White Tiger (2012 film) from Russia

[Hen Hanna]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_(2012_film)

i'm half-way thru this film. It's good.

ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.


it (obviously) reminds me of a certain SH (Holmes) story.


the music is interesting so far. -- i thought it'd be more distracting.

i'm constantly thinking of 2 Wagner operas.
i keep wondering : if i knew more Wagner,
would i be thinking of other ones ?


i'm listening to the English track. there was a line that
didn't work in English, obviously a pun in the original.


Brad Pitt's tank had, like, 5(?) crew members, in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(2014_film)
This big Russian tank has only has 3.


HH

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_(2012_film)
>i'm half-way thru this film.

I hope you aren't watching it in several sittings,
art thou? Such beauty must be savored in a movie
theater.

>It's good.

I did not like it, alghough I enjoyed ceratin parts
of it, such as the great decorations with minimal
CG, especially in the opening scene of dead tanks
and burned crews, or the very idea of live tanks,
which reminded me of Carpenter's interpretation of
"Christine." The original story by Boyashov being
way duller, "White Tiger" is a rare example of a
film that is all-in-all better than the book upon
which it is based.

The scene of the German capitulation and the follow-
ing interview with the devil (a part Keanu Reaves
refused) are my other favorites.

>ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.

Then I suggest that you try his earlier, and I think
better, work.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

> Brad Pitt's tank had, like, 5(?) crew members, in
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(2014_film)
> This big Russian tank has only has 3.

The classic T-34 took a crew of four:

1. driver / mechanic,
2. machine gunner / radio operator,
3. gun layer / commander, and
4. loader.

Who is missing -- the machine gunner?

[Hen Hanna]

On Monday, February 13, 2017 at 11:26:40 AM UTC-8, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hen Hanna:
>
> > Brad Pitt's tank had, like, 5(?) crew members, in
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(2014_film)
> > This big Russian tank has only has 3.
>
> The classic T-34 took a crew of four:
>
> 1. driver / mechanic,
> 2. machine gunner / radio operator,
> 3. gun layer / commander, and
> 4. loader.
>
> Who is missing -- the machine gunner?
>

yes, he's missing.


3 members are Commander=Driver, Loader, Shooter.


Driver & Loader sit side-by-side, which looks odd.


The loader looks Asian (Mongolian?) -- but has
a Russian surname.
Was this (such a person) common at the time?


I think (early WW2) German tanks had 3 crew / tank.

HH

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

> Driver & Loader sit side-by-side, which looks odd.

Indeed, but this detail escaped me. Vertically, the
loader should be located somewhat above the driver
and below the gun-layer.

> The loader looks Asian (Mongolian?) -- but has a
> Russian surname.

Yes, he is Asian, IIRC a Tartar, with the surname
Berdyev, which is not Russian, but may be Russian-
ish, indicating a Russified Asian republic. Actor
Vasilij Dordzhiev played that role. Notice the same
'iev/yev' suffix.

[Hen Hanna]

On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 1:17:12 PM UTC-8, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hen Hanna:
>
> > Driver & Loader sit side-by-side, which looks odd.
>
> Indeed, but this detail escaped me. Vertically, the
> loader should be located somewhat above the driver
> and below the gun-layer.
>
> > The loader looks Asian (Mongolian?) -- but has a
> > Russian surname.
>
> Yes, he is Asian, IIRC a Tartar, with the surname
> Berdyev, which is not Russian, but may be Russian-
> ish, indicating a Russified Asian republic. Actor
> Vasilij Dordzhiev played that role. Notice the same
> 'iev/yev' suffix.
>

interesting! i can only remeber 2 ppl like that: Rudolf Nureyev, Dmitri Mendeleev


the movie took me 5 or 6 sittings.

the most memorable face was that of the captain (?) who
was in charge of the new Russian tank project.
i thought he looked like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Gabin
and also Wagner -- kind of looked Germanic

That Jeep he was driving (at the end) looked awfully like an American one.
Was that Jeep historically accurate?



i'm going to make some spot checks in the Russian audio track.

In a serious realitic film,
would Hitler speak English, or Russian (to his close underling)? HH

[Hen Hanna]

On Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 7:07:13 AM UTC-8, Hen Hanna wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 1:17:12 PM UTC-8, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> > Hen Hanna:
> >
> > > Driver & Loader sit side-by-side, which looks odd.
> >
> > Indeed, but this detail escaped me. Vertically, the
> > loader should be located somewhat above the driver
> > and below the gun-layer.
> >
> > > The loader looks Asian (Mongolian?) -- but has a
> > > Russian surname.
> >
> > Yes, he is Asian, IIRC a Tartar, with the surname
> > Berdyev, which is not Russian, but may be Russian-
> > ish, indicating a Russified Asian republic. Actor
> > Vasilij Dordzhiev played that role. Notice the same
> > 'iev/yev' suffix.
> >
>
>
> interesting! i can only remeber 2 ppl like that: Rudolf Nureyev, Dmitri Mendeleev

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, also commonly referred to as Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff and G. I. Gurdjieff, was an influential early 20th-century mystic, philosopher, spiritual teacher, and composer of Armenian and Greek descent

>
> the movie took me 5 or 6 sittings.
>

The film had subtle elements that mainsteam American films
stopped having maybe 50 years ago.

e.g.
The Russian saying, [I've never had fresh strawberries and ice cream.]
&
The German (general?)'s face.

I'm assuming he was eating strawberries all his life.
So that was the 1st time he had ice cream?
Could you comment on this? HH

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna to Anton Shepelev:

> > Yes, he is Asian, IIRC a Tartar, with the sur-

> > name Berdyev, which is not Russian, but may be

> > Russianish, indicating a Russified Asian repub-

> > lic. Actor Vasilij Dordzhiev played that role.
> > Notice the same 'iev/yev' suffix.
>
> interesting! i can only remeber 2 ppl like that:
> Rudolf Nureyev, Dmitri Mendeleev

Nuriev, actually. And 'Mendeleev' has a different
suffix, of clean Russian origin.

> That Jeep he was driving (at the end) looked aw-
> fully like an American one. Was that Jeep histor-
> ically accurate?

Absolutely.

http://www.opoccuu.com/willys.htm

We had *lots* of Willis jeeps and Studebaker trucks
via the land lease. American help was extensive.
Nigh every Soviet soldier knew and loved American
SPAM in yellow can, which they nicknamed "The Second
Front" by way of hint to our American friends.

> In a serious realitic film, would Hitler speak En-

> glish, or Russian (to his close underling)?

Say what? And do the heroes in the American "Anna
Karenina" all talk in Russian? On the other hand,
Soviet war movies had the Germans always talk in
German, often with female voice-over for contrast.

[Hen Hanna]

> >
> > the movie took me 5 or 6 sittings.
> >
>
> The film had subtle elements that mainsteam American films
> stopped having maybe 50 years ago.
>
e.g.

The Russian (Field Marshall) saying,
[I've never had frozen strawberries and ice cream.]
&
The Russian [Stumpf]'s face.

> I'm assuming he was eating strawberries all his life.
> So that was the 1st time he had ice cream?

I was maybe 30 when I had frozen strawberries for the 1st time,
except those frozen by mistake, or as an experiment.


What is this?
Fresh frozen strawberries with whipped cream. (((maybe it's [whipped cream] in the original movie, and the book)))

You know, for the first time in my life I eat fresh frozen strawberries with whipped cream.
What?
What is funny, Stumpf? -No, nothing.
Sorry, field-marshal. Absolutely nothing.



> Composers: Yuri POTJENKO and Konstantin EVELjEV

but the DVD box says : Richard Wagner

[Hen Hanna]

http://www.kinokultura.com/2012/38r-belytigr.shtml <--- This article doesn't mention Keanu Reaves.


Anton >>> The scene of the German capitulation and the following interview with the devil (a part Keanu Reaves refused) are my other favorites.<<<


--- He turned down the Hitler part?


Karen Shakhnazarov’s latest film is based on the 2009 novel Tank Man, Or the White Tiger, by Il’ia Boiashev, and features a script co-authored by the two (along with Aleksandr Borodianskii). Like the novel, the film is best understood as not just an account of the Great Patriotic War, but a meditation on the meanings of war itself.

Shakhnazarov has declared that he inserted “a fantasy-mystical history into the real context of war” and that he gained inspiration from both Soviet war films and films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (Quoted in Al’perina).

Naidenov and the White Tiger, as Nina Tsyrkun suggested in her review, resemble Captain Ahab and the White Whale from Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick.

In this interpretation the film therefore becomes a metaphoric tale of the struggle against evil, a comparison Shakhnazarov also made in his interview with Susanna Al’perina. Naidenov is calm yet fanatically obsessed with burning the White Tiger in order to avenge the German tank’s murderous attacks. He also, as we learn, prays to the “Tank God” and asks him for assistance in his quest. When asked to explain his beliefs, Naidenov states that the Tank God resides in heaven, wears the overalls and ear protectors of a tankist, and is surrounded by all the tanks that have died in battle. ......

----- This was a [Catcher in the Rye] moment.

> > >
> > > the movie took me 5 or 6 sittings.
> > >
> >

> > The film had subtle elements that mainstream American films

> > stopped having maybe 50 years ago.
> >

White Tiger closes in a much different fashion than Boiashev’s novel. Andrei Plakhov declared that the bulk of the film resembles a computer game about war, while the last part gives way to a museum-like reconstruction of Germany in 1945.

We see the German generals, led by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (Christian Redl), surrender to Zhukov and other Soviet generals.

Afterwards they eat a meal that features frozen strawberries with cream, commenting that it is the first time they have had this treat (the scene, as Shakhnazarov noted in his interview with Al’perina, came from Keitel’s memoirs, written just months before he was hanged after the Nuremburg verdict).


---- Exactly what I wanted to know : if those 2 German generals
would've been executed, and how soon afterwards.



[ What the Dionysian room (cave?) at the end? ]

Hitler (Karl Kranzkowski) is talking to a newspaper correspondent. In a rambling monologue about the meanings of the war, the fight against Soviet Russia, and the murder of Europe’s Jews, Hitler concludes that he has unleashed a natural thing. “War,” he declares, “is fought everywhere and always; it has no beginning and no end. War is life itself.”

This dark ending is one Shakhnazarov inserted in order to get audiences to meditate on war and its continued presence. “The older I get,” he has stated, “the more and more I think about it and the less and less I can answer it.”

Citing Tolstoy, Shakhnazarov muses that “the nature of war is unnatural” and that everyone knows how awful it is, yet “war goes on and will continue to go on (quoted in Al’perina).” White Tiger is Shakhnazarov’s attempt to come to terms with this uncomfortable truth.



"Europe was routed"

[Hen Hanna]

[ What was that ravish Dionysian room (cave?) at the end ? ]

I thought it was Hitler's secret underground hiding place, and
was sure that it was a touch of Olive Stone (as in "JFK").

-- based on the widespread myth that Hitler lived
for many years after the war.

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna to Anton Shepelev:

> > The scene of the German capitulation and the
> > following interview with the devil (a part Keanu
> > Reaves refused) are my other favorites.
>

> He turned down the Hitler part?

> [...]
> Hitler (Karl Kranzkowski) is talking to a newspa-

> per correspondent. In a rambling monologue about
> the meanings of the war, the fight against Soviet
> Russia, and the murder of Europe's Jews, Hitler
> concludes that he has unleashed a natural thing.

> "War," he declares, "is fought everywhere and al-

> ways; it has no beginning and no end. War is life
> itself."

Rambling? I should not say so. That is not a cor-
respondent but the Devil himself, which part
Shakhnazarov fashioned deliverately for Keanu
Reeves. To whomever else do you think Hitler would
report after he killed himself in that bunker?

> Naidenov and the White Tiger, as Nina Tsyrkun sug-

> gested in her review, resemble Captain Ahab and

> the White Whale from Herman Melville's master-
> piece, Moby Dick.

Certainly, even the titles are parallel:

Moby Dick, or The Whale
The Tankist, or the White Tiger.

But Moby Dick to The White Tiger is what a Gift of
God is to scrambled eggs.

> We see the German generals, led by Field Marshal
> Wilhelm Keitel (Christian Redl), surrender to
> Zhukov and other Soviet generals.

Yes, while watching it on the wide screen in a dark
room you can feel what fearful, formidable men are
those generals. That one scene is more powerful
than the whole "computer game" stuff that precedes
it with its unrealistinc tank warfare, which is good
in its own way, however, in having many open-air on-
location scenes with so masterful close shots of the
Tiger (which was not a real Tiger, unlike "Fury")
that the viewer feels its steel-heavy malevolence
and has goosebumps.

I have seen both Soviet and German tanks in the Ku-
binka museum, and man, must I tell you the German
ones are monsters. The mere standing over-against
this Maus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus

made me feel uneasy, and what the soldiers felt who
faced those beasts with grenades and AT-rifles I
cannot tell.

> Afterwards they eat a meal that features frozen
> strawberries with cream, commenting that it is the
> first time they have had this treat (the scene, as

> Shakhnazarov noted in his interview with Al'peri-
> na, came from Keitels memoirs, written just months

> before he was hanged after the Nuremburg verdict).

So he said. That humane, deeply personal detail
provides a shoking contrast to the man's deeds of
evil. It was not in the book.

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

> What was that ravish Dionysian room (cave?) at the
> end ?

The Devil's cabinet?

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

> Composers: Yuri POTJENKO and Konstantin EVELjEV
> but the DVD box says : Richard Wagner

The Russian Wikipedia lists all three.

[Hen Hanna]

On Friday, February 17, 2017 at 1:23:16 PM UTC-8, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hen Hanna:
>
> > What was that ravish Dionysian room (cave?) at the
> > end ?
>
> The Devil's cabinet?
>

Thanks for all the info, and comments. Did you catch the Patton ref?


The "dead" tank is the ghost ship, so one should think of
the ancient mariner, flying Dutchman's ghost ship, ...

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna:

> Did you catch the Patton ref?

No.

> The "dead" tank is the ghost ship, so one should
> think of the ancient mariner, flying Dutchman's
> ghost ship, ...

Yes!

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2017-02-13 16:24:12 +0000, Anton Shepelev said:

> Hen Hanna:
>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_(2012_film)
>> i'm half-way thru this film.
>
> I hope you aren't watching it in several sittings,
> art thou? Such beauty must be savored in a movie
> theater.
>
>> It's good.
>
> I did not like it, alghough I enjoyed ceratin parts
> of it, such as the great decorations with minimal
> CG, especially in the opening scene of dead tanks
> and burned crews, or the very idea of live tanks,
> which reminded me of Carpenter's interpretation of
> "Christine." The original story by Boyashov being
> way duller, "White Tiger" is a rare example of a
> film that is all-in-all better than the book upon
> which it is based.
>
> The scene of the German capitulation and the follow-
> ing interview with the devil (a part Keanu Reaves
> refused) are my other favorites.
>
>> ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.

Wouldn't the surname alert you to the fact that he is a man?

>
> Then I suggest that you try his earlier, and I think
> better, work.


--

athel

[Anton Shepelev]

Athel Cornish-Bowden to Hen Hanna:

> > ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.
>
> Wouldn't the surname alert you to the fact that he
> is a man?

Well, "man" is more than "an adult male". I uder-
stood it as praise to Karen for so manly a movie
which a woman couldn't make, although the Soviet di-
rectors Larisa Shepit'ko (The Ascent) and Tatiana
Lioznova (Early in the Morning) are in league with
Emily Bronte in that their works may be taken for
those of men, so bold and strong are they.

Oh, "Karen" has the stress on the second syllable.

[Hen Hanna]

On Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 3:43:48 AM UTC-8, Anton Shepelev wrote:
> Hen Hanna:
>
> > Did you catch the Patton ref?
>
> No.
>

I'm talking about the Patton movie with George C. Scott.

The Jeep scene was Patton-like. Some other aspects were also
Patton-esque, but i can't really list them right now.

Nowadays, a lone determined guy shooting a pistol at a far-way
airplane or helicopter is a movie cliche, but
I bet that scene in Patton struck viewers as new and fresh.

HH

[Hen Hanna]

On Sunday, February 12, 2017 at 6:28:07 PM UTC-8, Hen Hanna wrote:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_(2012_film)
>
> i'm half-way thru this film. It's good.
>
> ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.

(Anton) Thanks for the comment on this

>
> it (obviously) reminds me of a certain SH (Holmes) story.
>

In many movie versions, the devil-hound in the swamp is
white or hoar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellhound


(Anton) Thanks for the examples of "should prefer" from C-D/Watson.

HH

[Anton Shepelev]

Hen Hanna commented on his post:

> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_(2012_film)
> >
> > i'm half-way thru this film. It's good.
> >
> > ok, the director Karen Shakhnazarov is a man.
>
> (Anton) Thanks for the comment on this

Thou art nothing ill-come herein.

> In many movie versions, the devil-hound in the swamp is
> white or hoar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellhound

The color of Saturn the death rider from the Revela-
tion and or the pale goddess Hella, whence 'Hell.
Bethink yourself also of Melville's discoure about
the color white in chapter 42 of "Moby Dick".

[Anton Shepelev]

I mistyped:

> The color of Saturn the death rider from the Reve-
> lation and or the pale goddess Hella, whence
> 'Hell'.

and of

> Bethink yourself also of Melville's discoure about
> the color white in chapter 42 of "Moby Dick".

discourse.

O this ill habit of reading one's articles after
posting them!

[Bill McCray]

On 2/20/2017 4:29 PM, Anton Shepelev wrote:
>
> O this ill habit of reading one's articles after
> posting them!
>

'Tis better to proofread them before posting, but worse to not proofread
at all.

Bill in Kentucky