The Blue Bird (1976)
The blue bird (original title: The Blue Bird , Russian Синяя птица , Sinjaja ptiza ) is a fairy tale film from 1976. The screenplay was based loosely on L'oiseau bleu by Maurice Maeterlinck . The film was the first and only co-production between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War . Directed by the American film director George Cukor .
action
The siblings Mytyl and Tyltyl live with their parents in poor conditions in a village on the edge of the forest. The father works as a lumberjack and the mother does the daily household chores. The children play in the forest all day without any knowledge and on their way there they pass the house next door, where an apparently sick girl lives. Since there are many dangers lurking in the forest, the mother is always very worried about her siblings. When Mytyl and Tyltyl come home late one day, they have to go to sleep immediately without dinner as a punishment. The father returning home in the evening calms his angry wife, whereupon she realizes that she has overreacted and brings the children the food into the bedroom. But they are already sleeping soundly.
Within a dream, the siblings are woken up by fireworks and music. They sneak out of the house unnoticed to get to the bottom of the matter. In the forest you see a manor house in a clearing, where a lavish party is being celebrated. In the shelter of the trees, they watch the rich people in their beautiful clothes, who don't seem to know any worries or hardships. A happy society in which there is plenty of food and drink. They think these people must be very happy. They also become aware of how poor they are themselves and that it would be nice to be able to live in wealth. When they return home, where they secretly want to sneak into their bedroom, a witch suddenly appears. She is looking for the blue bird of bliss and tells her siblings that she needs it to help a sick girl recover. But since the witch cannot find the blue bird, she instructs the children to look for it. She hands Tyltyl a hat with a magical diamond that gives the wearer the ability to see things with different eyes. When Tyltyl puts on the hat and turns the diamond, the witch turns into the light. With the help of a magic wand, the light successively transforms the fire, the water, the bread, the milk, the sugar, the dog Tylo and the cat Tylette into personified speaking figures. Under the guidance of the light, the group and the siblings go in search of the secret of the blue bird and embark on a journey into a fantastic world full of bizarre objects and shapes. The children encounter their deceased grandparents as well as the night, the blue bird, luxury, motherly love, the oak and father time, all of which also appear in personified form. During their search, Tyltyl and Mytyl realize that the blue bird cannot be captured. You become aware that happiness cannot be forced or held on, or that happiness is a question of perspective. At the end of the trip, the group will return home. The food, the fire, the water, Tylo and Tylette say goodbye to the children one by one before they revert to their original shape and take their old place in the house. However, they make the siblings aware that they are with them every day, even if they can no longer speak. Then the light accompanies the children to their bedroom to bring them back to bed. Even the light does not work without first making it clear that it is with you every day in the form of sunbeams, every night through the light of the lamp and also in good thoughts.
When the children are awakened from their dream by their mother the next morning, they suddenly see everyday things with a different awareness. They greet their parents, the fire, the water, the food and the dog. The parents are amazed at this behavior. Tyltyl and Mytyl now know that happiness is not a question of rich or poor. Happiness means having friends and family in which there is trust and security and in which one takes care of the other. The siblings recognize the blue bird in the pigeon in the birdcage. They realize that happiness has been present all along and take the blue dove to the sick girl next door. Now she seems to have found happiness in the shape of Tyltyl as a friend. When he takes the bird out of the cage and hands it into her hand, it can escape and flies away. But the children are not sad, because they now know the great secret of things and know that the blue bird carries happiness out into the world and can be omnipresent at any time.
Reviews
- Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolic poetry was the model for the first US-American-Soviet co-production, a mixture that is bizarre in every respect: Hollywood colors alternate with very Russian ballet numbers. One of the strangest works in Cukor's oeuvre, in which only traces of Maeterlinck's allegorical world of thought remain. ( Film service )
synchronization
| role | actor | BRD synchronization | DDR synchronization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mytyl | Patsy Kensit | Manuela mile | |
| Tyltyl | Todd Lookinland | Oliver Rohrbeck | Frank Worm |
| light | Elizabeth Taylor | Rosemarie Fendel | Evelin Heidenreich |
| night | Jane Fonda | Ursula Herwig | Ursula Genhorn |
| luxury | Ava Gardner | Dagmar Altrichter | Marion van de Kamp |
| cat | Cicely Tyson | Helga Sasse | |
| Milk | Margerita Terechowa | Ulrike Hanke-Hänsch | |
| dog | George Cole | Eric Vaessen | |
| grandmother | Mona Washbourne | Eva Lissa | |
| grandfather | Will Geer | Siegfried Schürenberg | |
| Father time | Robert Morley | Erich Fiedler |
Gerda Malig wrote the GDR dubbing dialogue , Freimut Götsch directed the dubbing in DEFA Studio. The BRD synchronization was created by Berliner Synchron based on a dialogue book by Lutz Ahrenz and directed by Dietmar Behnke.
Others
- The film was already the fifth adaptation of Maeterlinck's play. This was preceded by a silent film by the Gaumont British Picture Corporation in 1910, a silent film by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation by Maurice Tourneur in 1918 , a sound version of 20th Century Fox by Walter Lang with Shirley Temple in 1940 and a Soviet animated film by Vasily Liwanow in 1970 . This was followed in 1980 by a Japanese anime television series by Hiroshi Sasagawa .
- Oleg Popov , the world-famous clown and performer of the Soviet state circus, has a cameo in the film.
- Dancers from the Soviet Kirov Ballet appear in the film.
- The US actresses Katharine Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine had also taken on roles. Shortly before the start of shooting, the production management staffed them with her British colleague Elizabeth Taylor .
- The US actor James Coco , who was supposed to play the personified figure of the dog Tylo, had to be replaced with his British colleague George Cole during filming due to gallbladder problems. The corresponding scenes had to be shot again.
- In 1972, during his visit to the Soviet Union , US President Richard Nixon laid the foundation for a joint film project. On the American side, the 20th Century Fox project was transferred to the British film production company Tower International , and on the Soviet side, the Lenfilm in collaboration with Sovinfilm.
- The preparation phase lasted over two years until filming began in 1975. Understanding the topic or the content of the joint film project turned out to be problematic, as the Soviet side criticized or rejected a number of proposals. The views could hardly be more different. The American side viewed the whole thing from a purely commercial or marketing point of view, while the Soviet side viewed it purely from a social-ideological or artistic point of view. Therefore, from their point of view, the project could not contain any political, socially critical, military, erotic or violent elements. Ultimately, the Fox Studios suggested the theme of fantasy and offered Maeterlinck's fairy tales, as they also owned the script . In 1940 they had already filmed the material. The Soviet side accepted the script, since the Belgian symbol fairy tale had become one of the favorite pieces of the Russians since the Moscow stage production in 1909 by Konstantin Sergejewitsch Stanislavski and was filmed by them in 1970. There were therefore no objections to the communist ideology .
- The official shooting took place from January 20 to August 14, 1975 in Moscow and Leningrad.
- Even during the shooting, the project got into negative headlines in the West, as both sides had different views on teamwork, implementation and the time and cost factors. In addition, communication problems arose due to the inexact translation by the Soviet interpreters, which was indispensable for the direction and on the film set . A large part of the Soviet film crew had insufficient or no knowledge of English.
- The production cost was about $ 12 million.
- On April 5, 1976, the film was released in US cinemas and flopped at the box office.
- On November 4, 1976, the film premiere was in the Federal Republic. The film was released in the GDR on December 9, 1977.
- According to kino-teatr.ru, the film premiered on April 30, 1976 in New York and released in Moscow on January 3, 1977.
Awards
- 1977 Saturn Awards : Nomination in the category " Best Fantasy Film "
- 1976 Tehran IFF for Children and Youth : Awarded an honorary diploma
Web links
- The Blue Bird in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The blue bird in the online film database
- The blue bird on kino-teatr.ru (Russian)
- The Blue Bird at Turner Classic Movies (English)
- The Blue Bird - Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The blue bird. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 26, 2017 . .
- ↑ The blue bird. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on December 26, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c d Answers.com/ The Blue Bird / (English)
- ↑ a b The Bootleg Files: “The Blue Bird” ( Memento from May 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ Kiddiematinee.com/ The Blue Bird / (English) ( Memento from October 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Spiegel-Online.de/ Der Blaue Vogel / (German)
- ↑ a b c d IMDb.com/ The Blue Bird / (English)
- ↑ Information on publication on kino-teatr.ru ; Retrieved December 26, 2017.