Читать книгу Filming the Unfilmable - Ben Hellmann - Страница 8

In 1968, Wrede, whose enthusiasm about the project was ‘infectious’,[77] convinced Erik Borge, head of Norsk Film AS, to co-finance the adaptation and offer a studio and technical facilities, to the tune of USD100,000 (the other financial backer was Group W, the film division of the US Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation, which provided USD325,000;[78] the third partner was a company called Leontes Productions Ltd, founded by Tom Courtenay to ‘engage in production of significant films he personally wants to make’.[79]) Wrede had worked as a director in Norway in the past, making a TV version of Gogol’s Diary of a Madman in 1967 and staging his Government Inspector at the National Theatre in Oslo next year (incidentally, Hønningstad contributed to both adaptations too). Some of the Norwegian actors Wrede had directed were cast in One Day. Thus, Espen Skjønberg (b. 1924) played the part of Tyurin, and Frimann Falck Clausen (1921-83), that of Senka Klevshin. They spoke accented English, which turned out to be quite appropriate, because it conveyed the international atmosphere in the labour camps, whose population was composed from people of different ethnic backgrounds. Norway was also convenient for snow scenes.

On 1 February 1969, a formal agreement was signed between Leontes Productions Ltd and Wrede, putting him in charge of the film adaptation of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as the director and producer, for a sum total of USD25,000, of which USD10,000 was paid upon signing the agreement; a further USD7,500, upon the start of the shooting; and a final USD7,500, upon the shooting’s completion. Additionally, Leontes Productions Ltd undertook to reimburse Wrede’s work-related expenses and pay him a half of the net profits of the film.

According to the rough cost estimates, sent to Wrede c/o Hønningstad at Klingenberggatte 7 in Oslo, by Peter S. Katz of Group W Films from London on 24 March 1969, the overall film budget was expected to comprise USD410,000,[80] of which the pre-production expenses amounted to USD5,000; the production staff – including the cameraman, the art director, the dubbing editor, the make-up artist, the seamstresses, the wardrobe mistress, the animal trainer and various assistants – were to be paid USD65,000 (including the Norwegian insurance and the Swedish pension); Tom Courtenay, USD15,000; and the rest of the cast, USD40,000 (double the amount to be spent on the extras, on the one hand, and on the local technical staff and equipment, on the other). The film stock would cost USD17,500. The construction of the camp and the working site would set the producers back USD50,000; the crew’s travel and living expenses, USD30,000; the soundtrack, USD2,500; and the post-production, USD8,500.

On 1 April 1969, a contract was drawn between the Leontes Production Ltd and Harwood, engaging his services as a scriptwriter for a screenplay based on Aitken’s translation of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, to be delivered by 1 July 1969, for USD12,500 (plus expenses if any), the first half of which was to be paid on the day when the contract was signed; and the second, in two equal instalments, on 19 September 1969 and no later than 1 November 1969 respectively.[81] The screenplay had to be approved (or otherwise) within fourteen days after its submission.

On 17 April of the same year, in his letter to Erik Borge, Peter Rawley of the London-based Creative Management Association (Wrede’s agents)[82] outlined the financial guarantees of the Norsk Film’s involvement in the project. In return for their investment, Norsk Film was to have all the income from the film’s release on the Scandinavian territories. Furthermore, up to 75% of the Norsk investment would be covered out of Westinghouse’s takings received in the first year of the film’s release in the Eastern Hemisphere. The remaining 25% of the Norsk investment would be recovered, if necessary, from the additional fees Tom Courtenay was entitled to in case Westinghouse makes 2.5 times more than their investment after the film’s world-wide release. Also, Norsk Film would receive 10% of the entire profit made out of the Eastern hemisphere release. According to Wrede’s handwritten notes on an undated piece of paper with the Norsk Film A/S letter heading, for his part, Borge requested the guaranteed recoupment, from the Eastern hemisphere receipts obtained in the first year of the film’s release, of the entire sum Norsk was going to contribute, because of the uncertainty of the Scandinavian market.[83] From the documents at our disposal, it is not clear how the issue was resolved, but a solution was undoubtedly found, because the project went ahead, with the Norsk Film A/S underwriting one fourth and a quarter of the budget (which totalled USD443,640) and a quarter of the contingency (estimated at USD20,000), and Group W shouldering the rest.[84] On 25 June 1969, Peter S. Katz (Group W’s London representative, appointed the production executive on the Solzhenitsyn adaptation) wrote to Wrede with a suggestion to register the titles One Day, One Day in the Life and/or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich with the Film Production Association of Great Britain.