Mivtsa Yonatan (1977)

2 juni 2008 op MGM om 13:15

Vlot gemaakte en goed gespeelde propaganda.

Laat ik dan maar pareren met drakerige propaganda. Rabin en Peres mogen ook nog opdraven als zichzelf en het Israelische leger voorzag de crew van de voertuigen etc. Het overmatig sentiment begint op den duur echter ontzettend te jeuken.

G-E-N-I-A-A-L

"The Menahem Golan myth includes the popular story about the incident in which he threatened to shoot a pilot who refused to listen to him while filming the movie "Operation Thunderbolt." Many of the stories regarding Golan are exaggerations that over the years have swollen out of proportion or fictional tales that have been repeated so many times until they turned into facts, but the story of the Uzi and the pilot is real and indeed happened; I was there and I was involved so here's what happened. One of the most logistically complicated scenes we filmed included four giant Hercules air freighters parked on a runway, lined up in single file. After all the actors and extras who played the soldiers and kidnapping survivors, along with Jeeps and equipment board them, they were supposed to taxi forward toward, take off, and pass by the cameras placed at the head of the runway. The distance from the cameras to the last plane in line was enormous and the preparations for filming a scene like that lasted several hours. Riki Shelach was by Menahem Golan near the camera and each plane had an assistant director sitting next to the pilot with a walkie-talkie to coordinate the plane’s movement. I was one of them. Since Mernahem was planning to shoot the scene only once, at twilight, with many cameras, we did some "dry" rehearsing without moving the planes from their places.

The pilots maneuvering the planes on the ground were civilians assigned to the production with maintenance technicians; they were not excited to be involved in the movie making process like us. Most of the time they talked to each other on their radios, and we conveyed to them the instructions we received from Ricky regarding the filming. When their regular working shift time came to an end and they got annoyed by all of this, they began to lose their patience and started to grumble; they did not expect the work to prolong so late and they wanted to be done. The pilot that I was sitting next to was the angriest and he started to instigate the others to leave unless photography commenced immediately. But sunset was not happening yet and according to the instruction I got, I tried to calm the pilot down and asked him to consider the production difficulties and cooperate, but with no success. As the hours passed the pilots got increasingly irritated until they decided to shut down the planes, to abandon the movie, and go home. The pilot I was with decided to be the first and although I tried to stop him he left the cockpit, climbed out of the plane and began walking on the tarmac toward the cameras. I kept walking next to him, reporting to Ricky on what’s happening; I knew we were heading toward an inevitable collision.

Throughout all his life Menahem Golan was convinced that all inhabitants of the world believe in the sanctity of cinematic endeavors; in his own mind there was no reason good enough to justify stopping the filming of a movie, not even one. "Operation Thunderbolt" was particularly dear to him and there was no chance that he would give up on filming the take off scene exactly as it was planned. When we approached him Golan charged angrily forward towards the defiant pilot and tried to stop him from leaving, a loud argument ensued between them which involved swearing and threats, pushing and shoving. Actors who were supposed to participate in the scene as commando soldiers in full battle gear with military weapons and ammunition, gathered around to see the escalating fight, then suddenly utterly enraged Golan turned to one of the actors, grabbed his Uzi, pulled a cartridge from his pouch, loaded it into the gun, cocked it and pointed it to the pilot's head with a finger on the trigger. Everyone froze, we could not believe our eyes, there was silence, and then Golan shouted, "If you don't return to the plane right away I will shoot you." The blood drained out of the pilot's face; all he saw in front of him was a lunatic capable of anything.

It is more than likely that the cartridge was empty with no bullets in it and the Uzi gun was a "movie weapon" disabled and inoperative, but the poor pilot didn’t know it and without a word turned on his heel and returned to the plane. The scene was filmed exactly the way Menahem Golan planned it, just as the sun was setting at the edge of the runway (in the movie it substitutes for dawn in Entebbe as the transport warplanes are taking off flying on their way back to Israel). Many are of the opinion that this was the most successful film and the best of all the movies directed by Menahem Golan. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1978."

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