Word: topol
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...perhaps implying that the revolution had gone sour too? Another film maker got into trouble when he included a song called Bring Me a Piece of the Moon-during the time that Americans had landed there and the Russians had not. Was he belittling the Soviet space effort? Edward Topol, an émigré screenwriter, once tried to explain a picture about juvenile delinquency to a Soviet official, who said that in his travels round the Soviet Union he had never seen any youthful criminals, so how could they exist? Re-edited and reshot, a new version was permitted...
This hassling creates a climate of self-censorship and an implicit demand to pretty-up reality. Says Topol: "If you just set up a camera anywhere in the Soviet Union and shoot life as it is, it looks terrible. It jumps out at you from the screen." Yet the directors soldier on. Some search patiently for a historical or fantastical work that will not overstrain the censorious mind. Still others find a style of shooting an approved scene that will change its meaning without altering a word of the preapproved script. A happy ending darkly lit will not, for example...
...minute segments covering Genesis 1-22 (from the Creation to Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac) and Luke 1-2 (the Annunciation, the Nativity and Jesus' youth). They were filmed in the sere landscape of the Holy Land and neighboring areas, using largely unknown actors. One exception: Topol, the Israeli star of Hollywood's Fiddler on the Roof, who portrays Abraham...
Strangely, Losey did not apply Copernican tenets to his casting. Galileo, who ought to be the radiant center of this dramatic universe, is so insubstantially summoned up by Topol that he is outshone and outdone by the secondary heavenly bodies. He seems to revolve around them. Topol, who last loped in Fiddler on the Roof, has a sort of toothy ingenuousness that gives Galileo an unfortunate puppy-dog quality. Topol misses the role's strength, both in character and intellect. Most of the actors around him, however, are superb: John Gielgud, Margaret Leighton, Edward Fox, Patrick Magee, John McEnery...
Israel has provided 80 escort officers, including the movie star Haim Topol, to act as translators and tour guides to combat zones approved by Israeli security. As an added fillip, the military press liaison runs daily tourist buses from Tel Aviv to the Golan Heights, but this service is unpopular with many reporters. "I wouldn't get into one of those coffins with masses of correspondents," says New York Times Correspondent Terence Smith. Indeed, on one trip, bus drivers ventured too close to the battle line and came under Syrian air and artillery attack. Only poor marksmanship averted...