Artists in the War: How a Life Story Prompted Pyotr Todorovsky to the Plot of the Film "A Field-of-War"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The theme of war has become one of the central in the work of the famous director Peter Todorovsky, and this was logical - after all, he himself went through the war. His life at the front later helped him achieve maximum authenticity and penetration both as an actor (“It was May”) and as a director (“Loyalty”, “Anchor, still anchor!”, “Riorita”). And one of his most famous films is "Field novel" - appeared thanks to a real story from his life.

Many trials fell to the lot of Peter Todorovsky. He was born in 1925 in the town of Bobrinets, Kirovograd region of Ukraine, and in childhood he learned what hunger is: "". When he turned 18 in 1943, he was drafted into the Soviet army. First, he became a cadet at the Saratov Military Infantry School, and from 1944 - commander of a mortar platoon. Todorovsky fought from Saratov to the Elbe, in March 1945 he was wounded and shell-shocked. For participation in hostilities, he was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degrees, many medals. After the war, until 1949, Pyotr Todorovsky served as an officer in the military garrison near Kostroma.

The most terrible time for himself in the war Todorovsky called the first front night: "". But then I remembered not the battles, but what helped to survive: “.

Even during the war, Todorovsky enthusiastically watched the work of front-line cameramen and fired up the idea of making a movie. In 1949 he entered the camera department of VGIK, and then worked for 10 years at the Odessa film studio. The experience that he received on the fronts of the Second World War made him take up directing. In memory of the deceased front-line friend Yuri Nikitin, Todorovsky shot the film "Loyalty". And this was not his only wartime film.

Despite the fact that Todorovsky filmed a lot about the war, he considers love to be the main theme of his films. "" - said the director. The lines of Yuri Levitansky "I do not participate in the war, she participates in me" fully reflect the attitude of the director Pyotr Todorovsky to this topic, about which he said: "". They wrote about him that he was shooting not about the "war outside", but about the "war inside." This is exactly what the film "A War-Field Romance" has become.

Once, after the end of the war, VGIK student Pyotr Todorovsky heard a familiar voice on the street, turned around and was surprised to recognize in the rude saleswoman of pies near the Central Department Store “the woman of the commander of the battalion commander,” with whom many soldiers were secretly in love on the front line. She stood in worn-out felt boots, wrapped in handkerchiefs over a quilted jacket, in gloves with cropped fingers, and she could only be recognized by her hoarse voice and characteristic infectious laugh. A little girl was sitting next to the woman.

"", - said the director. He did not approach her then, but he often recalled her. And 30 years later, Todorovsky wrote the script for the film "A Field-of-War".

All the events in the film were reliable - later the director recalled how they stood with the troops in defense on the left bank of the Vistula. And how 19-year-old soldiers froze as they passed the battalion's dugout and heard a woman laughing contagiously and playing a gramophone. On the front lines, these sounds sounded fantastic. And then the offensive began, and the battalion commander died. During the war, Todorovsky never saw this blonde woman again, but she remained in his memory an unattainable and alluring front-line queen.

“- says Todorovsky. -"

The director saw only Natalia Andreichenko in the main role, but she recently gave birth to a child, and her husband Maxim Dunaevsky was against the actress getting to work so quickly. Among other applicants were Anastasia Vertinskaya and Tatyana Dogileva, but Todorovsky did not give up hope of persuading Andreichenko - in this image she looked the most organic. And the actress agreed, despite her husband's dissatisfaction.

The main male role in the film was played by Nikolai Burlyaev. Later he confessed: "". Front-line soldier Zinovy Gerdt himself volunteered to take part in the filming - he had been friends with Todorovsky for a long time and told him: "". Gerdt played a small role as the administrator of the cinema in the "War-Field Romance".

During the final editing of the film, at the request of the censorship, several episodes had to be cut out: in the original version, it was said that the parents of Vera, played by Inna Churikova, were repressed, and Vera's neighbor worked in the NKVD and all the time eavesdropped on and spied on the Netuzhilins.

"A field novel" in the year of its release was watched by 15 million viewers. The film has earned recognition not only in the USSR, but also abroad. He was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and won prizes at film festivals in Kiev, Berlin, Valladolid, Sopot and Prague.

Such stories during the war were not uncommon: Military-field novel "Marshal of Victory" by Georgy Zhukov.