Blood Diamond
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Short description
Blood Diamond is set during the civil war that tore Sierra Leone apart in the late 1990s. Danny Archer, a former mercenary from southern Africa, makes his living smuggling diamonds across the region. In prison he meets Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman whose village was attacked by rebels and who has been forced to work in the diamond fields. Solomon has hidden a rare pink stone of enormous value, and Archer sees in it a way out of the life he leads. Solomon, meanwhile, wants to find his son, who was taken by the rebels and pressed into service as a child soldier. The two men form an uneasy partnership, joined by Maddy Bowen, an American journalist who trades her help for access to the story behind the trade in conflict diamonds. Their search takes them into rebel-held territory, with others also pursuing the stone.
Edward Zwick directed the film, his seventh feature and the one following The Last Samurai. Charles Leavitt wrote the screenplay, and Zwick produced with Marshall Herskovitz and Gillian Gorfil. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Archer, Djimon Hounsou plays Solomon, and Jennifer Connelly plays Maddy. Around thirty cast members and roughly 230 crew are credited. The production, mounted by Warner Bros. Pictures with Virtual Studios, Spring Creek Pictures and Bedford Falls Productions, cost about 100 million dollars and returned roughly 172 million dollars worldwide, a modest result against its cost.
Audience response has been strong: on IMDb the film holds 8 out of 10 from about 623,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.6 out of 10 from more than 8,500 votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 214 reviews places professional assessments noticeably below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the end of the film, Djimon Hounsou's character delivers a speech at an international conference in Kimberley (a city in South Africa, the center of the Northern Cape province). In 2000, a conference was indeed held in Kimberley where the modern diamond origin certification system was adopted.
- The film's premiere sparked widespread criticism of the South African authorities, who were forced to defend themselves to the international community against accusations of crimes against humanity. Officials from the African country indirectly acknowledged instances of violations of citizens' rights, but emphasized that all of this was in the distant past, and the share of illicit diamonds on the world market does not exceed one percent. The main actors were also offered a personal visit to diamond mining enterprises to verify compliance with all international laws.
- Colonel Coetzee, played by Arnold Vosloo, was named after J.M. Coetzee, a South African writer and outspoken critic of apartheid, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.
- Jennifer Connelly injured her neck while filming the car chase scene.
- Russell Crowe was considered for the role of Danny Archer.
- At the 77th minute of the film, Danny (Leonardo DiCaprio) drinks palm wine from a bottle and then passes it to Maddie (Jennifer Connelly), but the bottle is already capped.
- At the end of the film, Jennifer Connelly's character talks on a cell phone with DiCaprio's character, and a tear rolls down her cheek. The tear was added to the shot using computer technology.
- Leonardo DiCaprio's hero, upon arriving in South Africa, passes by two women near the airport. The women were played by the actor's mother and grandmother.
- Preparing for the role, DiCaprio gained several kilograms of muscle mass, training with Rhodesian soldiers.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
