Gojko Mitic: NATO killed my mother

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

On May 22, the opening ceremony of the XXVI International Film Forum "Golden Knight" was held at the Sevastopol Lunacharsky Theater. It was attended by Goiko Mitic, a Yugoslav actor, Serb by nationality, a famous film Indian, the idol of millions of Soviet boys. He gave an interview to the portal "Culture".

Culture:You sang an Indian ballad in German …

Mitic: “Put out the fire, the sun is waking up our horses! We will go through dry land, the day will be hot and the path is long, like parting: you will gallop to the left, and me - to the right - towards the eternal morning. There is no more night, only stars and the moon in the sky, but our hands are empty, we are blinded by the sand burning before our eyes …”This is an old song from the 70s.

Culture:You were born just before the war, who was your idol - a living person or a movie hero?

Mitic:My father has always been my hero. I don't remember the Second World War at all - we lived far from the battles, but dad became a partisan. Uncompromising, honest, he always stood up for the truth.

After the Victory, he refused the pension of a combatant - he did not like the new orders. Over the years, I become more and more like him. When they ask: why are you doing this? I answer: this is how my father behaved.

Taught to be independent in everything. This is probably why I went to the Institute of Physical Education. We were taught football, basketball, rowing, judo, boxing, horse racing. I was especially good at javelin throwing, but I never dreamed of a professional career, I did it with pleasure, but I didn't like to strain.

From childhood he loved cinema, was a fan of Jean Gabin, Raf Vallone, Marcello Mastroianni, Kirk Douglas and, of course, John Wayne. As soon as he appeared on the screen, the boys began to applaud. Everyone wanted to be cowboys, not Indians, because they were considered bad … But in books, on the contrary, I was fond of Karl May's novels, they aroused my interest in this topic and played a role in my destiny.

But before our institute came agents for the actors - I turned out to be like the leading actor in the British film "Lancelot and the Queen". They took me as an understudy, handed me a long spear, a heavy shield, put me on a horse and gave me a retinue - two hundred horsemen … Then they invited me to play Lincoln's killer in the film adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin, with this baggage I went to the site of Karl May's West German-Yugoslav films about Winneta with Pierre Brice. Although the roles are tiny, it wasn't bad money for a student.

Indian westerns were popular, but the rights to May were sold. And one day the East German DEFA decided to make six films based on the novels of Lieselotte Welskopf-Heinrich. May thought up everything, took it out of his head, and she lived among the Indians and knew a lot about them.

That day I was getting ready to go skiing, the phone call found me already at the door. I picked up the phone and heard: urgently come to the Belgrade studio. All the authorities were already waiting for me there. They asked if I knew how to ride a horse, if I spoke German. I said yes, I taught a little at school, and they immediately drank brandy to their Toki-Ito.

Culture: After the premiere of Sons of the Big Dipper, did you wake up famous?

Mitic: No, although the picture was a great success. It's just that the glory did not chase me too much and finally found me in Russia, bags of letters came from you. Filmed in the USSR - in the Caucasus, Crimea, Samarkand. In Minsk I played a bearded partisan - they recognized me in this form, but I never considered myself a star.

At the beginning of the journey, I was sure that I would fail, but the popular Yugoslavian artist, professor of acting Viktor Starchich said: “Goiko, don't be afraid of anything - if you have talent, you can overcome everything”. With the Czech director Josef Mach, we understood each other very well: if I had a sensible idea, he took it into the film. There are a lot of my ideas there.

Culture: How did the western Winnetou differ from your GDR leaders?

Mitic: Pierre Brice's Indian is something great, unattainable and fantastic, and mine were closer to historical prototypes. We have filmed stories about real personalities - Tekumze, Ulzan, Osceole. The same applies to texture. In Berlin, they explained to us in detail how the Apaches or Comanches looked and lived. Mostly I played first.

Culture: Is the red kerchief on Chingachgook's head not a fictional detail?

Mitic: The Indians tied them so that the braids did not interfere during the race. The horse was funny. Before filming, they called me to the circus and brought in a huge stunt horse, riding it I looked like a dwarf with crooked legs, I couldn't even jump on it. But work began - in the mountains near Dubrovnik - and on the very first day the horse limped. What to do? Right at the station they found a peasant horse of the same color, the owner discouraged it - biting, worse than a dog. But I gave her sugar, apples, and we became friends. Otherwise, nothing would have happened - I was filming without understudies.

Culture: What about composite shots?

Mitic: They weren't there. For example, for the episode where I was lassoed and dragged by a cowboy, a special apron was made of plantar leather, the ties were hidden under the braids.

Culture: What was the hardest trick?

Mitic: It was difficult to jump up at full gallop, grab a branch and find yourself on a tree. Each time the branch was torn from my hands, bouncing, and I, like an arrow fired from a bow, flew into the steppe. I had to use a metal "horizontal bar" instead and train a lot. I mastered everything from scratch, but there are things that cannot be calculated.

Once in the Mongolian steppe, my Scout had to recapture a herd of one thousand two hundred mustangs from American soldiers. Nobody really knew how to shoot it. The stuntmen opened fire, and an avalanche rushed at me - I did not have time to jump on my horse, grabbed the mane, and we, pounding against the rushing carcasses, rushed to the rock. It turned out to be a salvation and a successful episode of the film.

It was more difficult only to light a pipe of peace, because I am a non-smoker. I coughed twenty takes and threw her into the abyss in my hearts. It turned out - an irreplaceable prop, barely found.

See also: "Chingachgook ended up in Purgatory": Actor Goyko Mitich was brought to the Peacemaker's base

Culture: A black cat ran between you and Dean Reed. But this is not Renate Blume from Ulzana, with whom you were a beautiful and very popular couple in the USSR.

Mitic: Yes, she married Reed two years after we parted, she felt good with him, and I felt better.

Culture: Until 1986, when Reed drowned under very vague circumstances, at the dawn of perestroika … Everyone suspected that the special services "helped" him.

Mitic: Many years later, a suicide note was made public, he was experiencing depression … But I would not be surprised at anything. I remember one of his first concerts at the Friedrichstadt Palace. Dean sang political songs and cried, saw the Vietnamese in the hall, went down to them, began to hug, said that the usher reminds him of his mother. I was moved, and the next evening everything was repeated inside and out. After Blood Brothers, a second joint film was planned, but I did not want to act with him.

Culture: Your Chingachgook greatly frightened the Americans in 1973, they claimed that he was the one who inspired the Indians to revolt in Wounded Knee. Did you feel like a national hero then?

Mitic: No, the stars just came together, but I'm happy that I starred in this film, which tells about the most dramatic episode in American history. European immigration to America turned into a real war: the Spaniards rampaged in the south, the French attacked from the north, and the British from the west.

Everyone wanted to grab more land, they were not interested in people.

The Indians were given specially poisoned blankets, but there was no immunity, and whole tribes died before they could take up arms.

In some cases, there have been attempts at a dialogue between civilizations. Native Americans were asked: How much is your land worth? Those did not understand what they were talking about, they said: what does the money have to do with it, she is our mother, and we are not her masters.

The Anglo-Saxon navigators did not understand this simple thing. It is logical that aliens adore films about aliens hungry for human beings and have not been able to form as a nation. They are cursed by people who lived in harmony with nature and possessed an original philosophy.

Culture: Under what circumstances did you find yourself in the States and got your real Indian name?

Mitic: In 1997, a German student of mathematics came to work at Microsoft, decided to surprise his colleagues and subtitled two of my tapes. A year later, the audience wanted to put on a show on the reservation and invited me to America. They received them very warmly, as if they were their own person. The shaman called to his house. He fumigated the room with herbs and asked: "Who are you?" I replied that I have no Indian name, I am just an actor. He said: you will see your name, think what animal is in front of you. I closed my eyes and immediately saw the wolf - nose to nose. And I heard the words of the shaman: I see Mangun. In their language, it is a wolf. I still don’t understand how he could see what I did. The owner of the house just laughed and explained that I was chosen by a good name - the Indians especially respect eagles and wolves.

Culture: And soon the war knocked on the Serbian house, and after the bombing of Belgrade, your mother's heart stopped …

Mitic: I said bluntly: NATO killed my mother. In Germany, many understand whose side the truth is on, but they keep quiet, do not believe in newspapers or in their own strength to change anything.

Only in the era of the Internet, the truth cannot be hidden. A German journalist recently made a film exposing the FRG leadership in lies, which told tales of the mass genocide of the Albanians at the stadium in Pristina. The Kosovars themselves confirmed that there was nothing of the kind.

No Serb will ever recognize the independence of their nation's cradle, Kosovo. Bosniaks, Croats, Montenegrins and Serbs are one people. Having gained independence, our neighbors began to invent a language for themselves, absurd words, and I suddenly turned out to be a polyglot. Only I do not want to call the belt in Croatian "bait". Does this barbarity remind you of anything? How the descendants of Nazi accomplices, the Ustasha, appeared out of the ground and erected a memorial plaque for them at the entrance to the concentration camp, where they committed their atrocities. One adviser to the American president called the events in Kosovo the first NATO war. Since then, the Americans have continued to wreak havoc on the planet, and so far no one can stop them.

Culture: The Gospel says: "where there is a corpse, there the eagles will gather." Don't you think that the era of true heroes, true peacemakers - humble, noble, valiant Chingachgooks is approaching?

Mitic: I believe that this is so, for too long they have destroyed the world and ruined peoples. It's time to return harmony and fertility to the Earth. Take a look around: trees, grass, water are dying of selfishness and madness of the mindless crowd.

Culture: What theatrical role is most dear to you?

Mitic: The Greek Zorba in the musical of the same name, staged in the open air on a flowering meadow near Schwerin. For her, I learned to play the flute. It was very romantic. I also periodically stage performances at the Karl May Memorial House Museum. In general, I do not know the rest.

Culture: At 76, you look amazingly fresh, how do you keep fit? How do you feel in Crimea?

Mitic: Literally like home. This is my first time here, although I know and love Russia. So that age does not become a hindrance, you need to move. Every morning I work out on a stationary bike and swim a lot, forgetting about the time. In Berlin, not far from my house, the amazingly clear Dame River flows. There fame does not bother - the neighbors are used to me.