История создания фильма «Паттон»: факты и закулисье.

1970 film by Franklin J. Schaffner

Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger declined the role of Patton. Steiger later said it was his greatest mistake. Charlton Heston was considered for the role of Omar N. Bradley before Karl Malden was cast. After her death in 1953, producer Frank McCarthy began the project and, the day after Beatrice was buried, the producers contacted the family for help in making the film, requesting access to Patton's diaries, as well as input from family members but the family declined to help. McCarthy also sought co operation from The Pentagon; they also initially refused, as Patton's son, George Patton IV, was in the Army, and Patton's second daughter, Ruth, was married to an officer. By 1959, McCarthy had convinced the Army to co operate. Edmund H. North was later brought in to help work on the script. As the film was made without Patton's diaries, it largely relied upon observations by Bradley and other military contemporaries when they attempted to reconstruct Patton's thoughts and motives. In a review of the film, Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall, who knew both Patton and Bradley, stated, "The Bradley name gets heavy billing on a picture of [a] comrade that, while not caricature, is the likeness of a victorious, glory seeking buffoon Patton in the flesh was an enigma. He so stays in the film Napoleon once said that the art of the general is not strategy but knowing how to mold human nature Maybe that is all producer Frank McCarthy and Gen. Bradley, his chief advisor, are trying to say." One scene, which depicts Patton driving up to an ancient city that is implied to be Carthage, was shot in the ancient Roman Mauretanian city of Volubilis, Morocco. The early scene, where Patton and Muhammed V are reviewing Moroccan troops including the Goumiers, was shot at the Royal Palace in Rabat. One unannounced battle scene was shot the night before, which raised fears in the Royal Palace neighborhood of a coup d'état. One paratrooper was electrocuted in power lines, but none of this battle footage appears in the film. The scene at the dedication of the welcome centre in Knutsford, Cheshire, England, was filmed at the actual site. The scenes set in Tunisia and Sicily were shot in Almeria in the south of Spain; Pamplona in the north was used for France and Germany; while the winter scenes in Belgium, including for the Battle of the Bulge sequence, were shot near Segovia (to which the production crew rushed when they were informed that snow had fallen).

The film opens with Scott's rendering of Patton's speech to the Third Army, set against a huge American flag. Coppola and North had to tone down Patton's actual words and statements in the scene, as well as throughout the rest of the film, to avoid an R rating; in the opening monologue, the word fornicating replaced fucking when he was criticizing The Saturday Evening Post. Also, Scott's gravelly and scratchy voice is the opposite of Patton's high pitched, nasal and somewhat squeaky voice, a point noted by historian S. L. A. Marshall. All the medals and decorations shown on Patton's uniform in the monologue are replicas of those actually awarded to Patton. However, the general never wore all of them in public and was in any case not a four star general at the time he made the famous speeches on which the opening is based. He wore them all on only one occasion, in his backyard in Virginia at the request of his wife, who wanted a picture of him with all his medals. The producers used a copy of this photo to help recreate this "look" for the opening scene.

The critically acclaimed score for Patton was composed and conducted by the prolific composer Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith used a number of innovative methods to tie the music to the film, such as having an echoplex loop recorded sounds of "call to war" triplets played on the trumpet to musically represent General Patton's belief in reincarnation. The main theme also consisted of a symphonic march accompanied by a pipe organ to represent the militaristic yet deeply religious nature of the protagonist. The music to Patton subsequently earned Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score and was one of the American Film Institute's 250 nominees for the top twenty five American film scores. The original soundtrack has been released three times on disc and once on LP: through Twentieth Century Fox Records in 1970, Tsunami Records in 1992, Film Score Monthly in 1999, and a two disc extended version through Intrada Records in 2010.

The film had its premiere on Wednesday, February 4, 1970, at the Criterion Theatre in New York before its roadshow release starting the following day.

Patton was first telecast by ABC as a three hours plus color film special on Sunday, November 19, 1972, only two years after its theatrical release.

In 1977, Patton was among the first 50 VHS and Betamax releases from Magnetic Video. The film would be released on Laserdisc in 1981, also by Magnetic Video. A widescreen version was released in 1989, which includes four newsreels about the real Patton. A THX certified Laserdisc would be released on July 9, 1997, trading the newsreels for many new features. A THX certified widescreen VHS was also released in 1998 by the same distributor, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Patton was first released on DVD in 1999, featuring an audio commentary by Charles M. Province, the founder of The George S. Patton Jr. Historical Society, and again in 2006, with a commentary by screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola and extra bonus features. The film made its Region A (locked) Blu ray debut in 2008 to much criticism, for its excessive use of digital noise reduction on the picture quality. In 2012, a remaster was released with much improved picture quality. In June 2013, Fox UK released the film on Region B Blu ray but reverted to the 2008 transfer.

The film grossed an estimated $51,000 in its first week. According to Fox records the film required $22,525,000 in theatrical rentals to break even and by 11 December 1970 had made $27,650,000 so made a profit to the studio. Eventually, it returned worldwide rentals of $45 million, including $28.1 million from the United States and Canada from a gross of $61.8 million.

Roger Ebert said of George C. Scott, "It is one of those sublime performances in which the personalities of the actor and the character are fulfilled in one another." Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that George C. Scott "has created an acting tour de force," but found it "repetitive – the second half doesn't tell us anything more than the first." Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "The most refreshing thing about 'Patton' is that here—I think for the first time—the subject matter and the style of the epic war movie are perfectly matched Although the cast is large, the only performance of note is that of Scott, who is continuously entertaining and, occasionally, very appealing." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "'Patton' has, like Lawrence of Arabia, done the near impossible by creating a finely detailed portrait despite all the tuggings toward simplification which are inevitable in the big budget, long, loud roadshow production desperate to attract mass audiences. As Patton, George Scott gives one of the great and unforgettable screen characterizations." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film "eventually shares the dramatic limitations, as well as the visual triumphs, of Lawrence of Arabia: yet another fascinating but inconclusive portrait of a mercurial military leader. The camera focus is sharp, but the dramatic focus is blurred. We never quite understand Patton in historical context, in relation to the other generals of the period, and to the entire Allied war effort." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that "technically the movie is awesomely impressive," but went on to state that "I'm sure it will be said that the picture is 'true' to Patton and to history, but I think it strings us along and holds out on us. If we don't just want to have our prejudices greased, we'll find it confusing and unsatisfying, because we aren't given enough information to evaluate Patton's actions." John Gillett of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "While communicating a relish for the man with all his warts, [Schaffner] also pinpoints the monstrous prejudices which lay beneath the surface. And, of course, he chose the right actor. Karl Malden's Bradley is neatly observed and the German players are good, but Scott's performance rightly dwarfs all the rest." Online film critic James Berardinelli has called Patton his favorite film of all time and "to this day one of Hollywood's most compelling biographical war pictures." According to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book The Final Days, it was also Richard Nixon's favorite film. Nixon first viewed Patton with his family at a private screening in the White House Family Theater on April 5, 1970. Nixon became obsessed with the film, repeatedly watching it with Henry Kissinger over the next month. He screened it several times at the White House and during a cruise on the presidential yacht USS Sequoia in the Potomac River. Kissinger sarcastically wrote of Nixon's insistence that he see the film on the cruise: "It was the second time he had so honored me. Inspiring as the film no doubt was, I managed to escape for an hour in the middle of it to prepare for the next day’s NSC meeting." Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 8.4/10. Rotten Tomatoes summarizes the critical consensus as, "George C. Scott's sympathetic, unflinching portrayal of the titular general in this sprawling epic is as definitive as any performance in the history of American biopics."

A made for television sequel, The Last Days of Patton, was produced in 1986. Scott reprised his title role. The film was based on Patton's final weeks after being mortally injured in a car accident, with flashbacks of Patton's life.