson Milena Dravić |
| Music by | Bernard Herrmann Vladimir Kraus-Rajteric |
| Cinematography | Tomislav Pinter |
| Editing by | Vojislav Bjenjas Roberto Perpignani |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 7 October 1969 |
| Running time | 175 minutes |
| Country | Yugoslavia |
| Language | Serbo-Croatian/English |
| Budget | $71,015,000 |
Battle of Neretva (Serbo-Croatian: Bitka na Neretvi, Битка на Неретви) is a 1969 Yugoslavian partisan film. The film was written by Stevan Bulajić and Veljko Bulajić, and directed by Veljko Bulajić. It is based on the true events of World War II. The Battle of the Neretva was due to a strategic plan for a combined Axis powers attack in 1943 against the Yugoslav Partisans and Chetnik guerrillas under Draza Mihailovich. The plan was also known as the Fourth Enemy Offensive and occurred in the area of the Neretva river in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Battle of Neretva is the most expensive motion picture made in the SFR Yugoslavia.[1] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[2] the year after Sergei Bondarchuk (playing the role of Martin in Neretva) won the honour for War and Peace. The English language version features a score by American composer Bernard Herrmann.
One of the original posters for the English version of the movie was made by Pablo Picasso, which, according to Bulajić, the famous painter agreed to do without payment, only requesting a case of the best Yugoslav wines.[3]
Contents |
Battle of Neretva was first of the huge state-sponsored World War II film productions. It had a staggering budget approved personally by Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito. Different sources put it anywhere between $4.5 million and $12 million. Global stars such as Sergei Bondarchuk, Yul Brynner, Franco Nero, Orson Welles, etc. flocked to Yugoslavia attracted by the huge sums of money being offered.
Shot over 16 months with funds put up in largest part by over 58 self-managed companies in Yugoslavia, the movie featured a combined battalion of 10,000 actual Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) soldiers. Four villages and a fortress were especially constructed for the film, and subsequently destroyed. Countless Soviet-made T-34 tanks that were touched up to look like German Tiger I tanks met the same fate.
Additionally, an actual railway bridge over Neretva River in Jablanica was destroyed. Director Bulajić's justification for taking down an actual bridge rather than getting the shots in studio was that a destroyed bridge would later become a tourist attraction. The bridge was thus blown up, but because none of the footage was usable due to the billowing smoke that made it impossible to see anything, it was decided that the bridge should be repaired and destroyed again. However, the problem with the excessive smoke occurred even when the bridge was blown up for the second time. Finally, the scenes of the bridge being blown up that eventually ended up in the film were shot using a small scale table-size replica at a sound stage in Prague.[3]
|
|||||