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Doktor Rej i avoli
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Wikipedia article
'Doktor Rej i avoli' (, Doctor Ray and the Devils) is a 2012 Serbian film directed by . It is co-written by Tucakovi and Saa Radojevi with input from .
Loosely based on actual events, the plot centers around famous American director Nicholas Ray's 1960s stay in SFR Yugoslavia on invitation by , the head of Avala Film studio and former Yugoslav state security operative. Since, according to Tucakovi, the story of Ray's Belgrade stay is "quite foggy", the film's characters were treated "more as a myth than as a document". Additionally, since Draevi's specific biographical info is entirely sketchy and mostly based on anecdotes, the actor who plays him in the movie, Dragan Bjelogrli, said that his portrayal is "based on legend rather than biography".[http://www.b92.net/kultura/vesti.php?nav_category=268&yyyy=2012&mm=03&dd=03&nav_id=587625 'Doktor Rej i avoli' je legenda];B92, 3 March 2012
Additional actual figures that appear as characters in the film are film director D. W. Griffith, film star Orson Welles and his partner Oja Kodar, French actress Jeanne Moreau, Serbian writer Borislav Mihajlovi Mihiz, Bosnian filmmaker Bahrudin engi, American film producer Samuel Bronston, and Ray's third wife Betty Utey. Also, some actual figures are thinly disguised and hinted at behind aliases because the filmmakers didn't obtain permission from their families to use them in the film. The character of Aleksa is the Serbian film director Saa Petrovi, the character of Zlatan is Serbian writer Slobodan Seleni, while Ivica is Croatian film producer Branko Lustig.
The feature film (which is part of a larger project that also includes a yet to be made documentary and a yet to be released book) premiered on 4 March 2012 on the closing night of the 2012 FEST. The film goes into general theatrical release in Serbia from 27 September 2012.[http://mcf.rs/filmovi/doktor-rej-i-davoli/ Doktor Rej i djavoli]
Plot
In 1964, celebrated director Nicholas Ray who had been the toast of Hollywood only a decade earlier having made the iconic picture 'Rebel Without a Cause' starring James Dean arrives in communist Yugoslavia desperately trying to re-ignite his spiraling career. Problems with drugs and alcohol have made him fall on hard times, but his name in the world of cinema still holds enough cache to get him a lucrative offer of shooting a movie with Yugoslav state funds a spectacular costumed horror-drama based on Dylan Thomas's 1953 screenplay The Doctor and the Devils.[http://www.blic.rs/Zabava/Vesti/283306/Pogledajte-trejler-za-film-Doktor-Rej-i-djavoli Pogledajte trejler za film "Doktor Rej i avoli"];'Blic', 14 October 2011
On the other hand, Ray's powerful host, the director of state-owned production company Avala Film and former UDBA (Yugoslav state security) operative Ratko Draevi, is dreaming big dreams he is trying to establish a 'Hollywood behind the Iron Curtain' of sorts and feels that Nicholas Ray is a good fit in this regard.[http://www.mondo.rs/s214896/Zabava/MONDO_na_snimanju_filma_Dr_Rej_i_djavoli.html MONDO na snimanju filma "Dr Rej i avoli"];mondo.rs, 16 August 2011
Cast
*Paul Leonard Murray ... Nicholas Ray
*Dragan Bjelogrli ...
*Ana Sofrenovi ... Betty Utey, Ray's wife
*Bojan Dimitrijevi ... Borislav Mihajlovi Mihiz
*Lena Bogdanovi ... Nada
* ... Zlatan
* ... Aleksa
*Tihomir Stani ... Ivica
* ... Olja
*Gordon Murray ... Orson Welles
* ... Oja Kodar
* ... Jeanne Moreau
*Milan Konjevi ... Bahrudin engi
*Svetozar Cvetkovi ... D. W. Griffith
*Lazar Stojanovi ... Samuel Bronston
Production
Background
Dinko Tucakovi had been intrigued by the circumstances of Nicholas Ray's 1960s three-year stay in Yugoslavia ever since he became aware of it in 1979 as a student at the University of Arts' Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU). He was told about it by his FDU professor Vladimir Slijepevi who had personally hung out with Ray in Belgrade.[http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2011/09/polimac-vs-ray.html Polimac vs. Ray];'Jutarnji list', September 2011Over the coming years, Tucakovi became a known film director in Yugoslavia as well as a film historian and curator running the Yugoslav Film Archive (Jugoslovenska kinoteka). Since two of the most eminent sources on Ray Bernard Eisenschitz's 'Nicholas Ray: An American Life' and Jonathan Rosenbaum's articles barely mention the famed director's Yugoslav days, Tucakovi dug for information through private channels thus unearthing many details about Ray's life in the communist country.
Contracted by the state-owned studio Avala Film, headed at the time by the powerful and controversial former UDBA operative Ratko Draevi, Ray was approved a US$1.7 million budget to come up with the adapted screenplay from Dylan Thomas's novel 'The Doctor and the Devils' and use it to direct a movie for which Maximilian Schell, Susannah York, and Geraldine Chaplin had been cast. A notorious alcoholic, compulsive gambler, and heavy drug user, Ray spent his time in Belgrade living in Hotel Moskva and getting acquainted with the city's cultural elite. He also hung out with Polish director Andrzej Wajda who was in town shooting 'Gates to Paradise', also for Avala Film. Known to be bisexual, Ray, who was married at the time, was said to have had both a mistress and a male lover in Belgrade. He furthermore had plans of getting a permanent residence in Belgrade after identifying a business opportunity for vehicle import into Yugoslavia as a Volkswagen representative and feeling that it could potentially be more lucrative for him than movies. He additionally spent some time in Zagreb as well as on the island of Hvar where he sequestered himself to do work on the screenplay.
In the end, Ray never made 'The Doctor and the Devils' due to variety of reasons mostly having to do with Avala Film's financial problems caused by one of its co-productions French-Italian historical adventure spectacular 'La Fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo' by Nol Howard and Raoul Lvy that ran severely over budget. Problems with 'Marco Polo' forced Avala into looking for a foreign production partner for 'The Doctor and the Devils'; when it couldn't get one on board, it scrapped the project and Ray left the country.
Some twenty years later, English cinematographer and director Freddie Francis shot 'The Doctor and the Devils'.
By the time the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, Tucakovi was sure he wanted to make a movie about Ray's stay in the country. In Venice, at the film festival, he met with Wim Wenders, Ray's admirer and good friend who had given Ray a part in the 1977 film 'The American Friend' before chronicling his death in the 1980 documentary 'Lightning Over Water'. Wenders expressed interest in contributing to Tucakovi's project, but nothing ever came of it due to the inability of Bandur Film, the production company behind the planned project, to access EU co-production funds.
The idea went dormant again, but what gave Tucakovi hope was that whenever he mentioned the idea to film industry people at symposiums or film festivals it would always find a very receptive audience.
Project
Finally, by 2008 Tucakovi had the script ready. He had also collected such an abundance of material that in addition to the feature film, he decided to also write a book and make a documentary. He decided to make the feature as a mixture of fact and fiction similar to Oliver Parker's 'Fade to Black' about Orson Welles' entanglement with the CIA in Rome in 1948.The preparation and pre-production for the feature film took place throughout 2009. Originally cast to play Nicholas Ray was Willem Dafoe, however, problems with the film's financing forced Tucakovi into pushing the production start date back on several occasions. As a result, Dafoe dropped out of the project as he had other movies lined up. Similarly, the role of Ray's wife Betty Utey changed several protagonists due to this scheduling uncertainty. Originally cast was Anica Dobra who had in the meantime, while waiting for 'Doktor Rej i avoli' to start shooting, gotten other roles and eventually dropped out of the project. Her replacement was Nataa Janji, but her theater commitments forced another change of plans so the role finally went to Ana Sofrenovi. Another original idea that had to be scrapped was casting Rade erbedija to play the character of famous Croatian writer Miroslav Krlea (erbedija incidentally knew Krlea very well).
The shooting finally started in late 2010 and went on-and-off until fall 2011 on locations in Belgrade and Lutica, Montenegro. In addition to the acted scenes, the film features plenty of documentary stock footage of Paris and Belgrade. The 'movie within a movie' footage of the film Ray is working on is actually taken from Tucakovi's 1990 horror short film 'Bernisa, jaa od smrti'.
Critical reception
The early reviews following the film's premiere at FEST have been negative.
'Blic's observes that "the movie portrays two lumens of Serbian cultureMihiz and Saa Petrovias Draevi's suck-ups and hangers-on". He further points out that those familiar with the era will understand the movie's subtext, but expresses doubts whether even they will find it entertaining and worthwhile".[http://www.blic.rs/Komentar/Kultura/310397/Holivud-u-Beogradu--Doktor-Rej-i-djavoli-D-Tucakovic Holivud u Beogradu - Doktor Rej i avoli (D. Tucakovi)] ;'Blic', 5 March 2012
'Politika's Dubravka Laki disliked the movie, calling it "self-indulgent film prose that arbitrarily mixes fiction with fact" and referring to it as "Tucakovi's 30-year-long obsession that's now out of his system, hopefully for good". She further states that "at times the movie almost turns into a chamber play with the plot entirely taking place inside a few interiors, all of which places extra pressure on the screenplay as well as the performances that fall short of what's required to elevate the story - Paul Leonard Murray as Nicholas Ray is amateurish (as is Gordon Murray playing Orson Welles) while Bjelogrli essentially plays himself from the producer phase of his cinematic career".[http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Kritika/filmska-kritika/Davolska-proizvoljna-posla-Dubravka-Lakic-kritika.lt.html avolska proizvoljna posla];'Politika', 6 March 2012
References
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