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FILMS The Ninth Wave
«The ninth generation» is how the Russian top film historian Naum Kleiman defined the new wave of directors in Russian cinema. This overview by the cinema critic Nina Tsyrkun is devoted to Russian film debuts of 2005. Why are the debuts defining the face of Russian cinematography today, and, with a rather bitter irony, why does today’ s Russian cinematograhy have no face of its own? Why do the expectations of a «new wave» in Russian cinema, with an enormous number of debuts, remain only expectations? Lost in translation: the cinematographic school lost during the years of expanding capitalism, and the attempts to create a new language of cinema. Why are diretors unable to talk in the language of their time? Is it because the times have no language? Or because they can’ t hear it yet?
DEBUT: director-producer relationship. Mutual compromises or an uncompromising brinkmanship? Three round table discussions held by Seance magazine
«The Director’ s Version»
Round table with «yesterday«s’ debuts: «non-conformist» llya Khrzhanovsky, author of the infamous film »4» based on Vladimir Sorokin’ s screenplay; «realist» Alexander Veledinsky, screenwriter for one of Russia’ s most popular television serials, Brigada, author of the film Russkoe [Russian] based on Eduard Limonov’ s prose; «pragmatist» Alexander Kott, who made the successful debut Ehalidva shofera [Two Drivers Went], and is currently filming a serial Geroi nashego vremeni [A Hero of Our Time] on a contract with an upcoming Russian «major», the Central Partnership studio. Film critic Dmitry Savelyev leads the discussion.
«The Producer’ s Version»
Round table with participation of the «holy monster» of the heroic period in the establishment of the today’ s Russian film industry, Sergei Selyanov, creator of STB Studios, producer of films by Alexei Balabanov, Sergei Bodrov Jr, Evgeny Yufit and others; the enfant terrible of the Russian producers’ art, Sergei Chilyants, with wide-ranging interests from Piotr Buslbv’ s gangster saga Boomer, the box-office champion of 2004, to Kira Muratova’ s Nastroishchik [The Piano Tuner]; box-office hunter, businessman and cynic Sergei Gribkov, producer of the blockbuster Lichny nomer [A Private Number] and the teenage comedy Dazhe ne dumai [Don’ t Even Think About It]. Discussion led by film critic Dmitry Savelyev.
«The Critic’ s Version»
Views of the members of the editorial board of Seance magazine. The topic under discussion, as is often the case with art and film critics alike, is somewhat vague. They go from the problems of a lack of editorial opinion to the problem of a lack of training in the film profession, from the inadmissible dictates of producers to the excessive freedom of debuts, from the problem of the ratio of Hollywood blockbusters to Russian films in Russian cinemas to film budget deficits, or, on the contrary, to unjustifiably excessive budgets. Most of all, however, they are concerned with the deficit of pure artistry in the panorama of Russian debuts presented in 2005.
MUSEUM OF CINEMA
In December 2005, the Russian Museum of Cinema leaves its current building in the centre of Moscow, and is virtually under threat of closure. The Museum’ s archives are being transferred to the Mosfilm Studios — an organization with a strict access regime. The educational, film club and exhibition activities of the principal Russian film library have been transferred to various temporary sites for an indefinite period. Film showings at the Museum, that had nurtured the current young generation of cinematographers and cinephiles, are becoming a thing of the past. For Russian film professionals and buffs alike, the Museum of Cinema on Krasnaya Presnya played much the same role as the French Film Library, with Henri Langlois in charge, did for the French nouvelle vague directors in their time. Seance devotes a special section to viewers and staff at the Museum of Cinema. The section includes a history of the Museum of Cinema, with a detailed description of its collection, exhibition and film club activities; and interview with the world-acclaimed Russian animator Yuri Norshtein (Ezhik v tumane [Hedgehog in the Mist], Skazka skazok [The Tale of Tales]), who stood at the start of the creation of a Russian film library; an interview with the museum’ s director, film historian Naum Kleiman; and an interview addressing the problem with the film critic and cinematologist, Maya Turovskaya. «Pass the Hat Round, Gentlemen» is a manifesto article in defence of the Russian film library, written by the cinematologists Piotr Bagrov and Evgeny Margolit. Throughout this whole section are opinions written especially for Seance by well-known Russian directors, writers and public figures.
ANNIVERSARY Hans-Christian Andersen
«The Golden Balls of Justice»
An essay by Samuil Lurie, one of Russia’ s best essayists, renowned for his ominous paradoxes and sharp style, written in the genre of a portrait not in his Sunday best. Payment for a fairy tale is the flip side to the myth about the great story-teller.
«He Took Revenge on Life in His Tales»
An interview with the principal Russian comedy-writer and «tale-teller», Eldar Ryazanov, currently making a biographical picture about Andersen.
«My Andersen»
How to write a screenplay about someone about whose life almost nothing is known? A Workshop from one of the best Russian screenwriters, Irakly Kvirikadze (Lunnyipapa [Moon Daddy], Tysiacha I odin retsept vlyublennogo kulinara [A Thousand and One Recipes from an Enamoured Cook], 27 ykradennykh potseluev [27 Stolen Kisses]). Fragments from the screenplay for a biopic about Andersen interspersed with stories from the screenwriter’ s life, written by himself.
«The Swine-Girl and the Shepherd. Screen Versions of Andersen in Russian cinema»
In terms of the number of film versions of his work in Soviet and Russian cinema, Andersen holds a worthy fourth place, after Chekhov, Gorky and Ostrovsky And
almost all the versions do not match up to their source Cinema critic Piotr Bagrov attempts to track the Odyssey of Andersen’ s tales through Soviet cinema. This section uses classic illustrations to Andersen’ s fair tales from the mid 19th century to the current time.
RETRO-AVANTGARDE «Voodushevlenie» [Inspiration]: an unfilmed script by Andrei Platonov
This article is devoted to the screenplay by Andrei Platonov, Voodushevlenie, written in 1936. It was Platonov’ s first attempt to work for film, but it was this text that Platonov re-worked several times, and which was returned to him for a period of ten years. The write’ endeavours in this script to fulfil his perception of cinematography: the principles of audio-visual montage, the observer’ s viewpoint, etc. At the same time, the screenplay incorporates Platonov’ s chief themes of the 1930s
INTERSECTION
The world film festival movement in the 21st century -blast-off or crisis? Are there any alternative criteria fa evaluating the production of cinema art other than deeply personal ones on the one hand, and those imposed by advertising campaigns on the other? How is the latest technological revolution impacting on the traditional status of the author, and on the place of cinema in society? Has cinema remained the lord of the minds, or is it becoming a run-of-the-mill player in the global mass-media boom? An intersection between two wildly differing views on these and other basic issues in the modern film process: an exclusive interview with the editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinema Jean-Michel Frodon and an article by the Russian film critic Stanislav Zelvensky.
PORTRAIT OF.A. FILM
The film Solntse [Sun] by Alxander Sokurov is, in the opinion of Seance, the best film to have come out of the Russian cinema industry for the last five years. The theme of Solntse is that of the great benefit of compromise that a person invested with power may decide upon in the name not only of the nation, but of the life r each individual person who makes up the nation — and we believe that his theme is extremely relevant not only for Russia, but for the whole international community today. In view of its detachment from the international context, our journal will not take it upon itself to examine the film in that context, but rather as it is: as a separate self-sufficient, independent work of art. «Third-party» experts have been included such as well-known reviewers from such media outlets as the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Variety, etc. — quotations from their reviews are presented in the form of a press digest. Several ancles are presented here: by the well-known film historian and director Oleg Kovalov; the historian of philosophy Pavel Kuznetsov; art critic, arts editor of the Kommersant daily Alexei Tarkhanov; and the Canadian critic Christina Stoyanova. Opinions by leading film Grit-ics, professionals in film and theatre, writers, and politicians have been written specially for Seance and are produced here, ranging from film director Kira Muratov to the director of the Hermitage museum Boris Piotrovsky, from the writer Eduard Limonov to the cameraman Vadim Yusov. Andrzej Waida and Tonino Guerra also dictated their in-depth view of the film Solntse to Seance interviewers. This issue also presents interviews by the Seance editor-in-chief Lyubov Arkus with the actor who played the role of Emperor Hirohito, Issei Ogata and the arts specialist, translator and the Japanese coordinator for the filming Hiroko Kozima.
IN MEMORIAM John Paul II
John Paul II: great reformer or great conservative? Populist politician or hard-headed reactionary? He was the first Pope to enter a mosque or a synagogue, the first to pray in a Lutheran chapel, he met the Dalai Lama eight times he applauded rock and rap stars, he introduced up-to-date digital and internet technology to the Vatican; but he was an irreconcilable opponent to abortion, all types of contraception, gay marriage, and even euthanasia and cloning, he excommunicated transves-tites from the Church, insisted on retaining celibacy, and on the brink of the third millennium he personally carried out three exorcism ceremonies. The Pope’ s influence extended far beyond confessional boundaries: many believe that it was his actions specifically that played a decisive role in the fall of the iron curtain and the collapse of the communist bloc. John Paul II turned his attention on several occasions to cinema. As well as a biography of the Pope by the film critic Alexei Gusev, this section contains an overview of pronouncements, by John Raul II about film and television written by Natalia Trauberg, and a translation of one of the papal texts about the role of cinema on contemporary society.
BIOPIC Gilbert Keith Chesterton
There is only one thing lacking in modern Russian cinema — a real hero: a major personality, a powerful, contradictory (or the opposite — fantastically integral) character, whose spiritual and temporal adventures (misfortunes transformations) you would want to watch on screen, holding your breath. There are actors in Russia ready to take on such grand, serious challenges. However, it is the real heroes of the past who may take on the empty place left for today’ s titanic characters. The genre of biopic, popular the world over, must take root in our cinematographic soil. The role that Seance magazine has chosen for itself in this process is to recount the life of major cultural and social figures, revealing the dramatic mechanisms of their destinies. In other words, to present their biographies, generally speaking, from several perspectives which do not coin cide, but which clarify and complement each other, as synopses ready to be launched into production. The hero in this edition of the «Biopic» section is the great English writer G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton’ s fate was externally, and on a day-to-day and literary level, an extremely happy one. He was born into a comfortable and educated family, studied at one of the oldest and best schools, and aged 25–26 he became exceptionally popular, wrote much, and had an easy death. He was absent-minded and kind, huge and clumsy, he used to be compared to Father Christmas. When he was 34, he wrote ’ Orthodoxy’, a book about faith, and probably one of the most joyful books of our time. There is a «second level» — in his boyhood, adolescence, and early youth, he suffered unbearably from the spirit of the age, devoid of hope, love and faith, as well as his own spiritual darkness; all his life he was ill, and in his forties he began mortally to lose his popularity, and by the end of his life he was, if not quite a laughing stock, at least a lonely
prophet. Some critics posit that he would have done better to have died in 1914. The third and most impor tant level of his life was his indestructible and glorious joyfulness. Fro the moment that his youthful gloom was exchanged for a constant sense of miracle, he never lost his joy, and wrote about it right before he died, in the last chapter of his autobiography. This rubric consists of two biographical articles: the author of the first is the translator Natalia Trauberg, member of the British Chesterton Society, who has translated all the principal works of the writer for a Russian readership over the last few decades; the author of the second article is the literary critic and publicist Nikita Yeliseyev. Selected fragments of Chesterton’ s letters are also included in this section, translated into Russian especially for this publication.
NEW GENRE Courtroom Drama
On 31 May 2005, the Meshchansky District Court of the City of Moscow pronounced its verdict on the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Andrei Krainov, sentencing Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to nine years in prison, and Krainov to five years suspended sentence. This section is devoted to this case and others, less well-known that take place in Russia every day. The courtroom drama on Russian screens. Publicist Viktor Toporov reaches the conclusion that, despite the multitude of court-room dramas in real life and on the television, the only genuine representative of the genre is the 24-part series Zakon [The Law] by Alexander Veledinsky which is an illustrated encyclopaedia of modern Russian justice. And the theatre and film critic Lilia Schitenburg has compiled a mini-encyclopaedia of the courtroom drama genre in world cinema: from Dreyer’ s Passion of Joan of Arc to Spielberg’ s Amistad, and from Kurosawa’ s Rasemonio Abuladze’ s Pokayaniye [Repentance].
VERTIGO The ethics of a documentary-maker in hotspots
Dedicated to the anniversary of the tragic events in Beslan.
«Beslan»
Russian film critic and publicist Yelena Gracheva makes the claim in her article that English documentary-makers know how to create a film picture of a tragedy which the human consciousness is not actually able to encompass, without transforming the human tragedy into a political register, but also not speculating on the audience’ s emotions; without laying claim to offering an view from the inside, but not attempting to create and illusion of objectivity. The delicacy a well-gauged distance, without belittling the tragedy, these are the guarantees of a well-identified documentary film form.
«Hotspots on the Screen»
For the average Russian, terrorism arrived at the same time in real life and on the screen. After the disintegration of the USSR, several «hot spots» arose across the post-Soviet scene. At the same time, the first Russian stringers appeared, the first ’ hot’ reports from the front line, and documentary films… Is it possible to measure wars, terrorism, catastrophes and world cataclysms in pixels on the screen? Comentator Alexei Vostrikov analyses Russian non-feature cinema over recent years, touching upon the themes of the war in Chechnya, the events in Chechnya and the «Nord-Ost» disaster, the explosions at the houses on the Kashirskoe shosse…
«Showing tragic events in documentary film — through the eyes of the directors»
The pattern needs to form itself — interview with Yuri Khashchevatsky, director of the film Kavkazskie plenniki [Prisoners of the Caucasus], No interviews, only tracking — interview with Igor Voloshin, director of the film Suka [Bitch]; What skills smell of — interview with Edward Dzhafarov, director by profession, and stringer cameraman by vocation; The phenomenon of perception — conversation with documentary-maker Sergei Loznitsa. Among the hostages — authors, heroes and viewers — documentary-makers on the problems of ethics in documentary cinema (digest of interviews from different years).
Showing tragic events in documentary film -opinion of cultural experts There is always the threat of making a Schindler’ s List out of a Holocaust — interview with cultural commentator Mikhail Yampolsky; A person sees on the screen only what he can — interview with film expert and critic Maya Turovskaya.
«Day of Judgement»
Ethics in documentary film and more Leading expert in documentary cinema, film specialist Alexander Deryabin provides a historical perspective of the problem of ethics in documentary cinema: from Dziga Vertov and Roman Karmen and to Sergei Dvortsevoi and Alexander Rastorguev, — including the Russian tradition in an international context. To look at, or to spy upon? To observe or to participate? Digital technologies: the end of documentary-making, or a new era in non-feature film? When discussing the problems of ethics of a documentary-maker, the author makes no allowances for the scale of the story about which the film is telling — be it the events in Beslan, or the fate of a lonely old blind man living on hand-outs.
«The artist faced with a tragedy. A reader»
Traditional rubric in Seance rounding off all the sections covering the theme of the number of the journal, when the classics of world literature and philosophy -from antiquity to the present day — are summoned to the role of highest arbiters. This edition presents Horace, Hemingway, Maupassant, Chekhov, Kipling, Sartre, Bazin, Zavattini, etc.
NOT ABOUT CINEMA
The editorial board found itself, by a set of circumstances, involved in the collection of resources for the treatment of a child with leucosis. Strange as it may seem, this story brought us to some pleasant conclusions. We became convinced, on the basis of our own experience, that there are glimmers of that selfsame civil society in Russia, which it is so pleasant to believe is not to be found, and could never be in our ailing country. People have appeared, at last, who have dropped the habit of relying on the state and then blaming the state for all sins. Volunteers, as they are called, just do what can be done. They not only organise collections for funds, they also make any number of different efforts to help those that are sick survive, and somehow lessen their suffering. It was precisely such a grass-roots initiative, a reliance on one’ s own resources, that formed, in our opinion, the basis on which the health of civil society rests. We have plugged ourselves into this process, with a simple and easy to understand aim ahead of us. If out of all the readers of the journal even just ten individuals want to help, in some way, someone who needs help, we will already consider that we have not included this section in vain. We publish interviews with doctors, pharmacists, politicians, sociologists, parents, and volunteers, as well as printing information about the children in need of help; in the future we have plans to hold round tables about the challenges of charity in modern Russia. At the same time, we indicate not the bank account numbers, but contact telephones of parents and doctors — so that those that make contributions can be sure that their money is going direct to its destination. These is the sad reality of Russian life today.