Scenes in Brno
Does anyone know whether the scenes that took place in Brno were actually shot there or were they shot in Britain?
shareI got this answer to my question from joe1944uk on the Ian Bannen message board:
"According to the Triva from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the czech Scenes were filmed in Glasgow.
In the panning shoot of the Brno shopping street some buildings look to have been matte-paintings."
Thanks for the info.
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Scotland a poor Eastern European Soviet bloc setting? Clearly you've never been there.
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Well, parts of 1970s' Glasgow were very industrial and gloomy. But Scotland as a whole is gorgeous, especially the highlands, and Edinburgh, and modern-day Glasgow.
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This is a long and interesting article about some of the more egregious failings and paranoia fits suffered by British intelligence over the years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER
Oddly enough, the writer (Adam Curtis) goes on an unrelated digression mid-way through about seventies Glasgow, and includes some footage from a programme that was made back then. The area it was filmed in (Barrowfueld) really does look Soviet, and dreary as hell, though the people interviewed are pretty lively, and sharp as tacks.
For another look at Soviet Seventies Glasgow, this doc is pretty good too:
http://vimeo.com/24531931
The City Chambers aren't nicknamed "The Kremlin" for nothing.
Old episodes of Taggart sometimes look like they were filmed in a Warsaw Pact country too.
Scotland as a whole is pretty nice though, and Glasgow has improved, though it still has problems.
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Glasgow is the new Budapest!
Its that man again!!
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the czech Scenes were filmed in Glasgow.
I thought "those look like those awful hideous crime ridden flats in Glasgow!" They are unforgettable and easily recognized.
Sad how new they looked in 1979. They are complete slums now and a no-go zone. share
In Alan Bennett's diaries, he notes several times about various city locations in Scotland doubling for Eastern European locales (Liverpool also gets a couple of mentions in relation to this). Apparently some of the architecture has a marked similarity to what's found in those countries.
shareInteresting! I do have Alan Bennett's diaries (and his other works) on the bookshelf. Will take a look....thank you for the tip. I'd not recalled that. (Been awhile since reading his diaries).
I seem to recall those slums in Glasgow, in several of the "Rebus" episodes, when he had to go to Glasgow for some reason. And "Taggart" of course!
I love Bennett's diaries. They just give off a glow of having been written by a genuinely decent man--Bennett would probably say something self-deprecating about that observation of course, lol.
From what I saw during the time (much briefer than I would have liked) I was in Britain and its' surrounds, there did seem to be some locations that could probably be 'dressed up' so to speak, to pass as pretty convincingly bleak Soviet-bloc locales.
No question there are places that could pass as bleak Soviet bloc locales, but Glasgow is especially ripe, although regeneration has taken place. When filming in the '80s and '90s Britain was rife with those, but a lot having been deemed too hideous to be inhabited have been destroyed.
Alan is one of my heroes. I've tried to make a point of seeing all of his plays on first run when lucky. And it's been a privilege. Was especially glad to make the effort to see "Habit of Art" because of Richard Griffith's passing since. It may have been his final appearance on stage--not sure.
Also I once found myself in a familiar village in Yorkshire when driving through from A to B, and realized that was the village where his parents ended up and he still lives.
I parked the car and just casually walked up a long winding village road and figured out which cottage it was without stopping in front or anything obvious--just walked by. I did it very surreptitiously and with nobody really noticing, pretending to go to a nearby news agent for a paper! Didn't want to look scary stalky.
But the point was that when reading his diaries it's nice to be able to visualize things as they are. It adds to the reading experience.
A friend of ours happens to live on the same crescent he does in Camden, but I suspect at opposite ends. But I've yet to figure out which house is his....but of course you have to eliminate any houses along there that couldn't accommodate Miss Shepherd's van! LOL
Lucky you to have been able to have caught some of his work in live performance! I've only yet been able to see some of the film adaptations of his work; wonderful stuff, most of it, but how much better to experience on stage I'm certain.
He's been one of my heroes too, for years since first encountering the volume of his diaries that's paired up with The Lady in The Van. I knew of his work by reputation and was familiar with him of course from Beyond the Fringe--but I had never read any real writing of his before that time, and I was completely captivated. I've read the successive diaries as they were released, and always make a point of catching the year-end London Review of Books just to read his annual 'Diary' entry in it. A writer I truly can't get enough of, his take on things is devastating in a quiet and civilized sort of way. I'd think he would be quite special to meet in person.
How wonderful to find another AB devotee! I've had the privilege of meeting a few. But we are loyal.
Yes, "Lady in the Van!" Good news for us, as well. Rumors abound that Maggie is willing to take on Lady as a film. Might we be that lucky? Wow!
I attended opening night of "Lady," and gosh, it's one of those theatre experiences that only come along a few times, or once if one is lucky, in a lifetime.
At one point, the complex machinations of the "van" and "car" seemed to defeat the stage hands. And when a "van" didn't quite make its way toodling along a track all the way to stage left, Maggie just kicked her foot in the direction, looked out at the audience, breaking the fourth wall in a really charming manner, and shrugged, as if so say...."bloody hell it's hard to share a stage with mechanized characters."
I'll never forget that night in the theatre. Among a handful of memorable moments, that stands apart. The only other that seems to rise above was attending the performance of a Harold Pinter play, the performance of which with Michael Gambon, et al, was the first performance of a Pinter play (day after) after Pinter had died.
The emotional state of the audience was palpable, and you could sense that Gambon and the fellows like the great David Bradley were knife edge during the performance.
At the end of the curtain call, Gambon stepped out on stage and gave a little tribute to Pinter--a close friend of his for years. He was in tears as he spoke of his close friend. I'll never forget that. David Bradley, also a friend, supported him in his grief. Gambon and Bradley were clearly devastated, but had had to go out on stage and perform!
As for "Lady," found out later in the diaries (which you may have read as well) that Nicholas Farrell (playing the alter-ego Alan Bennett) was playing his role awaiting his wife's labor (the wonderful Stella Gonet) that was going on! I read later that Alan Bennett himself stood in the wings aready to take over as...himself...if Nicholas Farrell had to bolt. (Love those kinds of stories.)
"The Habit of Art" was WAY over my head intellectually, but have the program with the script printed therein. So sometimes will re-read it to try to understand...
Never been to Glasgow. But I know several Glaswegians and they agree that Glasgow in the seventies was a slum - I suppose just like the industrial cities of Liverpool and Machester and Birmingham - the latter was a fine city to come from but not to go to!. And it was no joke
shareI just finished re-watching TTSS the other day and agree - some of the Czech shopping street scenes look matted in - the shopping arcade stands out for one but on the whole I was convinced by the locations. It was only whilst watching it on a big screen TV that I noticed it.
For years I was fooled that HARRY'S GAME was filmed in Belfast and only recently read that in fact it was filmed in Leeds.
Scotland a poor Eastern European Soviet bloc setting? Clearly you've never been there.
If you were in or around Glasgow in 1979 when this was filmed, it would be achingly apparent very quickly why they chose it to sub for a crumbling Communist-era city.
I remember driving down several city centre streets in which entire 100 year old buildings, beautiful under the decay, had boarded up windows and heavy fences round them to try to keep squatters out. Today, the rehabilitation of all these old buildings is complete and do not bear the scars of what they were back in the '70s and earlier--crumbling wrecks.
It was a disaster zone in many areas. Many streets looked like bombs had gone off and it was a war zone...
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I can vouch for the truth of that, not through personal witness, but from the accounts of a couple of friends who were students there in that era. Odd to picture somehow, one thinks of Scotland as being such a civilized country that it's hard to picture large chunks of it as ever having been in that horrendous a degree of urban decay.
shareI didn't realise it was Glasgow when I first saw it. I didn't think it was Czechoslovakia because in the middle of the Cold War they would never have been able to film there, at least legally, but I thought they might have filmed this in Austria or some such place.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."