Anniversary of the film about war without war
On April 25, 1977, Alexey German's film "Twenty Days Without War" was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas.
The script of the film was based on the story of the same name by Konstantin Simonov, which was published in 1973 and was subsequently included by the writer in the novel "The So-Called Private Life", which had the subtitle "From Lopatin's Notes".
Konstantin Simonov himself initiated the film adaptation of his story, he wrote the script for the future film and he himself determined the director who will carry out the film adaptation of his story. It should be noted that for more than 30 years, Simonov has accumulated vast experience in interacting with directors who made films based on his works, and he could entrust the shooting of the film "Twenty Days Without War" to many directors. For example, Alexander Stolper, who by that time had shot 6 films based on Simonov's scripts, including "The Living and the Dead". But Simonov chose Alexey German. And it seemed strange to many.
The fact is that 36-year-old Alexei German by that time was a little-known director. The first film - "The Seventh Companion" (1967) - German shot in collaboration with the more experienced Grigory Aronov and therefore was considered by many as the "second number" in this creative tandem. And the second film by Alexei German - "Trial on the Road" ("Operation "Happy New Year""), filmed in 1971, was generally put on the shelf. Nevertheless, the Hero of Socialist Labor, winner of the Lenin and six Stalin Prizes made a choice in favor of little-known newcomer to filmmaking.
The explanation for this choice was quite simple: Simonov, as German said, was "against the fake war on the screen." And the film "Trial on the Road", with which the famous writer, apparently, managed to get acquainted, allowed him to find his like-minded person in German. In an effort to achieve maximum reliability, Alexey German chose Yuri Nikulin as the main character in the picture. Konstantin Simonov approved this choice, despite the fact that the majority of the members of the artistic council were against Nikulin in the role of Lopatin.
More than three months after the start of filming, the artistic council of the Lenfilm film studio, after reviewing the material taken by that time, realized that German was getting far from the war-varnishing film that the artistic council would like to see. Attempts to disrupt the filming began, and the main pretext for stopping the filming was the discrepancy between the appearance of Yuri Nikulin and the image of the main character. They say, "a comedian with the face of an alcoholic cannot play a war correspondent of the Red Army." It took the intervention of Konstantin Simonov to defend Yuri Nikulin in the main role, and at the same time the picture as a whole.
Having failed to disrupt the filming of the film, the cinematic authorities recouped in their own way. At home, the film was not included in the programs of any festivals, was not awarded any awards, and the circulation of the picture, judging by the lack of data on the number of tickets sold, was more than modest.
But from the critics film by Alexey German "Twenty Days Without War" both then and later received a fairly high assessments. Thus, the well-known Soviet film critic Tatyana Khloplyankina noted in her 1977 review:
“With their beautiful, lyrical and exciting film, K. Simonov and A. German reminded us that in the war they not only shot and not only killed, the war was still a huge nationwide shock. And what strength, what courage, it took to endure those monstrous overloads - physical, mental, moral - that the war brought with it. We must remember this in order to know the enormous price of Victory. The screen must remind us of this."
And 30 years later, one of the most authoritative Russian film critics Sergey Kudryavtsev, who rated the film 9.5 points on a 10-point scale, wrote in his review:
"this film by Alexey German is one of the most accurate and amazing artistic documents of the wartime. The uniqueness of German's creative method, which fundamentally works only in the style of black-and-white cinema, lies in the fact that he seems to effortlessly move from maximum concreteness, detail, meticulousness in reproducing everyday life and reality of the past - to generalizations of the highest order, comprehension of the hidden essence of a bygone era: it is seen as if from a temporary distance, already in development, sometimes in a tragic perspective. The discovered diseased nerve (or even more precisely, an abscess) hurts time and does not give rest after decades."
Modern moviegoers around the world also highly appreciated Alexey German's film "Twenty Days without War". 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. And 22% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten". With that said, the rating of Alexey German's film "Twenty Days without War" according to FilmGourmand version was 7,995, thanks to which it took the 712th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
