Warsaw Uprising in colour

[Serpo]

Warsaw Uprising in colour: Black and white pictures taken during doomed 1944 revolt against the Nazis turned into incredible feature movie with sound and colour



Mesmerizing account of house-to-house fighting against German army
Cinematographers added coloration and sound to the black and white

Only fictional elements are voiceovers presenting imagined narrative

By Daily Mail Reporter (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Daily+Mail+Reporter)
PUBLISHED: 12:20 GMT, 20 August 2013 | UPDATED: 15:42 GMT, 20 August 2013

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2397873/Warsaw-Uprising-colour-Black-white-photos-turned-incredible-feature-movie.html#comments)
Black and white silent footage taken during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis have been turned into a mesmerising feature movie with sound and colour.
The film is a riveting account of the fierce house-to-house fighting against the German army that began on August 1 and ended 63 days later with the insurgents surrendering, following the deaths of some 200,000 rebels and residents.
Titled Warsaw Rising, the film shows the crews that the Polish resistance Home Army sent fanning through the city to chronicle the uprising.

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http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B742000005DC-543_634x442.jpg Captivating footage: Black and white footage taken during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis have been turned into a mesmerising feature film with sound and colour






http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B6ED000005DC-901_634x447.jpg Realistic: Cinematographers hired by the Warsaw Rising Museum added colour and sound that give a real-life feel, while modern editing techniques provide a polished, fast-paced narrative


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B5FF3B3000005DC-189_306x423.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B5FF4A3000005DC-558_306x423.jpg

Then and now: Witold Kiezun pictured during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, left, and earlier this month, right





The only purely fictional elements are voiceovers presenting an imagined narrative that stitches together the footage: Two brothers scour the streets of the Polish city tasked with filming the 1944 rebellion of Warsaw residents against their Nazi occupiers, commenting on what they witness, from soup kitchens to scenes of destruction.





Cinematographers hired by the Warsaw Rising Museum (http://1944.pl/%20)added colouration and sound that give a real-life feel, while modern editing techniques provide a polished, fast-paced narrative.

The museum released the trailer of the film last month as part of the observances of the anniversary of the launch of the doomed struggle.
The film will be released in cinemas - in Poland and abroad - next year, before the uprising's 70th anniversary.







http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B70B000005DC-800_634x456.jpg Battle: A new film on the Warsaw Uprising is a riveting account of the fierce house-to-house fighting against the German army that began on August 1 and ended 63 days later



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B79E000005DC-445_634x446.jpg Struggle: The museum released the trailer of the film last month as part of the observances of the anniversary of the launch of the doomed struggle



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60BA8C000005DC-516_634x445.jpg Anniversary: The movie hits cinemas - in Poland and abroad - next year, before the uprising's 70th anniversary



Meanwhile, the museum has posted the trailer on its website in an effort to identify people in the movie. Some have already been found, still living.

One is Witold Kiezun who, in the film, is a smiling fighter filmed in a trophy German helmet and uniform, toting a captured machine gun and ammunition. He is now 91 and remains active in Warsaw as a professor of economics and management.

'I was going back to base when the chronicle people stopped me and filmed me,' said Kiezun, a former UN worker in Burundi.

'I smiled at them because I was madly happy that we won (a battle) and that we had captured this machine gun, a precious trophy. My bag is filled with hand grenades.'

Museum historians and film experts spent two years creating the 90-minute feature. Film director Jan Komasa produced the story line, while sound director Bartosz Putkiewicz oversaw the brothers' dialogue and the matching sound and music.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60BABA000005DC-999_634x457.jpg Dedication: Filmmakers recorded sound at a firing range shooting from the same kind of weapons that are seen in the film



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B9A2000005DC-308_634x478.jpg Realistic: Museum historian Piotr Sliwowski said the footage is pretty much as real as things can get


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B8EE000005DC-185_634x495.jpg Labour of love: Museum historians and film experts spent two years creating the 90-minute movie

Authenticity was paramount. Filmmakers recorded sound at a firing range shooting from the same kinds of weapons seen in the film.

Lip-reading experts studied the footage, allowing actors to give people in the movie a voice. Historians consulted surviving fighters and pored over thousands of old pictures to get the right color and shade in every garment, object and place.

The faces in the movie are hauntingly poignant. A woman with a soot-smudged face and disheveled hair stands stunned. A man swathed in bandages looks into the camera with a look of inexpressible sadness.
Amid the death and chaos, rebels enjoy laughter and camaraderie: One spreads his arms in apparent mock despair over the state of his socks; another waves a sword with childlike, swashbuckling glee.

[Serpo]

The Home Army footage was captured to document history but also for political reasons: to rally the nation and to show the Allies Poland's bravery against Hitler's army.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B8C8000005DC-30_634x468.jpg Rally: The Home Army footage was captured to document history but also for political reasons: to rally the nation and to show the Allies Poland's bravery against Hitler's army



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60BA70000005DC-518_634x435.jpg Aim: Thousands of poorly-armed young Warsaw residents, members of the clandestine Home Army, wanted to gain control of the capital before the advancing Soviet Red Army reached



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B60B8D8000005DC-272_634x387.jpg Defeat: Without reinforcements or supplies, the insurgents gave in after two months


Museum director Jan Oldakowski concedes that some scenes of fierce fighting were re-enactments by insurgents of action they had taken part in.
It's also possible that the camera crews gave some direction to the rebels and Warsaw residents captured in the movie.

Despite all of this, museum historian Piotr Sliwowski said the footage is pretty much as real as things can get.

'When someone cries in the film, he cried for real,' said Sliwowski. 'When someone is happy, he was happy for real. If someone dies, he really died.'

At the time of the uprising the Nazis had been occupying Poland for five years.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B5FF3DB000005DC-631_634x623.jpg Preparations: A man works in the Park of Freedom at the Warsaw Rising Museum ahead of the film's release



http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/20/article-2397873-1B5FF3A7000005DC-947_634x335.jpg Anticipation: The 70th anniversary of the uprising will be marked by a series of celebratory events

Thousands of poorly-armed young Warsaw residents, members of the clandestine Home Army, wanted to gain control of the capital before the advancing Soviet Red Army reached it and put the city under an equally hated regime.

Without reinforcements or supplies, the insurgents gave in after two months.

The punishment was ferocious: The Nazis sent survivors to death camps, including Auschwitz, and razed most of the city.

The idea for the movie came from Oldakowski, whose young son asked why people in black-and-white uprising documentaries are dark-faced.

'It was an insane idea,' Oldakowski said, 'but we decided to tell the truth and make it contemporary by removing this black-and-white color barrier.'


RESISTANCE AGAINST THE ODDS: HOW DETERMINED JEWISH FIGHTERS BATTLED TO HOLD OFF INEVITABLE GERMAN SURGE

During the Second World War as many as 400,000 Polish Jews were crammed into the confines of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Within its walls they lived under the shadow of rampant disease and starvation, even before German troops began transporting Jews en masse to the Treblinka extermination camp.
The seeds were sown for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in January 1943, when German soldiers arriving to implement a second deportation of Jews to the camp were met by Jewish resistance fighters who engaged them in clashes.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/22/article-2328951-19EEC31F000005DC-267_634x414.jpg Battle of honour: A Jewish rebel is seen leaving a house surrounded by German soldiers inside the Warsaw Ghetto, during the uprising that peaked during April and May 1943

The deportation was halted after a period of days and only saw 5,000 - rather than the intended 7,000 - Jews taken away. The occupants of the ghetto were ready to fight what was regarded as a battle of honour for the Jewish people, led by two resistance organisations; the ZZW and the ZOB.
On 19 April 1943 the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the ghetto for a further deportation action intended to last three days.
They were ambushed by Jewish insurgents firing and tossing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows. The Germans suffered casualties and their advance was halted.
German forces resorted to systematically burning down the ghetto, building by building, prompting thousands of surviving Jews and fighters to take cover in underground bunkers or the sewer system. Many were forced out of their hiding places by troops who dropped in smoke bombs.

On May 8, the Germans discovered a large dugout located at Miła 18 Street, which served as ŻOB's main command post. Most of the organisation's remaining leadership and dozens of others committed a mass suicide by ingesting cyanide.

The suppression of the uprising officially ended on 16 May 1943, with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2397873/Warsaw-Uprising-colour-Black-white-photos-turned-incredible-feature-movie.html

[Norweger]

"Extermination camp"

No such thing under German control.