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Fragment from the film “The camp goes to the sky”
In 1976, the film “The Tabor Goes to the Sky” was released, directed by Emil Loteanu. The film instantly gained wild popularity – not only did 112 countries immediately buy this film for themselves (and this record was not broken by any Soviet film), but also the gypsies might buy out the entire cinema, come in a full camp and watch, dancing along with the heroes of the film .
But despite such popularity and recognition among the gypsies, not a single real gypsy agreed to the role of the Rada. Why?
The fact is that the gypsies are not only a free and proud people, but also a principled one. It was important for them that everything in the film was real, but Emil Loteanu invented many scenes himself and they went once morest the real life of gypsies.
For example, no unmarried gypsy woman would allow herself to make fun of a man in front of other gypsies and would never be naked in front of a man.
But in fairness it should be noted that the gypsies still starred in the film itself. And not only in the crowd, but also in leading roles. True, they also fought for the truth in the frame. For example, the hero of Dmitry Buzyrev (Rada’s brother) did not agree to play with a fake knife in the fight scene at the fair. He considered it insulting for a descendant of Siberian nomadic gypsies to film with fake knives. I had to make concessions and shoot this scene with real knives.
And the guitarist Belash (who was played by Vishnevsky), who needed to play only one chord in the frame, played the entire part each time. To Lotyan’s cries that he was asking to play just one chord, Vishnevsky snapped that the gypsy people would not understand him and would think that he had forgotten how to play! After all, he is a famous guitarist.
The desperation of the actors in the frame was real
Emil Loteanu was famous for not letting the actors relax during filming. So it was here. Filming took place in Transcarpathia. Despite the fact that shooting began at five in the morning, they ended at seven in the evening, that is, the actors spent the whole day in the heat. The famous dance of Zobar and Rada might not be filmed, Lotyan all the time lacked smoothness of movements. Then he ordered the actors to dance barefoot on a sheet of metal. Needless to say, what awaited the actors under the hot sun on the metal. They tried to dance in socks, but only slipped. So I had to dance all the same barefoot and get burned.
But the episode of Rada and Zobar bathing in the river was filmed in autumn in a mountain river with ice water. In order not to catch a cold, the actors smeared themselves with goose fat, and so that there was no steam from their mouths, they kept ice in their mouths. When the actors were in the water, Svetlana Toma, who played Rada, began to be carried away by the current, many of her skirts instantly got wet and made her heavy, so she began to go under water.
The scene in which Zobar killed Radu scared the actor himself. The fact is that he was not warned that under the plate he hit with a knife there would be a capsule with blood. Therefore, the horror of Zobar in the film was natural.
Photo source: still from the movie