The shoot

Battle of the Crater

The most ambitious and most expensive element of the five month shoot was to be the re-enactment of the horrific 1864 Battle of the Crater at Petersburg during the American Civil War, the catalyst for finally disillusioning the story's protagonist with the horror, brutality and futility of war.

To acquire a sense of place, in July 2001 Minghella took his production designer, Dante Ferretti, on a recce of the 19th century battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia. He also consulted three military and historical advisers (Brian Pohanka, John D. Bert, Michael Krancs) to ensure the scene would be recreated as authentically as possible. The Romanian soldiers who would play both Confederates and Federals would be using the comparatively heavier and longer weaponry of the 1860s and follow the original 'Light Infantry Tactics' manuals of the Civil War era.

On this hill for one month South Carolina troops guarded the entrance to Petersburg and here on July 30 1864, suffered death from a mine exploded by the Federals. Here the surviving Carolinians under the command of Stephen Elliott by their valour turned a dreadful disaster into a glorious victory. Erected by the South Carolina Division, United Committee of the Confederacy, 1923.

From close inspection of the famous 510-foot long secretly mined tunnel that took 400 Federals a month to dig beneath the Confederate front line, Ferretti initially constructed a 15-foot long scale model, complete with toy soldiers. Ferretti then painstakingly recreated the historic crater on farmland near Bucharest, exactly to scale: 170 feet long, 30-50 feet deep and 60-80 feet wide. A smaller crater was also constructed for close-up shots. 4000 litres of petrol, 100kg of high explosive and pyrotechnics from the special effects department effectively served to create a terrifying fireball when the mine exploded.

Director of Photography, John Seale, found the historic conflict had been helpfully documented by both artists and early photographers. Observing the various pictorial representations of the pall of burnt gunpowder that hung over the crater following the massive explosion, he made effective use of heavy tobacco filters. Seale admits, 'I went quite berserk with tobacco grads to give a Burnt Sienna feel that the air was burnt. Partly, that came out of old paintings which did show a lot of smoke, because all of their weaponry was gunpowder.'

The entire sequence was shot in just three weeks using four cameras, the explosion being captured in one take. Minghella has reflected that his inexperience in directing such action sequences was his greatest advantage for avoiding any hackneyed approach and enabling him to focus on making the whole entirely more convincingly human.

The set

With the opening battle sequence in the can, production moved from Bucharest to Poiana Brasov in the Transylvanian Alps for the remainder of the shoot. Amid high Romanian hills, Dante Ferretti recreated an entire 19th century settlement modelled authentically on towns he had researched in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Among the 32 traditionally-built rough-hewn log buildings constructed for the 'Cold Mountain' set were the imposing Monroe homestead (Black Cove Farm), a general store, stables, mill, bank, laundry and chapel (complete with its own cemetery).

Hot and cold mountain

Ironically, the Romanian weather conspired to frustrate the entire production. The summer heat exceeded 110 degrees F and the winter cold dived below minus 25 degrees F. Nicole Kidman complained of 'times when it was so cold my lips would freeze up and you'd have one take to try and get it, and they'd bring huge blow heaters out and you'd put your ski jacket on!' Though there was plenty of unwanted rain and fog, the essential snowfalls failed to materialise, negating one of the principal reasons why they chose to film in Romania.
Winter temperatures dropped below 25 degrees during filming in Romania. Cloud cover constantly frustrated the desire that the set would look sunny and upbeat and there was interminable waiting around to squeeze a scene in when the sun would come out. Minghella reflects, 'There was not one day where the weather and the schedule coincided and, because we had no cover, the whole act of shooting was a way of surrender to the weather'.

'Shooting exteriors is always a challenge,' notes John Seale. 'Weather has got a hold of you; you haven't got a hold of it. Because the film spans three years we tried to schedule into the seasons, which is a dangerous game.'