We talked to the director about making movies about the war.
Nikolai, of course, we understand that the film “Nuremberg” is not an opportunistic project, such films are not made so quickly, which means that you obviously did not understand your story through the prism of February 2022. And what is most interesting , why did you decide to make a film about a military court, the echoes of which we are still experiencing?
Nikolai Lebedev: I first turned to this material in 2016, it is important to say. And while creating the script, I thought about what a person experiences after the war. I myself went through the war, it was in Moldova in the early 1990s, I know. You know the feeling when you gathered your strength to survive, you survived, but now the war is over, and new questions arise before you: how to live when all internal bridges are destroyed, when the concepts of what is good and what is bad are destroyed, when did it all get mixed up? How, in these conditions, to move forward, without losing hope, without losing faith in man and in what is human? The film “Nuremberg” tries to answer these questions.
The film’s protagonist is a Soviet translator working on the Nazi trial, and despite the fact that the film contains both the heroic fate of a man who went through war and a powerful love story, the viewer still thinks of these same Nazis – are they people or animals where they come from… And how did you yourself answer these questions while working on the film?
Nikolai Lebedev: Fascism is also my personal pain. The war ruined my father’s life, he was a child in those terrible years. But to be honest, he used to view Nazi criminals in a very distant light. Of course, I did a lot of reading about this, and of course I didn’t make any informational discoveries when I dove into the material, but I did have a lot of emotional discoveries. There is no way around them when you understand that the Nazis were also living people, they loved children, wives, they loved art … They seemed to be normal, but at the same time such monsters. How does it fit?
That’s what I also tried to think about when I was writing the script and when I was shooting the movie, and the shooting was supposed to take place in 2020, but because of the pandemic it was stopped and it took place in 2021. That this topic would become so sharp and political, I could not even imagine it then. For me, this story was and remains universal, because politics arises anyway from the human.
I recently read a study showing that artists who went through the war, as a rule, created hymns to man, they had incredible faith in humanity. After seeing “Nuremberg” – and for this special thanks – similar feelings arise.
Nikolai Lebedev: Only very strong people are capable of philanthropy. I was familiar with the front-line soldiers, they were my contemporaries. My great-uncle Mikhail Petrovich Zaraisky was the commander of a partisan detachment in the Briansk region, where, in fact, he met his wife, my grandmother’s sister, she was a radio operator in his detachment. Mikhail Petrovich, or, as I called him, Uncle Misha, was stingy with memories, very secretive, and yet we felt how much pain he had from what he had experienced, but such inner strength! That is what distinguishes those who went through the war and survived.
Or, for example, Pyotr Efimovich Todorovsky, with whom I had a warm relationship, is also a front-line soldier – he was an intelligent, wise, romantic person with wonderful humor. Everyone really wanted to live, and they always said that war is, of course, heroism, but it would be better if human life was just life, and not a battle.
Many front-line directors have left us moving images about the war. What advice would you give to today’s young directors who are also trying and will no doubt make many more films on this subject?
Nikolai Lebedev: I think it is very important to understand the nature of man in war in the first place. It is important, of course, and personal attitude to this issue. When I was shooting Zvezda, a film about young scouts who leave the front line and do not return, I only thought about my feeling that I learned from communication with Todorovsky himself, with Chukhrai, with my father, and tried to convey these feelings.
It is also very important to have a more voluminous attitude to what is happening and to know not only what our wonderful front-line authors wrote about the war, but also what, say, Remarque, Hemingway wrote about it. But still, the most important thing is that you must understand that war is not an adventure, that its nature is tragic by definition. I remember the words of General Lebed, who stopped the war in Transnistria and, perhaps, saved my life with this, that even hundred-year wars end anyway, because war is an unnatural state for humanity. He also said that it would be good to skip the fighting period in the war and immediately come to the negotiating table.
Are you saying that directors should not lead to battle, but lead humanity to dialogue?
Nikolai Lebedev: You see, I think that the nature of art is basically to talk about a person, and the natural state of a person is to live and not die. Everyone in life will die once, but you have to live for a long time, as long as you believe, believe. I grew up with movies and songs that taught exactly this: “We would live and live, live and love and raise children on the earth!” All Soviet art was built on this, even military cinema was anti-war at the same time. About the world, about love. Modern directors should not forget about this.
Will your next film also be about the war?
Nikolay Lebedev: I still have no right to say anything about my new film, I can only say that it will be a genre in which I have never worked before. I think many will even be surprised. I will also say that this is a production of the Three Te film company by Nikita Mikhalkov.
By the way
“Nuremberg” was filmed in Leninsky, 83
The shooting of the film “Nuremberg” took place, among other things, in Kaliningrad, as taxi drivers and guides speak today. In Bavaria itself, anti-COVID restrictions did not allow filming. In particular, it was in the old Koenigsberg that they found a building very similar to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. It is located on Leninsky Prospekt, 83. Once there was a commercial exchange, and now – the Museum of Fine Arts. And in this building such films as “The Fate of a Man”, “Father of a Soldier”, “Zhenya, Zhenechka and … Katyusha” were filmed. Such a random rhyme, but very eloquent. The building chosen by the filmmakers was also badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War, as evidenced by the photographs in the museum’s permanent exposition. Exhibitions are held here. If you are in Kaliningrad, be sure to stop by.
