We wanted to start with a reference to the meaning of the scenography in the theater historically, until the birth of cinema changed everything with the beginning of the 20th century. The Seventh Art, with its recordings, dispensed with immediacy and the direct relationship with the viewer, breaking some rules of scenography, which, on the other hand, was already flexible enough in the hands of the theater after an evolution of more than 2000 years. As Juan Cervera says:“neither does the stage have to be of the conventional type […] nor does it have to be a room with its stalls and its boxes. A work can be staged in the street, in a square, in a nightclub, in a restaurant, in a neighborhood patio, in a bullring, or in the forest under the trees” (2). A historical recreation does not stop being a representation or performance , directed to the public or not, but we are more interested in the latter, as in the photo sessions of the Fighting Basques Project .
We already talked in the previous article dedicated to the Trieste Division that the priority was to obtain the necessary environment to work with peace of mind, since our goal is to reproduce the image as realistically as possible that results from capturing that moment that we will later use in our memory work to make visible a generation for which we barely have materials. That is why, In the composition of these images, in the setting, we prioritize rigor and avoid any ideological burden, corresponding to our research team, which is based mainly on family history, the elaboration of the historical account. It is precisely here, in the naturalism of the scenic proposal –although without going to extremes, since it seems to us little credible to recreate the war itself:the part referring to the combat–, where the paths of the theater (which does not need it, since it can entering the realm of fantasy) and that of historical recreation are definitively separated. If we start from the basis that making a story with rigor requires a very detailed and respectful investigation of the historical truth, this should be transferred to the scenery, although many times it lacks, as in our case, part of the necessary materials. –or, in other words, not all the ones that would be desired are available–, which is not an obstacle to not being able to obtain good results. That is why, as a previous step, it is necessary to prepare a script where all the "pieces" fit together.
In a creative and living process , which includes a sharing of all those who are part of the team, the costume work falls on the reenactors, who make up their character for the scenery without anachronisms in terms of clothing, hair, physical appearance and immersion, providing a plus, but, being an open and participatory project that lives on the generosity of friends, there have been times when people who are not reenactors have been involved, who can also collaborate in this and other facets:sets, props, lighting, etc. photography etc. Despite our modesty, we always start from the basis of working as faithfully as possible to the facts dealt with –although, as Jorge Gorostiza says, the scenery does not generally copy reality, but rather creates a new space (4)–, and here our main inspiration is mainly the cinema, and very prominently John Ford. The one who has been considered the true narrator of the history of the United States was always accompanied by great directors of photography, but above all he based his films on a documentary work that was hardly unparalleled in Hollywood at the end of the 40s of the past. century, much more so now that the times when he was reviled with purely presentist criteria seem distant, his influence on a new generation of directors being unanimously recognized:
In the Fighting Basques Rarely has the scenography required erecting a set outdoors, since, normally, large props are dispensed with due to the difficulty of storing them and moving them with our own means, in addition to the economic issue, but in Arija there was the possibility of make them physically match the stage. A large open space – as Ford himself would have wished – on the shore of a reservoir that has an artificial beach and with the necessary materials available 1 km away created the perfect environment, so that December 15, 2018 would become , after Trieste, in the fourth stage of a year that had been very happy, including the publication of our book Basque combatants in the Second World War . This was possible thanks to the collaboration of the Enigma Association and the city council of the town of Burgos, which provided us with all kinds of facilities to compose the set, but the collaboration of one of the best historical recreation groups on the state scene was also essential, the 6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry “Los Durhams”, and good friends of this house such as Igor Jubindo, the brothers Joseba and Lander Zatón, Marcos Ríos and Javier Petuya, as well as the re-enactors of Sancho de Beurko.
With this potential, and given the great opportunity to have elaborate props such as “Czech hedgehogs”, “dragon teeth”, “Rommel studs” and even a tower from Panzer IV, it was decided to make three photo sessions based on the same set design:the mining of a beach by the Kriegsmarine coastal artillery. , the landing of the Kieffer Command on D-Day and the arrival of the Durhams in Normandy. Following the scenic proposal of a server, we composed the set together and later, while people got equipped for work, we planned with our photographer and friend José Pablo Pérez Gutiérrez (Alma &You) how the images would be, although the final result it would depend, as always, on his own worldview. The relationship that the artist establishes with the scenario that is proposed to him through the camera. The vast majority of the props used to set the beach belonged to the "Enigma" Association, which had created them in a very realistic and dramatic way.
The mining of the Atlantic coast
The scenery dedicated to the Marine Artillerie Abteilung 618 (MAA 618), one of the support groups of the Fighting Basques , already meant the acquisition by Sancho de Beurko of a dozen 1:1 scale models of the Tellermine 35, a model with which, together with the Tellermine 42, the beaches of the so-called Atlantik Wall were massively mined or Atlantic Wall . It was a coastal line that began on the Franco-Spanish border and reached Norway in a huge fortification effort by Nazi Germany to prevent the invasion of the Allies by sea. The obstacles that the Germans placed on the beaches in a more or less standardized way were based, from the low tide line, on the so-called "Rommel asparagus", posts with a mine on top to stop the landing craft, followed by of the "Czech hedgehogs", the result of crossing three metal beams at an angle in order to stop both cars and boats. There could also be “Belgian gates”, heavy metal structures over 2 meters high with the same anti-boat function, and above, at high tide, more “studs”, “hedgehogs” and log ramps on tripods. These obstacles could be completed with the so-called "dragon's teeth", pyramidal concrete structures designed to slow down armored vehicles and vehicles in general. Among all of them there were many mines buried in the sand and barbed wire. Beyond the tidal zone there could be other defensive elements such as flanking bunkers with anti-tank guns, trenches, machine gun nests, etc. All of them, except for the "Belgian doors", were provided as props for the set and to give atmosphere they got dirty and their supports were covered with sand.
Without ruling out the general shot to take some photographs that have as background the enormous mass of water of the Ebro reservoir, it was decided to delimit the limits of the beach as much as possible for the scenery so as not to fall into anachronisms, since the decoration only covered a small part – and despite this, it was necessary to modify the landscape digitally in post-production–, superimposing the different defensive elements while the coastal artillerymen moved the mines from one side to the other under the watchful eye of a group of officers and non-commissioned officers. For this, we use bibliography, photographs and various materials gathered during a documentation work of more than three years on the German troops at the Pointe de Grave, a pocket of resistance that closed, together with that of Royan, the exit of the port Bordeaux at the end of the war. MAA 618, which was fought by the Gernika battalion on April 19, 1945, he was under the command of Lieutenant Commander Schillinger and had his fire direction post at the Les Arros battery, being in charge of a total of five coastal batteries. It is possible that this scene about the mining of the beaches, a very common task among the German garrisons, was the first time that it was performed in historical reenactment. After the Second World War, and in contravention of the Geneva Convention, thousands of prisoners were forced to carry out demining tasks, as a result of which many lost their lives, a circumstance that is perfectly illustrated by the Danish film Land of mine .(5)
Kieffer Command and the Durhams
With the same decoration, two other photo sessions were made, one of them was dedicated to the so-called Kieffer Command , which we had previously investigated to identify the Basques who took part in this mythical unit, which for the Free French meant participating with the vanguard troops on D-Day. It was Ensign Guy Joseph (Villardi) de Montlaur (Biarritz, 1918), boatswains Joseph Julien Hourcourigaray (Eskiula, 1920) and Laurent Pierre Casalonga (Donostia, 1922) and sailor René Miremont (Anglet, 1919), although the latter did not participate in the Normandy landings. Trained by the British at Eastney Royal Marines, they were incorporated into their special forces as 1st Commando Marine Rifle Company (1st CFMC) at the end of 1942. There is little that has not already been told about the men de Kieffer, an absolutely emblematic group for the French – who keep their tradition alive within their armed forces – to whom we pay tribute during the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. On June 6, 1944 they landed on Sword Beach, at Hermanville-sur-Mer, and then took Ouistreham in cooperation with the British, suffering 10 dead and 30 wounded. For this work we used the same uniform as the British commandos, adding the nationality badge and the beret insignia, in addition to a complete kit that included a Vickers K GO model with a bipod that had already been used in the Market scenery. Garden.
We also had the pleasure of sharing decorations with our friends of the 6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry “The Durhams”. The men of the 6th DLI landed on Gold Beach on D-Day in a second wave without opposition, immediately penetrating inland, where they encountered some resistance near Villers-le-Sec. Organized as a mobile column, they advanced until they made contact with larger German forces and on June 9 they surprised elements of the Panzer Lehr. The scene that was raised in historical re-enactment included the disembarkation and capture of prisoners by the coastal artillery, as can be seen in the wonderful images by José Pablo Pérez that accompany this text. I did not want to end these lines without personally thanking “Los Durhams” Mikel Mendiguchía, Gonzalo Del Fresno, Gonzalo Maa and Santiago De la Peña, the members of our HR group Raúl Lozano, Asier Aurrekoetxea, Eneko Tabernilla, Eder Artal and Egoitz Ereño and all those I have already mentioned in this article. Without them it would not have been possible to convert, even for a few hours, a piece of northern Burgos into one of the Atlantic Wall beaches.
Gallery
Photographs of the scenery of a beach on the Atlantic Wall for the Fighting Basques Project, © José Pablo Pérez Gutiérrez, Alma &You.
Notes
- (1) Javier Navarro de Zuvillaga:“Between two lights:the evolution of scenography” in Illustration and Romanticism Notebooks #19 (2013). Cadiz University. Pp. 256-257.
- (2) Juan Cervera Borrás:“Theatrical theory and technique”.
- (3) Joseph McBride. (2004). On the trail of John Ford. Madrid:T&B Publishers. P.493.
- (4) Quoted in Félix Murcia. (2000). Scenography in the Cinema. The Art of Appearance. Madrid:Author Foundation. Murcia insists on this creative process when he states that "in order to achieve any type of scenario, both natural and artificial, of those that appear in a film, its expressive value must always be considered as a priority, analyzing for this everything that is necessary to see , plus what should be avoided, since nothing can be casual or uncontrolled.”
- (5) Gregorio Belinchón. (03/10/2017). “The mines that the Nazis put and removed.”
- (6) Michel Bertrand:“Les Forces Navales Françaises Libres” in Gazette des armes numéro hors-série #10 (1980). Paris:Argout Editions. Pp61-62. See also http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/pdf/dossier_lelien_kieffer.pdf.