Enemy at the Gates

For other uses, see Enemy at the Gate (disambiguation).

Enemy at the Gates
Film poster
Directed by	Jean-Jacques Annaud
Written by	Jean-Jacques Annaud Alain Godard Book William Craig
Produced by	Jean-Jacques Annaud John D. Schofield
Starring	Jude Law Ed Harris Rachel Weisz Joseph Fiennes Bob Hoskins Gabriel Thompson
Cinematography	Robert Fraisse
Edited by	Noëlle Boisson Humphrey Dixon
Music by	James Horner
Production company	Mandalay Pictures
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	March 16, 2001 (2001-03-16)
Running time	131 minutes
Countries	Template:Film US Template:Film Germany Template:Film UK Template:Film Ireland
Languages	English German Russian
Budget	$68,000,000
Box office	$96,976,270

Enemy at the Gates is a 2001 war film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes and Ed Harris set during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.

The film's title is taken from William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942–1943. It is based on a duel mentioned in the book that developed between the legendary Soviet sniper Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev and his German counterpart, Major Erwin König, as they stalk each other during the battle. The movie is also partially based on the book War of the Rats.

Plot

In 1942, Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Ural Mountains who is now a soldier in the Red Army, finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad. Sent on a suicidal charge against the invading Germans, he uses impressive marksmanship skills—taught to him by his grandfather from a young age—to save himself and commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the city's defenses and demands ideas to improve morale. Danilov, now a senior Lieutenant, suggests that the people need figures to idolize, and publishes tales of Vassili's exploits in the army's newspaper that paint him as a national hero and propaganda icon. Vassili is transferred to the sniper division, and he and Danilov become friends. They also both become romantically interested in Tania (Rachel Weisz), a citizen of Stalingrad who has become a Private in the local militia. Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit away from the battlefield.

With the Soviet snipers taking an increasing toll on the German forces, German Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) is deployed to Stalingrad to take out Vassili and thus crush Soviet morale. A renowned marksman and head of the German Army sniper school at Zossen, he lures Vassili into a trap and takes out two of his fellow snipers, but Vassili manages to escape. When the Red Army command learns of König's mission, they dispatch his former student Koulikov (Ron Perlman) to help Vassili kill him. However, König tricks Koulikov into revealing his position and kills him with a very skillful shot, shaking Vassili's spirits considerably. Khrushchev pressures Danilov to bring the sniper standoff to a conclusion.

When Tania requests to be reassigned to the sniper division, Danilov asks Vassili to discourage her. Vassili attempts to do so, but relents when Tania tells him how her Jewish parents were murdered by the Germans. Danilov recruits young local boy Sacha Fillipov (Gabriel Thomson), who idolizes Vassili and does small jobs for the Germans in exchange for food, to act as a double agent by passing König false information about Vassili's whereabouts, thus giving Vassili a chance to ambush the Major. Vassili sets a trap for König and manages to wound him, but during a second attempt Vassili falls asleep after many hours and his sniper log is taken by a looting German soldier. The German command takes the log as evidence of Vassili's death and plans to send König home, but the Major does not believe that Vassili is dead. He tells Sacha where he will be next, suspecting that the boy will tell Vassili. Tania and Vassili have meanwhile fallen in love, and the jealous Danilov disparages Vassili in a letter to his superiors.

König spots Tania and Vassili waiting for him at his next ambush, confirming his suspicions about Sacha. He kills the boy and hangs his body from a pole to bait Vassili. Vassili vows to kill König and sends Tania and Danilov to evacuate Sacha's mother (Eva Mattes) from the city, but Tania is wounded by shrapnel en route to the evacuation boats. Thinking her dead, Danilov laments his jealousy for Vassili and his resulting disenchantment with the communist cause. Finding Vassili waiting to ambush König, Danilov intentionally exposes himself in order to reveal the Major's position and is killed. Thinking he has killed Vassili, König goes to inspect the body, but realizes too late that he has fallen into a trap and is in Vassili's sights. He turns to face Vassili, who then kills him. Two months later, after Stalingrad has been liberated and the German forces have surrendered, Vassili finds Tania recovering in a field hospital.

Main cast

• Jude Law - Vasily Zaytsev
• Ed Harris - Erwin König (based on Heinz Thorvald)
• Rachel Weisz - Tania Chernova (based on the real life Tanya Chernova)
• Joseph Fiennes - Danilov
• Bob Hoskins - Nikita Khrushchev
• Ron Perlman - Koulikov (based on Nikolay Kulikov)
• Eva Mattes - Mother Fillipov
• Gabriel Thomson - Sacha Fillipov (based on Sasha Filippov)
• Matthias Habich - Friedrich Paulus
• Sophie Rois - Ludmilla
• Ivan Shvedoff - Volodya
• Mario Bandi - Anton
• Gennadi Vengerov- Starshina
• Mikhail Matveyev - Grandfather

Locations

• The fighting in Stalingrad was shot in Berlin, Germany.
• The Volga crossing was filmed near Cottbus, Germany.

Criticism

The film was criticised both in Russia and in the West for taking considerable liberties with the facts; in both its plot and in the depictions of its characters (notably Fiennes' character, Danilov, and the German sniper König), it varies widely from the historical record. For example, the film features a scene where Commissars are herding a crowd of unorganized Soviet soldiers, half of them without rifles, mounting wave after wave of suicidal attacks against German troops armed with tanks and machine guns. These fictional officers were repulsive sadists, used whistles, megaphones and machine guns as means of controlling the soldiers. This scene depicts "zagradotryads," (barrier troops) contradicting with historical accounts of the aptitude and fighting tactics of Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. Some Soviet Stalingrad veterans were sufficiently offended by the portrayal of the Red Army, that on 7 May 2001, soon after it was shown in Russia, they addressed their grievances to the State Duma, demanding the film be banned. This request was not granted.

Historian Antony Beevor suggests in his book, Stalingrad, that, while Zaitsev was a real person, the story of his duel (dramatized in the film) with König is fictional. Although William Craig's book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad includes a "sniper's duel" between Zaitsev and König, the sequence of events in the film is fictional.

While the main characters are based on historical figures, with the exception of Danilov and possibly Konig it is highly unlikely that they ever intersected or had contact with each other.

The German-Russian writer Wladimir Kaminer played an extra as a Soviet soldier in the film. In his book Yes I'm Irish (2000), Kaminer criticizes how the Soviet soldiers are portrayed as hooligans getting drunk and playing farting games.

Cultural Influences

In the video game Call of Duty: Finest Hour, the opening levels of the battle for Stalingrad were heavily influenced by this movie. Notably, the dramatic crossing of the Volga is recreated virtually shot-for-shot from the film. The scene where only one in two soldiers is given a weapon was also included. (The player is one of the unfortunate men not to be issued a rifle, instead getting just a clip of ammunition.) Later on, the player takes control of a female, Russian sniper named Tania eliminating German officers, fighting through sewers, and repelling a German assault of a T-34 tank factory.

The 2008 video game Call of Duty: World at War is also heavily influenced by this film. There is a mission, set in the early days of The Battle of Stalingrad, that sees the main character, Pvt. Dimitri Petrenko, and his superior, Sgt. Reznov, stalk a high ranking Nazi official. The beginning depicts both characters feigning death among corpses in a fountain. While waiting for airplanes to fly overhead, Petrenko then goes on to kill three groups of German soldiers and one with a dog, as Reznov watches. Petrenko is then engaged in a short sniper duel with a German sniper.

External links

• Official website
• Enemy at the Gates at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Enemy at the Gates at Rotten Tomatoes
• Enemy at the Gates at Metacritic
• Enemy at the Gates at Box Office Mojo
• Enemy at the Gates Reviewed by David R. Stone, History Department, Kansas State University, published by H-War (June, 2002)
• Idiocy at The Gates: A Foreigner Will Not Notice, a Russian Will Not Forgive Reviewed by Valeri Potapov