♪
Good evening. I'm Helen Mirren.
And you're watching "Documentary Now!", season 53.
In 1983, German filmmaker, Rainer Wolz,
set out into the punishing Ular Mountains of Russia
with an uncompromising vision.
But over the grueling months of filming,
truth and fiction blurred, as did man and nature.
Witness "Soldier of Illusion."
♪
In the eastern part of Russia,
between the Ular Mountains and the Volga River,
live the Dushkir people, an indigenous tribe
that populates most of the desolate terrain
between Russia and Kazakhstan.
In 1982, revered German filmmaker, Rainer Wolz,
came to this brutal part of the world
with a film crew and a single-minded vision.
♪
Two decades later, Rainer has returned to the Dushkir Valley
to retrace the arduous steps of his ambitious plans.
Rainer: The last time I stood on these ignorant stones,
I was a younger man, filled with Bavarian pride.
I had taken two jobs at once, with the vinegar of the pompous
declared I could shoot both projects at the same time,
on the same location.
Here.
One was a film chronicling the life of
the Dushkir people during their Tusian sheep breeding season.
[Sheep bleating]
The other was a CBS sitcom called "Bachelor Nanny",
the story of a single guy who,
after agreeing to take in his sister's twin newborns,
has to juggle babies and babes.
[Bird screeches]
[Choir singing]
♪
[Cheers and applause]
Hello!
♪
But when a camera is brought into nature,
like the tool given to the Jester Monkey,
the very state of nature is changed.
A wilderness with a camera in it is no longer a wilderness.
It's something else.
And when you add another camera to that,
you are adding a camera to a new thing,
which is a wilderness with already a camera in it.
Each lens distorts the previous distortion.
What you are left with at the end
is not a wilderness anymore,
but an illusion resembling a wilderness.
[Sheep bleating]
Narrator: Rainer has been living among the Dushkir
for several months, building trust among the natives
and collecting footage for his documentary.
Meanwhile, Alan Yaffa, head of comedy at CBS,
has arrived to supervise production
on Rainer's other project,
the sitcom pilot for "Bachelor Nanny."
Alan: A couple years ago, I inherited a slate of shows
that were so Hiroshima like
in terms of how upsetting they were that --
let me just say this.
I wouldn't screen that season's pilots
for Helen Keller.
On the off, off chance that her nurse or whatever,
on the off chance that her friend wrote with her finger
on Helen Keller's palm what was happening,
and Helen could follow the pilot,
I wouldn't even risk that.
So I needed new material, and I went looking for it.
And I got my hands on a hot spec called "Bachelor Nanny"
by this fresh new voice, Mark Pomerance.
He's 40, white, Jewish,
worked on eight other series, tight, curly hair.
So I wanted to bring in a director
who could take this material off the page and make it all happen.
Alan Yaffa at CBS, and Sharon Schuster
at Lorimar, who I love.
Everyone loves Sharon.
They came to me with this piece, "Bachelor Nanny",
after seeing a three-hour film of mine,
"The Trials of Master Pfreim."
♪
And I said, "I can do the pilot but I must shoot it here,
where the Volga River meets the Ular Mountains,
where Russia meets Asia and the ancient past
meets the present misery."
And for my fee, I ask nothing.
So Yaffa said, "Okay, cool."
[Sheep bleating]
Narrator: One of the first challenges the production faced
was finding a space for a makeshift sound stage
in a region devoid of large interior buildings.
Rainer: In order to construct the proper television studio,
we considered using this abandoned Soviet mine in Torkik.
At one time the sixth largest source of boron in Eurasia.
[Speaking indistinctly]
The acoustics are very good.
La! La! La! Oh! Oh! Oh!
In the silence, we can hear the anguish
of the men mining boron decades ago.
And maybe, we can hear our own heartbeats.
We could build a Jacuzzi set here.
Oh, yeah, yeah --
The tunnel of the mine was deep and treacherous
but the cast, crew, and studio audience
would have to be secured through one rope line.
They ascend this wall 24 meters,
then on the ridge, and then down 30 meters,
and that's quite perilous.
Oh, ya.
We explained to a seismologist
that we planned on having four sets of bleachers
for live studio audience of 100 persons.
[Speaking indistinctly]
Ah, we will have a big laugh,
like "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Look at the Bachelor Nanny."
And little laughs like, "Ya ya, that's a funny one."
And if someone walks in who likes to party...
-Oh yeah. -...it will be
a, "Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop!"
[Speaking native language]
Narrator: With the boron mine no longer viable as a sound stage,
Rainer would now have to build the entire sitcom set outdoors,
in the punishing landscape of the Dushkir wilderness.
[Choir singing]
♪
[Shouting in native language]
And pull! Pull! Pull!
Pull!
Not bad. Retrieving the line, retrieving the line.
[Shouting indistinctly]
[Rope straining]
Watch the balls! Watch the balls!
My documentary on the Dushkir
and pre-production on "Bachelor Nanny"
worked symbiotically once local Dushkir craftsmen
stopped making their traditional winter snowshoes
and instead made all of the props
for "Bachelor Nanny."
[Speaking native language]
[Chuckles]
[Sheep bleating]
♪
This will be the bar area. Bachelor pad needs a bar.
♪
Okay.
Back, get more please.
[Motor starts]
♪
Good! Perfect!
♪
[Sheep bleating]
Narrator: With set construction well underway,
Rainer and Yaffa set about casting the pilot.
So, I'm in -- [Coughs] Pardon me.
I'm in bed one night, and I'm flipping around,
and I see this comedian on Johnny Carson.
Gary Jacks.
We have somebody new for you to meet this evening.
-You know, just the other night, I was in bed with my girlfriend,
and she said "Honey, do you ever think about other women
when we're making whoopy?"
[Laughter]
And I said, "What?"
And I took out my Walkman headphones,
because I'm a gentleman, right?
[Applause]
He was funny.
We had found our bachelor.
Narrator: Comedian Gary Jacks arrived in the Ulars
after a 35-hour journey.
This is a good place to eat, right?
By the water. Kind of hungry.
As the series lead and number one on the call sheet,
Gary would have to win the respect of the Dushkir
by participating in an ancient tradition
known as the Wolf Game.
[Speaking native language]
[Growls]
[Chuckles] This is so weird!
Okay, what do I do? What do I do?
He's a wolf. You must kill him.
He's a wolf, and I just kill him
with this plant thing, right?
Okay. You are a wolf, and you must die!
[Groans]
[All shouting]
The wolf was your brother! You killed your brother!
You told me to kill him!
You must beg the wolf for forgiveness. Now! Now!
I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.
I didn't even know I had a brother --
The wolf spirit accepted Gary's apology.
To celebrate, we shared a meal of oofa,
and Gary Jacks signed a few head shots.
He was now a part of the tribe.
Gary: This is kind of like the holy grail
if you're a comedian.
If this gets picked up, which, you know, I think it will,
this is going to be a long road but ultimately a good one.
I'm excited.
When it came to Bachelor Brian's
best friend, Gordy, we and the network agreed,
former child star Kevin Butterman,
better known as Little Randy Sullivan from
ABC's "The Sullivan Kids", of course.
Now, Kevin's career had evaporated with adulthood,
and I knew that he would bring to Gordy,
the desperate longing of a broken man.
Shooting on location.
I've never shot on location before.
Kevin: I've got to tell you, I've never been more excited
to do a pilot than I am this one, with Rainer Wolz.
A dream catcher necklace.
About seven years ago,
I wondered into what I thought was a porno theater,
and it turned out to be an art house cinema.
And I wanted to go there to see something naughty.
I did, you know, I was in a place in my life where...
You know, whatever.
A double feature came on,
"The Bavarian Widow Cole"
and "The Cruel Pubescence of Anst Dangler",
both by Rainer Wolz,
and, oh, God I just...
I felt like a kid again.
Just thinking, "Who made this?"
I got to work with this guy.
Narrator: Rainer had found his two leads,
but casting the series' love interest
was proving to be complicated.
April, well, she is a no nonsense
yet attractive woman with plenty of comebacks.
She's Shelley Long pretty
but with a tougher attitude basically.
Someone who has seen it all,
but also knows her way around the bedroom.
Narrator: To calm rising tensions between the Dushkir
and the "Bachelor Nanny" production, Rainer and CBS
give the role of April to the chief's daughter,
a strange soul called Masho.
Rainer: Masho? Masho?
Look into the camera.
No, don't look at me. Look at the camera. Perfect.
The whole ecosystem of the "Bachelor Nanny"
was based on the adorable twin babies
that the bachelor has to raise.
The youngest set of multiples within 500 miles
were Nanct and Danct, two mute Dushkir boys.
They would play our baby girls.
Nanct and Danct are perfect. I'm happy.
Why do you think I need four twins?
Yeah.
Yeah, I know, good, you're right.
Okay, find another set of twins.
So we would cast the spinster sisters Brunsk,
whom God has been unkind to, as our backup babies in case
Nanct and Danct get colicky and screamy on tape night.
Yeah.
It's good, it's good.
My assistant director was known only as Half-Tone.
He had lived in a monastery in Bavaria from the age of 10,
after having ecstatic visions of a voluptuous Virgin Mary.
In 30 years of friendship,
Half-Tone has never slept in my presence,
nor said anything to me
to suggest he has experienced sleep.
We were filming a hair and makeup test one day
when nature reared her monstrous head.
Two bears, Kamchatka brown bears,
had entered out base camp.
We could tell from the tight ribs against their fur
that they were hungry and enraged.
[Bear breathing heavily]
[Sighs]
[Bear snarling, people scream]
Our Dushkir crew, nurtured from birth
by the brutality of the Ular plains, fled to higher ground.
[Bear snarling]
Reinhart, my camera operator,
knowing the importance of the camera test
to the decision makers in Burbank,
moved to protect the camera.
The ferocious creature's claws buried themselves
in Reinhart's flesh, puncturing his lung.
Our boom operator, Henri, froze.
It was just him and the bear. Surely he would be next.
But then, Half-Tone, in a holy rage
and armed with a solingen Bowie hunting knife,
attacked the male bear and his girlfriend.
[Bear growling]
[Knife plunging]
[Screaming]
After the violence that Half-Tone committed that day,
I would only ever show this footage to CBS head of comedy,
Alan Yaffa.
The shirt is good, right? You like the shirt?
The makeup test would prove successful.
Is that a bear? Yeah.
However, the orgy of violence
that followed it would be another story.
Jesus Christ.
Half-Tone's attack was so swift and brutal...
What happened?...that the Kamchatka bear
and his girlfriend survived 68 stab wounds
before escaping to the safety of death.
Ah!
No one can see this.
I agree.
I will destroy the footage.
But it will continue to haunt us forever.
Are they going to try something different
with Gary Jacks' hair?
Yes, of course.
Okay.
[Shouting in native language]
[Groans]
Rainer: His encounter with the bears
had rocked Half-Tone to his very marrow.
[Speaking native language]
Rainer: From that day forward,
he only wore the prescribed cowl of his former monastery.
Well, 'cause then it's like this is my friend's place.
Narrator: The ill-fated bear attack eats into
valuable prep time, reducing Rainer's
two-week rehearsal period down to only three days.
He and the actors now focus on scene work
and building chemistry.
Rainer: Action.
Gordy, I'm telling you, this landlady --
"lady" is in quotes --
this woman is the reason earplugs were invented.
Enter Masho, with a plunger.
Line, Masho.
-[Speaking native language] -So, you need a plunger.
Did your after shave melt the pipes?
Friend of my friend line.
My friend, she is a 10.
How are you not thanking God
this babe lives in your basement?
Off stage we here babies crying, wah, wah.
Maybe we should block her?
Yes! She cannot see the babies.
-[Speaking native language] -Were those babies?
Your lease says no babies.
No. That's a song from my favorite album, "The Crybabies."
Giggle, giggle from the audience.
Thanks for the plunger. I'll see you soon.
And that -- this door's going to open -- right, okay.
-We'll fix it on today. -Okay. Yeah.
Masho, out. Babies, stop crying.
Whew! That was a close call. She almost saw the twins.
Gordy reenters with the twins wrapped in baby swaddles.
They each have pacifiers.
Boy, these pacifiers really work.
I should get one for my ex-wife.
Gigantic laugh!
And...that's the blow!
And with that, we fade to commercial.
Okay! Okay!
-Okay. -I love it.
-It's perfect. -It's perfect.
-The pace is awesome.
Narrator: Just as the cast is finding its groove,
the production receives a surprise visit.
-Rainer: Who is here? -[Speaking native language]
Gary Jackson.Who's Gary Jackson?
[Speaking native language]
Oh, Gary Jacks. That's Gary Jacks. Yes.
Gary Jacks.This is Gary Jacks.
-Yeah. -How's it going, guys?
Narrator: Under Andropov, the Soviet Union
had outlawed indigenous activities and games.
Footage of Gary Jacks playing the Wolf Game
had fallen into the hands of the KGB.
They're saying they will shut down filming
and expel all of us.
Or they can take Gary Jacks.
If we promise not to make an international incident
out of it, they...
they will let us continue.
[Sheep bleating]
Uh, can I have a word with you?
Yeah. Yeah.
In here? Sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's fine.
They're saying that...
[Continues inaudibly]
[Speaking foreign language]
Hey, hang on. Rainier, what's going on?
Rainer: Gary Jacks, a frequent guest of Merv Griffin
and "The Tonight Show",
was whisked away to a fate unknown.
With less than a week to go before tape night,
we seemed destined to be another carcass on the shores of Hades.
Then, with a trepidation of the inevitable,
I realized I had the man in mind
who would take his place.
Man: Hey! Rainer!
[Speaking native language]
I am the sun!
Rainer: In just a short time with the Tusian mountain sheep,
it was deeply impressed upon me how enormously stupid
these foul creatures actually are.
I was equally amazed with the majestic heights
of the Dushkir people's patience
in abiding by their wooly companions,
for I would have abandoned the little morons long ago.