American Cinematographer - December 1970 - 59

"Ossie"-as almost everyone in the
film industry knows-is famed British
cinematographer Oswald Morris, BSC,
whose long list of credits as Director of
Photography includes such gems as
"MOBY DICK", "MOULIN ROUGE",
"REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN
EYE", "THE TAMING OF THE
SHREW", "OLIVER!", the most recent
version of "GOODBYE MR. CHIPS"
and
the
c u r r e n 11 y - i n - re lease
"SCROOGE".
I have long been an admirer of his
artistry, not only as a cameraman, but
as an innovator. He has never hesitated
to stick his neck out to experiment in
quest of new and unique ways to tell a
story on the screen-which is why I am
not at all surprised to hear that he is
shooting all of "FIDDLER" through a
brown silk stocking.
Somehow, during my many trips to
England I have just missed meeting him
personally-mainly because he has
always been off on some distant loca¬
tion shooting something or other. This
time I decided to remedy the situation
by journeying directly to the location.
An exchange of cables brings a warm
invitation from Director Norman
Jewison, whom I know from Holly¬
wood, as well as from Ossie himself.
Without further ado, I "pop over" to
Yugoslavia-and here I am, driving
through the night toward a village that
never existed, except to the 30,000,000
people in 20 countries who have seen
this hit musical on the stage.
Just South of Anywhere
The locale of "FIDDLER ON THE
ROOF" is a small village in the Russian
Ukraine called Anatevka, which, accord¬
ing to the program notes, is located
"just south of anywhere." The period is
1905.
The rolling countryside outside Zag¬
reb was chosen as the location filming
site of Anatevka for a number of
reasons. After an exhaustive, 4,000-mile
location scouting trip which explored
villages in Austria, Canada, Rumania
and Yugoslavia, it was decided that the
primitive towns of Lakenik and Mala
Gorica had an inherent Chagall-like style

Chaim Topol, star of "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF", engages in a bit of blowzy horseplay with his
somewhat long-in-the-tooth future son-in-law (played by Paul Mann) in front of the village
tavern. The long-running stage hit musical is being filmed in two actual hamlets, doubling for the
mythical village of Anatevka, and located about 30 miles from Zagreb, Yugoslavia.

that blended with the design of the film
and the intent of the original story's
author, Sholom Aleichem. Other
secondary reasons include the experi¬
ence of Yugoslav film craftsmen and
the availability in not-too-faraway Zag¬
reb of comfortable accommodations for
the cast and crew.
The cinematic Anatevka (actually
two small villages combined, through
the magic of film editing, into one) is a
hybrid creation. Some of the buildings,
dating from the last century, are just as
they were when the film crew arrived
and have been left that way. Others
have had false fronts added onto them.
Still others have been built from scratch
out of lumber that arrived as logs and
had to be transformed into planking by
local carpenters using old-fashioned
chain saws and adzes.
Production designer Robert Boyle
collected so much material he felt he
could recreate the smell as well as the
mood and touch of a village like Anatev¬
ka. Just to be sure, in his design for a
small synagogue he collected over 100
plans of synagogues from the Ukraine.
Many of the additional houses construc¬
ted near Zagreb are not made of newtreated wood, but wood taken from
now-dilapidated homes that would have

"FIDDLER" Director of Photography (known
in England as "Lighting Cameraman") Oswald
Morris, BSC, lines up an angle with his favorite
Panavision Reflex camera, the same he used in
photographing "SCROOGE".

(LEFT) Director Norman Jewison and Cinematographer Morris discuss the filming of a "magic hour" scene on a Yugoslav country road near Zagreb.
(CENTER) The director checks the scene through the viewfinder for playback filming of the "To Life!" musical number. (RIGHT) Panavision Silent
Reflex camera on a crab dolly moves in for closer angle during shooting of musical sequence.

American Cinematographer - December 1970

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