Alexander Sokurov - biography, information, personal life. Did this teaching experience give you something?

You teach in Kabardino-Balkaria, often visit the Caucasus, and see the situation with your own eyes. Can you explain the rejection of Caucasians who came to the Russian regions of the country?

Firstly, national mixing is not always acceptable, in my opinion. Secondly, there are significant mental differences in the nature of behavior in society. The conflict occurs at the everyday, national level. You will immediately notice that, for example, Chechens came to the cafe. You must understand that they may have weapons, and that they most likely have no idea where they can be used and where they cannot be used. They said that Kadyrov once said that this is their mentality - “to be with weapons.” But there is a federal law. For some reason it doesn't apply specifically to them. Why? Why do they love to attract attention so much?

Those people who come to central Russia have no idea about the principles of the culture of Russian society. It is not customary for us to talk loudly, disturbing others. You cannot behave frankly boorishly with a woman, show violence in any form... Yes, among Russians there are all sorts, maybe not better, but the energy of Caucasian men often does not allow them to stay within the bounds...

I myself have repeatedly witnessed the inappropriate behavior of children from the Caucasus in Moscow and St. Petersburg, how they behave outside the norm, and I know cases of what happens in relationships with Chechens who come “on vacation” to the cities of Mineralnye Vody. I know about the aggressive forms of behavior of Chechen entrepreneurs in the Stavropol Territory, where they are engaged in the annexation of land and the purchase of land. Many ethnic Russians are fleeing the Stavropol Territory, they believe that the authorities do not support them, and the methods of struggle that the temperamental Chechens display end in the use of weapons. The fact that they behave this way is also a cultural level. The state must speak honestly and openly about such problems.

It turns out that the residents of the Caucasus do not want to strive for an all-Russian mentality and do not want to think about integration into our society?

Of course not. In Chechen society there is no understanding of the events that took place, there is no idea that the Chechen war was a classic rebellion. Chechen youth have a 100% idea that they won the war against Russia.

When I was recruiting young people in Grozny for roles in the film “Alexandra,” we talked about this. Many of them said: “Wait, we’ll dot all the i’s.” We will burn your throats and unite with Turkey.” They told me: “Life with Russia is unnatural, unbearable, we will unite with Turkey anyway. You just don’t know what we really think about you, but this is how we think.”

Are they sure that the Turks will be happy with them?

The Turks are a strong, civilized people; they do not need this violence. The problem in the Caucasus is that a number of administrative decisions that developed between the federal center and the Caucasus led to the muffling of public opinion and political activity within the republics themselves. None of the Caucasian republics have developed opposition parties, there is almost no opposition press, television, or radio. There are errors in the very system of relations between law enforcement agencies and the local population. People walk like slaves, with their heads down, afraid to say a word. But these are people who could work for the common interests of Russia. Those who are willing to pay for participation in various adventures live well. All this together is the principle of the existence of the Caucasian republics as small sultanates, the Chechen Sultanate, for example. He has no prospects. In fact, it hits Russia itself.

What about human rights activists who have been convincing us for so many years that small but proud peoples live in the Caucasus?

Indeed, small and proud, probably... These are traditions. We also use such beautiful words in relation to ourselves when we talk about Russian spirituality and the Russian soul. Although we understand perfectly well that this is a strong exaggeration.

I tell my guys on the course that I will not accept or encourage works about how beautifully they sit in the saddle and wield a dagger. The prevailing stereotype is that Caucasian culture is a handsome guy with a thin wasp waist, he has a dagger, and underneath is a dashing hot horse. And another burka. Even in the nineteenth century this was doubtful. Many Caucasian tribes lived from plunder. Boys at the age of fourteen or fifteen were sent to special detachments, where they were trained to rob. This is how they lived. This has been written about in various sources. But now is a different time...

Sokurov Alexander Nikolaevich begins his life's journey on June 14, 1951. Alexander’s father was a military man, and therefore the family constantly moved from one place to another, because there were quite a lot of business trips at that time.

The future director was born in the Irkutsk region, in the small village of Podorvikha, and went to school in Poland. The young man graduated from an educational institution in Turkmenistan. Life constantly threw him and his family to different parts of the planet, thanks to which he grew up to be a very sociable and versatile young man.

After graduating from school, Sokurov entered Gorky University to study as a historian. However, already during his first courses he was inexorably drawn to everything related to television. Gradually, he began to independently develop and advance in this area, and began working on small television films and programs that were broadcast on a local channel. At the same time, he did not give up his studies, and in 1974 the guy received a diploma in history.

Just a year later, Alexander Nikolaevich entered the directing department at VGIK in the workshop of the talented Zguridi A.M., who specialized in teaching students documentary directing and filming popular science films. Alexander found it easy and interesting to learn, he grasped everything “on the fly” and developed his creative potential more and more. However, he had very difficult relations with the leaders of Goskino and the administration of the institute. Many considered him an anti-Soviet person, whose works they tried not to recognize or notice. That is why Alexander decided to take the exams ahead of schedule and “go free swimming.” So, in 1979 he received a director's diploma.

Sokurov's first independent creative steps were doomed to failure - the political elite did not accept or understand the meaning of his paintings. He was even threatened with physical violence for his opinion, and many were perplexed why the young director could not leave the country, because he had a lot of opportunities for this. But, perhaps, only a person who does not know Alexander Sokurov’s nationality could think this way. This is a real Russian man who cannot betray his homeland, who is sure that nationality is not only belonging to a nationality, nation and language, it is also the faith of the fathers, it is something sacred that cannot be betrayed.

Fortunately, gradually a bright streak came in Alexander’s creative life. Acquaintance and friendship with like-minded directors bore fruit. He received many prestigious awards and prizes, the most important, perhaps, of all - the Russian State Prize. In 2004, he was also awarded the title of People's Artist of the Russian Federation.

Alexander is a rather secretive person when it comes to his personal life. He himself admits that his work has occupied and continues to occupy most of his time, and therefore there is not a single free minute left for his personal life. Unfortunately, the actor did not acquire a wife or children.

I have been dealing with the fate of my students for seven years now, I love them very much, but this is too much for the life of an individual. “In seven years, I made only two films,” Sokurov shakes his head. Like a true Russian artist, he will always find something to reproach himself for. - This is my big mistake - that I have decisively reduced my professional stress and do not remove anything myself. We had 12 people in the workshop, and everyone had to work on it. We didn’t talk much about “art” with them, we were just busy developing the skill. And the tasks were all about proportionality of consciousness. During the course it was forbidden to film about aggression, about war, something with daggers, with saber-toothed horsemen of all kinds. The educational work was about how a daughter loves her mother, how a son loves his father or sister. Only about emotional relationships between people.

- There is nothing more complicated than this in cinema.

Yes, this is the most difficult thing. Because we in Russia know nothing but bad things about the Caucasus. We don’t know how the Kabardian, Chechen, Ossetian family lives. We know nothing about the people with whom we have lived together for centuries. I asked my students to show who they are, I asked them to be critical of their people: figure it out, dig in, take an example from the Russians. Who else but Russian writers knew how to analyze the vices of the Russian person. I'm surprised that I liked all 12 theses. I myself did not expect such a result. Now four of my students have either completed or are preparing to complete full-length films.

Before the work of your students, we knew nothing about the city of Nalchik, and now we have discovered not just films, but some kind of whole picture of the world that we have never seen before. At the same time, the same Kantemir Balagov says that he is not a genius at all, he calls himself a “vegetable” - but here you come to Nalchik, and there you raised a young director of European level from a “vegetable”. If you went to another city, would the results be the same?

Not necessary. I don’t really believe that Russian young people will come to study with me. I naively believed that in the Caucasus there is some kind of initial respect for a person of a different age, for the status of a teacher, etc. Before Nalchik, I had experience teaching classes in Poland, at Andrzej Wajda’s film school, and a little in Japan, but I couldn’t imagine taking a course in Russia. I agreed after the university rector Barasbi Karamurzov and Albert Saralp, the representative of Kabardino-Balkaria in St. Petersburg, answered “yes” to all my conditions. This did not concern salaries, it was not even discussed - all higher education workers in Transcaucasia receive pennies. This concerned the creation of infrastructure. It was difficult, of course. Because the initial base of applicants was zero. During the entrance exams, I asked who Eisenstein was - no one knew this, with the exception of one guy who was 36 years old... Although teachers in Moscow and St. Petersburg say that the level of applicants there is almost the same. But in the North Caucasus there is no philharmonic activity at all, no serious theaters, no art galleries. Signs, shops, restaurants - yes, but everything else, no.

- And is it important? In Italy, culture is at every turn, and there is almost no cinema now either.

Let me recruit a group of students in Italy - I am sure that we will get ten of the best directors in the world. You just need to carefully understand who is studying with you, support his specific abilities in each, not demand universalism and be cruel and persistent.

- Did this teaching experience give you anything?

No. And a lot of disappointments. In national character. I understand that there is no longer any tradition within. Although we were constantly convinced that this was not the case in the Caucasus region. I didn't see this anymore. I did not see upbringing within the family, with very rare exceptions. I was amazed that I didn’t have the skill to work hard. Because there are almost no libraries in houses. Parents were confused by the level of the tasks that were set for their children. I met with the parents of everyone who came to me every year! I told each of them what was happening to their daughter or son.

How did you feel about the scene in "Tightness" that angered the jury at the Cannes Film Festival - with the showing of actual footage of the execution of Russian soldiers?

This scene was longer. We agreed that it would be shorter. I had a big fight with Cantemir over the drastic cutting of the film. It is still insufficiently compressed and compacted. In general, in this film many professional tasks were not fulfilled. Cantemir has an inner conceit that did not allow him to do this. I hope that this will gradually go away for him. But I warned him that this film would have a “ring” due to the Jewish material. If a Russian family was leaving Nalchik in the 1990s, no one would have paid attention to this film. I generally don’t like films on Jewish themes, because I don’t know of films where the authors treat this topic honestly and seriously. Everything I've seen, including films by great directors, is the use of a nightmarish tragedy.

I rate "Tightness" a solid "B". As the artistic director, I had complete authority to do whatever I saw fit in completing the film. But I never use this power. My task is to say what I think, to show how it can be done professionally. But “Tightness” was ruined by the pride of its author. Now everything will depend on what he films next. In general, I treat my first works very calmly and I think that my first work was overrated, it has a lot of shortcomings - for objective reasons. It takes me 40 seconds to understand what the problem is with any picture, because I went through this myself, I make a lot of mistakes myself. Besides, perhaps, Bergman, Fellini, Muratova or Khamdamov, I don’t know of other names that can create great works in cinema. Only they had the chance to produce in cinema something that we could put on the shelf next to the great literary works - Thomas Mann, for example.

Certainly. I simply forced them to read. I tried to show that the first directors were writers. How they storyboarded scenes, how they built aesthetics, how they knew how to not finish everything. Nowadays every second director strives to chew everything through and finish it to the end. Such literalness arises that obscene language is heard even from the lips of women, which is somehow not good in Russian culture.

- As far as I know, you never needed swearing in the movies.

Completely unnecessary. Despite the fact that I have been in situations where people died, were on the verge of life and death, I heard them talking to each other. The use of swear words by Russian women (and now every second speaks this language) speaks of the degradation of masculinity in society. Mat is only a male language, a purely male way of communication. That's how it should remain.

- But the director must reflect what happens in life - including with women.

If he considers it necessary, if it suddenly became part of his task (it wasn’t before), then God will be his judge. Of course, each director must decide this for himself. I believe that everything that exists publicly should have its own strict task, behind everything there should be its own measure of responsibility. If we introduce obscene language in the theater and cinema, then please wait until your son or daughter sends you to a known address. Moreover, they will not even understand why this is bad.

- What if you are filming a drama from the midst of people's life?

That’s how I filmed - both in the war, and I filmed soldiers, and I filmed the sailors’ environment, and all sorts of things. And neither I nor those who acted with me had the slightest need to express themselves this way - even in combat conditions.

- Now that you have already done a lot for your guys, are you going to return to cinema?

There is an idea that is slowly starting to come to life. This is the story of the period 1935-45, with a very difficult film language for me; I have never worked in such a language. Both editing and dramaturgy will be absolutely uncharacteristic for me. I can’t say anything more, I’m very afraid to share incompletely formulated ideas.

- Is this Russian history?

European history. There will be one character from the Soviet Union, all other heroes are Europeans. There will be no Russian money in the film either. I have practically no audience in Russia. In the movies, what I do is not shown. There is a ban on showing my films on television - both fiction and documentaries. Including “Faust” and “Russian Ark”. Even Granin’s “Siege Book” is not allowed to be shown. I have almost no chances in my homeland now. Although I am absolutely neither an export nor an import person, I am a Russian person. I was educated in my homeland, I didn’t master my profession with the help of European film schools, I learned everything myself.

- You now comment on some social events to a greater extent than before.

Because I am worried about what is happening in the country. I witnessed when Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya, Solzhenitsyn, dissidents, our outstanding people were spread rot, I remember all this. I didn’t do anything in their defense, I couldn’t even really think about it. It was then the reward of my life that one day I received a call from Alexander Isaevich, a call from Rostropovich. I didn’t understand at all why I was doing this, considering my guilt before them - how can it be that they call me and offer me a meeting? I don’t perceive today’s social situation as a tragedy, I perceive it as a misfortune. But I think that I have no significance for the public life of the country. At the Nika Award ceremony, I said what I couldn’t help but say. I had no other opportunity to speak out. I have one passport. I have no savings, no dacha, I am not protected in the same way as all the rest of my compatriots. And when I see how riot police behave with girls at rallies, I boil. I could not remain silent then.

- What will happen with “Matilda”, in your opinion?

Everything will be OK. The film will be shown, but the situation around it shows only one thing: the number of sick people is multiplying. And also that absolutely no one guarantees the validity of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The forces that could guarantee it are drying up. And the most unpleasant thing that can happen is the beginning of work to change it... The saddest thing for me is that I cannot do anything to alleviate the situation in the country. Although I understand that it is necessary to change - it is so simple and obvious that even I see it, not being a professional in politics or political economy.

How do you feel about new technologies? Would you like to make a movie in the “virtual reality” format, using a 360-degree space?

These are all toys for now. Just like all these 3D and sound tricks. For me personally, this technique does not reveal much. It's like trying to destroy the stage in a theater. And I really don’t like it when an actor jumps off the stage and starts playing next to you, grabbing you by the hands and ears. Because there is a world of convention, which is very important for a person. In general, visual creativity is a weapon that can inflict deep, never-healing wounds on a person. And this is much more dangerous than ideological war and environmental problems. You yourself see how with the help of television, narrowly and sharply targeted, you can control millions of people. And when you introduce the “virtual reality” tool everywhere, there will be no hope at all. It’s very easy to kill a person, and in the movies they show us a million different ways. High-cheekboned American directors are especially good at doing this - they will show you how a person screams, suffers, and explains that killing a person is not scary. We live in conditions of uncontrolled progress. Not progress, but chaos. Steve Jobs took us where he didn't even know. We were not in this future, no one returned from there. Here Leo Tolstoy went to war in his novel, returned to his contemporary readers and told them what he saw there. But Tolstoy is gone now, and there is no one to go to the future or past. Therefore, we are left with only chaos.

Sokurov is the most mysterious and monumental figure of modern Russian cinema. The personal life of this workaholic is his films. Where others have loud divorces from their wives, he has a quiet and thoughtful study of the biographies of great dictators. The director's films are sometimes difficult to watch, they are difficult to love, but even irreconcilable opponents recognize the Renaissance scale of his personality. The tricky feature of Alexander Nikolaevich’s cinema is that the figure of the viewer is undesirable for him: this is not a show for the public, but an intense dialogue between the author and the material. The director himself once said about his “Stone”: “I hope that this film will fly past the viewer.” After such an installation, all questions about the length of the action or the illegibility of the lines are removed by themselves. Difficulties of perception remain difficulties, but Sokurov is truly our everything. Not in the sense that “we don’t have any other directors for you,” it’s just that his works, with all their originality, sometimes reaching the point of autism, combine the most current world film trends. And even the director’s former hatred of “digital” does not prevent him from successfully using new technologies. Culture in the broadest sense of the word, and not modern, mass, but classical, academic, with which Sokurov is thoroughly familiar, is reflected in his films, oversaturated with allusions, where there is comedy and mortal melancholy, homoeroticism and asexuality, earthly love and heavenly love, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, darkness and light, Russia and Europe. What prevents us from adequately perceiving all this wealth of meaning is the veil of fog that the author inevitably hangs between the viewer and what his camera is looking at. But we will overcome the trepidation and try to peer into this milky abyss.

MELANCHOLY
The thesis is condemned to be washed away. - Friendship with Tarkovsky. - The management of Lenfilm is plotting. - Sokurov refuses to emigrate because of the Hermitage. Sasha Sokurov’s parents wanted him to become a doctor, but the boy, who was born in the village of Podorvikha, Irkutsk region, into a military family, was prevented from going into the medical field by an interesting feature of his imagination: as the director himself later admitted, he confidently “ considered the dead alive." When he starts making films, the pendulum will swing in the other direction: the living in his films will become, if not dead, then marked with the ashen mark of the inevitable. Death comes to the screen already in the debut film “The Lonely Voice of a Man.” Based on the stories of Andrei Platonov, “The Voice” depicts a life devoid of any everyday life, which constantly strives to drop dead. Anything turns out to be a reason to become numb forever: longing for those who have already died, the richness of the inner world, love and curiosity. “I want to live in death, I’m yearning,” one of the characters in the picture complained to a friend and, throwing off his tunic, threw himself into the pool with his legs tied. This experiment, outstanding in its madness, rhymes with the escape of the main character, Red Army soldier Nikita Firsov, from his hometown. Everyone at home believes that he did not leave, but drowned himself in the Potudan River, and, in general, we are inclined to this idea.

Taurus became the second film in a tetralogy about power

It is obvious that in 1978, at the very height of Brezhnev’s decay, this depressing film was clearly regarded as slander of Soviet reality. The management of VGIK did not accept “The Voice” as student Sokurov’s thesis and condemned the film to be washed away. The film was saved only by a miracle and the cunning of the director himself and his cameraman Sergei Yurizditsky: they entered the warehouse and replaced the reels. The painting remained in Yurizditsky’s closet until 1987, when the world premiere of the reconstructed film took place at the Locarno festival, where he was given the “Bronze Leopard” prize. Before this, no desperate letters to the top could shake the firm confidence of his superiors that Sokurov was a dangerous anti-Soviet, and his film was worthless. The director’s relationship with the Soviet government never worked out; due to a conflict with the rector Vitaly Zhdan, the excellent student Sokurov was forced to leave VGIK and defend himself as an external student. Further versions differ. It is officially believed that he defended himself with the documentary “The Summer of Marina Voinova,” filmed in his early youth, when Sokurov, who was studying at the Faculty of History at Gorky University, was simultaneously making documentaries for local television - his television career predictably ended in a conflict with the leadership. Yurizditsky recalls that another film was presented for defense - “The Car is Gaining Reliability”, about the GAZ plant. Afterwards, no one ever saw this picture, and it is not mentioned in Sokurov’s filmography, which is a pity. They say that Alexander Nikolaevich used in it - several years before the advent of MTV - an innovative clip editing that did not fit in with his current style. There was, however, a good side to this story: Andrei Tarkovsky really liked “The Lonely Voice,” and he took the young director under his wing. Their friendship continued even when Tarkovsky found himself in exile, and after the death of Andrei Arsenyevich Sokurov made the film “Moscow Elegy” about him. In 1980, Sokurov, under the patronage of a senior comrade, got a job at Lenfilm - VGIK could only offer him assignment in Kazan or the Far East. He tries very hard to disguise himself: until the end of the 1980s, the director’s disturbing theme of dying was modestly present in his films somewhere in the background, appearing rather in lines and episodes, such as the half-hour funeral of Madame Bovary in “Save and Preserve.” This is not conscious caution, but rather an unconscious survival instinct. Sokurov himself says that he never caved in to censorship, but simply ignored it. One way or another, at this time he is working at the limit of his mental strength: any undertaking faces monstrous financial difficulties and bureaucratic delays, films do not appear on screens, Lenfilm authorities plot intrigues and seize materials, ill-wishers write denunciations, debts accumulate. Sokurov feels on the verge of death or at least arrest, packs his things, and anticipates the worst. Tarkovsky tries to take his friend abroad, but he does not dare: his attachment to the Russian language and the treasures of the Hermitage keeps him in Leningrad.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Chekhov returns from the other world. - Lenin demands poison from the party. - Sokurov finds beauty and harmony in Japan, where he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun.

After the simultaneous surge of freedom and horror of the 1990s in the middle of the decade, the director will define his creative task as follows: “To reconcile a person with the inevitability of his going there. And prepare him to cross this line, if possible, in an elevated state of soul and thought. All my films are about this. And I don’t have another song.” Sokurov reached the border between life and death in the short film “Empire” - a strange thriller, the plot of which boils down to the fact that the ballerina Alla Osipenko, who seems to be playing herself, lies in an alcove similar to a coffin, waiting for an unknown killer, and in the finale he comes - hunchbacked, ugly, hard to see in the twilight of the boudoir. But the final plunge into the waters of the Styx occurs in The Second Circle, an eerie film built entirely on the preparation for a simple Soviet funeral. The next step in the grave is “The Stone,” in which Anton Pavlovich Chekhov appears from the other world straight to his Yalta House-Museum. The entire film is a chronicle of this inexplicable, strange visit: Chekhov the ghost is lonely and restless, he wanders around an empty, unlit house, eats sausage sandwiches brought by the watchman, sniffs blank paper, drinks sour wine that miraculously survived in the cupboard, and then, filled with melancholy, runs somewhere into the mountains, into the snow, to roll away someone’s gravestone. However, it is impossible to make out what exactly is happening here: the film is as dark as a coffin, the figures are poorly lit, the dialogues are often muttered, the place of the heroes is taken by the elements - the grave cold, which seems to penetrate into all the cells of the viewer.

Even Stalin’s visit to Gorki was filmed in such a way that you want to put the frame in a frame

This cold remains the main character in “Taurus,” a chronicle of Lenin’s last days. Broken by a stroke, Ilyich writhes and shudders on the threshold of oblivion and, having gathered his last strength, demands poison from the party in order to throw himself into the pool, like Plato’s hero. However, the attempt to reconcile the viewer with the inevitable clearly fails: consciousness refuses to accommodate the truth about the wretched meaninglessness of death. The tactic of romanticizing care turns out to be much more successful and more humane. Sokurov began to see the good in death in the mid-1990s, just then the afterlife became habitable for him. It is to him, the foggy “sea-ocean, where perhaps the souls of the dead live” (quote from the working notes for the elegy dolce...), that the six-hour chronicle “Dueness” is dedicated. Its heroes, sailors serving on the northern edge of the earth, are actually thrown into the kingdom of shadows. Their heavy, lost island-like warship is the Flying Dutchman, which the director hopes preserves the purity of male brotherhood. The bright streak in Sokurov’s work can be explained simply: it was at this time that he began to work closely with Japanese producers and often visited the Land of the Rising Sun. The beauty of Far Eastern nature, the delicacy of people's opinions and restraint and, of course, human working conditions work wonders. Sokurov feels needed, he is closer than ever to his youthful dream: to become like Fassbinder and make four films a year. And during this five-year period, he actually produces twelve feature and documentary films. Lightly, with one cameraman and a video camera, he travels around the Japanese provinces, filming elegies for local television. “I am happy to be among the people who surround me in Japan,” the director writes in his diary. However, like a true perfectionist, he is still dissatisfied with “how the artistic result is shaping up.” The culmination of Japanese history is the feature film “The Sun” (2005) - Sokurov manages to convince producers and actors of the possibility of making a film about Emperor Hirohito, who, after the bombing of Hiroshima, renounced the status of a living god. There has always been a taboo on the figure of the emperor: you cannot make money from him, he is not played in films (it is believed that this can bring trouble to the actor), and it is generally not customary to take an interest in his private life. In Europe, the film takes place without any special awards or noise. But the Japanese are terribly happy, although they still do not dare to release the film - “The Sun” comes out two years later directly on DVD. And in November 2011, the director was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, fourth degree. He received the “Golden Rays with a Rosette” with the wording “for creating films that made a huge contribution to deepening mutual understanding between Japan and Russia.”

BLACK SQUARE
Cinema is an arrogant bastard of culture. - Sokurov, irritated by the totalitarian power of cinema, experiments with images.

Man is not the only one who suffered soul and body in the films of Alexander Nikolaevich. Sokurov's method is much deeper and more consistent: on-screen reality - a picture, an image - is desecrated and destroyed. The fact is that the director does not like cinema, even hates it: “Cinematography is an unpleasant hobby. Big psychophysical trap. This is a dangerous spectacle that fosters laziness on a physiological level. The consequences of a nuclear explosion can be overcome, but the consequences of internal decay under the influence of Russian cinema cannot.” As a scientifically minded person with two degrees, he is deeply irritated by the unclear and dubious nature of the film. This uncertainty of origin - either from the theater, or from literature, or perhaps even from photography - is the fundamental problem of the entire film theory, which has been arguing for more than a century about what cinema is - an independent art or a bastard of the great culture of the 19th century. Sokurov considers him an illegitimate child, and an arrogant and demanding child. What irritates the director most is the totalitarian power of cinema, which forces people to stare at the screen for two hours straight. Another fundamental complaint is the vagueness of the boundaries of cinema, the discord and dissonance that reigns in it, the impossibility of creating a general theory of film that would help separate real artists from craftsmen.

The role of Goebbels in the film "Moloch" was performed by Irina Sokolova

A desperate desire to take revenge on cinema for its intractability and waywardness forces the director to treat the picture categorically, like the avant-garde artists who were just as shaken and sick, but from salon figurative painting. Sokurov crumples the frame, stretches it, compresses it, passes it through filters many times, sometimes achieving a magical, almost psychedelic subtlety of shades, sometimes trampling the image into the dirt, darkening it to the point of illegibility, or even simply deleting it. “Silent Pages,” a collective film adaptation of 19th-century Russian literature with an emphasis on Dostoevsky, is rich in such “iconoclastic” mockery of the frame. It is no longer the light that speaks to the audience, but the sound - carefully constructed, flowing and ubiquitous. The real death in Sokurov's cinema is the death of cinema itself, which first gets rid of the illusion of three-dimensional images (the Cubists did this with a picture), then - from sincerity (what Malevich sought from artists), and finally - from figurativeness (analogous to "Black square" can be considered a minute frame of absolute darkness from the same "Silent Pages"). But after death comes resurrection - hope for this is inspired in the viewer by both the sun-filled “Father and Son” or “Alexandra” and the prospect of the Hermitage in “Russian Ark”.

MAGIC MOUNTAIN

Sokurov studies sailor life. - Passion for the academic techniques of Leni Riefenstahl and the mountain landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich.

The theme of homoeroticism, to the rage of Sokurov himself, inevitably arises in any conversation about his paintings immediately after the discussion of Thanatos. “It” is truly impossible to close your eyes to, the film “Father and Son”, for example, begins with the sounds of passionate, rapid breathing of men, the next thing we see, when the opening darkness dissipates, is two entwined torsos, convulsing in either sexual, or of an epileptic nature. Whether it is a struggle, a love foreplay or a manual therapy session is not immediately clear. Similar scenes are repeated several times in the film, the characters invade each other’s personal space much deeper than is customary even in the rather straightforward Russian everyday culture. Approximately the same admiration of the male body occurs in “Alexander”, where it is as if the director himself, in the guise of an old woman with the no-casual name of Alexandra Nikolaevna, inspects the troops, sniffing male sweat and admiring its fragrance. After this, there is no need to talk about the six-hour ode to the sailors “Responsibility” and the more than five-hour hymn to the border guards “Spiritual Voices”. However, Spartan aesthetics have nothing to do with Sokurov’s personal preferences; this is evidenced by, say, diaries from the filming of “Duty.” The director, who studies the life of sailors, is constantly annoyed by the sailors’ stupidity, laziness and drill: “My God, how stupid all this is, how I feel sorry for all of us.” The fleet does not live up to expectations even for basic order, and judging by the records, the result of the filming should have been the second “Battleship Potemkin.” The Northern Fleet is understaffed, the ships are rusting, the sailors are worn out, and there are worms in the meat. Sokurov pays close attention to the prose of sailor life: he carefully notes the composition of rations, the list of uniforms, and the service life of equipment. It is clear that all the romance he created in the frame, this desperate attempt to ennoble the meaninglessness of military service, and admiration of masculinity, is a tribute to tradition in art. And her character is much more intriguing than banal gay art. We are talking about the aesthetics of German National Socialism. It is known that when filming “Father and Son,” Sokurov and cameraman Alexander Burov were directly guided by Leni Riefenstahl’s “Olympia.” In a sense, neo-academic artist Georgy Guryanov, Eurasianist Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt, and the group Rammstein look up to her films. But the spiritual kinship between Sokurov and Riefenstahl is much deeper and more delicate. Before becoming the Fuhrer's favorite director and chief director of mass events in the Third Reich, Riefenstahl was a movie star. She starred in “mountain films” - films of a purely German genre. The phenomenon of the “mountain film” arose in the wake of the burghers’ passion for folk culture, Wagner and hiking in the Alps. An Alpine foray was considered beneficial for strengthening the Teutonic spirit, which is so toilable in cities where the vulgar rationality of civilization reigns. The mountains attracted romantic young men and women, offering them, instead of soft-bodied egoism, brotherhood around the fire and majestic views of misty peaks. The peaks were dangerous, but, as the song says, “it’s better than vodka and colds.”

Galina Vishnevskaya turned the film "Alexandra" into her benefit performance

You don’t need to be an art critic to see the same fascination with mountain ranges in Sokurov’s films. Of course, the theme of the film itself explains their appearance in Moloch, which takes place in the Alpine residence of the Fuhrer. But what about “Stone”, “Mother and Son”, half composed of rocky landscapes of unreal beauty, or “Oriental Elegy”, where a Japanese town turns into a semblance of Wewelsburg Castle? The reason is Alexander Nikolaevich’s love for the paintings of the gloomy German romantic Caspar David Friedrich, whose canvases are filled to the very frame with fog, Zauberbergen and Byronic figures radiating mournful loneliness. And here Sokurov is not alone in his Gothic passion: Tarkovsky loved Friedrich, he was simultaneously extolled by both the Nazis and their sworn enemies, the French surrealists. The latter were also united by a common distrust of bourgeois civilization, of rationality - Alexander Nikolaevich also cries out about the collapse of the Western world in literally every interview. He is also concerned about the isolation of modern thought from nature, from the heart, the suicidal vanity of a civilization possessed by a “critical spirit.” Another point of contact between the director and the art of the Third Reich is the 18th century French artist Hubert Robert, the hero of Sokurov’s documentary “Robert. Happy life". He became famous for his romantic landscapes, which depicted luxurious ruins, both real, ancient and imaginary - one of his most famous works is a view of the dilapidated gallery of the Louvre. For Nazi art, which fed on Roman culture, the idea of ​​ruins was about the same as communism was for Soviet art. The socialist realist portrayed the emerging utopia, and the Nazi artist depicted the space of the future thousand-year Reich, which was supposed to age as beautifully as the Colosseum. This was taken into account by the Nazi ideologists; the chief architect of the Reich, Albert Speer, even created the “theory of ruins,” according to which the architect had to design not only the stages of construction of the building, but also the stages of its natural destruction. In the West, all these parallels could give rise to serious accusations, like those with which Susan Sontag attacked Riefenstahl. After the release of an album of her innocent Nubian photographs, an American cultural critic burst out with an article “Charming Fascism,” where she accused Leni of being loyal to Hitler’s aesthetics. But our people are kinder and wiser. It is obvious that love for academic culture and complete indifference to modern culture played a cruel joke on Sokurov: he draws inspiration from such an ancient source, which the audience has already forgotten, and single-handedly travels the path that mass culture has traveled over the past hundred years. Hence the oddities: Sokurov’s films seem totalitarian or, let’s say, gay only because totalitarian art and the gay subculture also once played with the images that concern the director today. So what now, don’t listen to Wagner and drink beer?

PETERSBURG
Sokurov criticizes the urban planning policy of the mayor's office. - Work in a psychological trust service. - The US rental hit “Russian Ark” was shot in one shot, without cuts.

Sokurov moved to the city he adored at the age of twenty-nine. The imperial capital made a crushing impression on the director, who grew up in a remote province. The city literally fell on him with the whole weight of its monumental architecture and history - Sokurov still notes that it is difficult for him to live here. However, it is St. Petersburg that is the eminence grise in his films. It is unlikely that this director would have found a place in cramped, indecently vital Moscow, where the sky is not visible behind the houses, and in museums there are plaster copies instead of marble. Low northern clouds, fog from the Neva, crypt-like courtyards and wells - all this perfectly matches Sokurov’s aesthetics. And of course, dilapidated houses: the city-protection activities of Alexander Nikolayevich, who with superhuman energy defended the block sentenced to demolition near Vosstaniya Square, is an attempt to preserve the “ruins,” as his opponents say, because ruins remind a person of the lofty and frailty of life. The director is categorical: “The enemy has arrived! Enemy! I insist on this, I say it and have always said it. There is a civil war in our cities. The generation of architects who have the moral and professional right to touch St. Petersburg has not yet grown up.” It is interesting that Sokurov’s regular screenwriter Yuri Arabov is a Muscovite, so in their joint works there is a struggle between St. Petersburg solidity and Moscow irony on the verge of mockery. Arabov loves farces, Sokurov is so serious that even when asked: “Why don’t you make a comedy?” - he answers not with a joke, but with a lengthy lecture on the complexity of the Russian character. At the same time, in everyday life, Alexander Nikolaevich is simple and humane, he loves home-cooked food, although he does not cook himself, and his loneliness is brightened up by a huge gray parrot who can say: “Sasha, go to sleep!” Having experienced many hardships and injustices, he is surprisingly partial to those in need; people always come to him asking to put in a good word, to intercede, to help. And Sokurov intervened, helped, called Valentina Matvienko personally and quarreled with her over the phone. And in the late 1990s, he actually worked as a radio confessor: together with psychologists, he hosted a nightly broadcast on Radio Baltika - a trust service.

For the film "The Sun" the director received the Order of the Rising Sun in Japan.

The swampy taste of St. Petersburg is felt in almost all of Sokurov’s films, but especially in two. The first is “Silent Pages”, the second is “Russian Ark”, where characters from Russian history come to life starting with Peter I. There is a gap of almost ten years between these films, and you can see how over the years the city and its institutions have changed the director’s view. In 1993, he was more of a gloomy genius, struggling to finance his projects; in 2002, he was a State Prize laureate from the list of the hundred best directors in the world, who two years later would become a People's Artist. The shabby “Silent Pages” are Sokurov’s “The Lonely Voice of a Man”: a monochrome image, semi-darkness, puddles, basements, frozen frames. The signature smoke that the director admires in every film here looks more like puffs of dead industrial steam escaping from a steel cauldron. There is no sun, no beauty, “and it will be the same with your sister,” as Raskolnikov says here to Sonya Marmeladova. “Russian Ark” is a triumph of light, air, movement: the film was shot with one energetic camera pass through the halls of the Winter Palace and does without any editing joints at all. Everything is fine here and with commercial intuition - Russian Ark becomes a box office hit in the USA. The glorification of the fatherland occurs here continuously: an invisible narrator, traveling through the Hermitage at night along with the ghost of the Marquis de Custine, in a calm voice parries the French diplomat’s attacks on Russian culture. In the finale, Zimny ​​literally floats into the Neva waters. The metaphor is obvious and paradoxical: the ark of Russian culture is stocked exclusively with foreign art! However, Sokurov himself is a paradoxical man, in whose work and life vitality and death, radical experiment, loyalty to traditions and the words “The Hermitage is the only place in the country where I feel like a citizen of Russia” are combined.

"FAUST"
There is no devil, but there is hell on earth. - The final part of the tetralogy about power is awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Goethe wrote Faust for forty years, almost his entire life. Sokurov, whose filmography desperately demanded a conditionally final, final film (you can’t endlessly shoot about death without expressing everything you think about life), also went to his “Faust” for decades. The story of the doctor who renounced paradise seems to have been intended for the director, because it contains all his favorite motifs. Firstly, circus and tragedy. Born on the amusing stages of traveling theaters, Faust was at first an edifying black comedy with parsley, stupid clouds of sulfur smoke and ancient predestination. Sold your soul - get into hell! The devil endlessly mocked Faust: he stuck his pig's snout out from behind the columns during a reception with the Portuguese king, disguised himself as a girl, lied and double-dealed, removed the half-decayed bones of Helen of Troy from the grave and put them in Faust's bed. All this mocking demonism was present in the script of Arabov, a mystic and esotericist who definitely believes that Lucifer exists. Sokurov, on the contrary, in his own words, does not believe in the devil; for him, the measure of everything base and terrible on earth is man himself. In his “Faust,” it is not the devil who seduces a man, but Faust himself who runs after Mephistopheles, who in the film bears the name of the Moneylender. This hero is married, and his wife is played by Fassbinder's favorite actress, Hanna Schygula. The moneylender is in no hurry to issue a hellish loan - he is busy, and there is already a queue of people willing to trade their souls. To Sokurov this is not funny at all, and therefore the farcical elements contained in the script are refracted by his camera into a terrible grimace of hell, into bad devilry with hooves and stand-up collars, which makes the viewer sick too. The second alarming motive is power and people. “Faust” closes the tetralogy about power, dedicated to the real leaders of the 20th century: Hitler, Lenin, Hirohito. The unlimited opportunity to control time is given to Faust in the poems of Marlow and Goethe, and there is nothing sadder and heavier than this permissiveness. But in Sokurov’s version the government looks ultra-modern. This is not the cruel will of an archaic dictator, knocking down the heads of slaves. This is the daily impersonal power of the European Leviathan state, dispersed over millions of gray employees. Power that wants to be invisible and neat. She, like the administration of the concentration camp, is disgusted by barbaric cruelty; she wants everything to be clean and without squealing, “civilized.” The devil from medieval treatises wants exactly the same thing - invisibility and imperceptibility, and this similarity of manners seems no coincidence. “Hell has neither place nor limits, where we are - there is hell,” says Mephistopheles to Faust, and this “we,” according to Sokurov, refers not to demons, but to us, humanity. Humanity was ashamed and began to correct itself: the Venetian jury gave “Faust” the main prize (before this, Sokurov’s films had not received anything significant at leading European festivals), Prime Minister Putin awarded the master an audience, at which he promised to stand up for Lenfilm, which was put up for sale. And all these small miracles are another confirmation that Sokurov’s films are not so harsh and merciless towards the public.

Text: Vasily Koretsky

Private bussiness

Alexander Nikolaevich Sokurov (65 years old) born in the village of Podorvikha, Irkutsk region, in the family of a military man. Five years after his birth, the village was flooded during the launch of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station. My father was often transferred to new duty stations and the family was forced to move with him. In this regard, Alexander often changed schools: he went to first grade in the Polish People's Republic, and completed his studies in Turkmenistan.

In 1968, Sokurov entered the history department of Gorky State University. During his studies, he worked in the editorial office of the artistic broadcasting of Gorky Television, where at the age of 19 he produced his first programs: several television films, live television programs, and sports programs. In 1974, Sokurov defended his diploma, receiving the profession of historian.

The very next year he entered the directing department of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in the workshop for directing popular science films under the direction of A. M. Zguridi. While studying, Sokurov met screenwriter Yuri Arabov, who became his main ally and colleague in his work.

Despite his excellent studies, Sokurov had a growing conflict with the administration of the institute and the leaders of Goskino. He was accused of formalism and anti-Soviet sentiments. As a result, he was forced to finish his studies a year earlier, passing the exams as an external student in 1979.

On the recommendation of Andrei Tarkovsky, who highly appreciated the young director’s graduation film, Sokurov was enrolled in the Lenfilm film studio in 1980, where he shot his first feature films. At the same time he collaborated with the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio.

Already the first films shot by Sokurov in Leningrad - “Demoted” (1980), “Mournful Insensibility” (1983 - 1987), Empire (1986) caused a negative reaction from both Goskino and party bodies. During this period, the director repeatedly stated that he was “destined for a place in the camp near Syktyvkar.” Until the end of the 1980s, none of his films were cleared for distribution.

It was only with the beginning of perestroika that films shot by Sokurov earlier were not only released, but also represented Russian cinema at international film festivals with great success. In 1980-1990, the director worked intensively, often filming several films a year. At the same time, he took part in charity programs for youth on the radio, and worked with a group of young aspiring directors at the Lenfilm film studio.

In 1998-1999, he hosted a series of programs “Sokurov’s Island” on St. Petersburg television, in which the role of cinema in modern culture was discussed.

In 2010, Sokurov’s workshop was opened at the Department of Cinema and Television of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after Kh. M. Berbekov in Nalchik.

On September 10, 2011, at the 68th Venice Film Festival, Alexander Sokurov received the main prize - the Golden Lion and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for the film Faust, which completed the cycle that he called a “tetralogy about power”: “Moloch” - “Taurus” - “ The Sun" - "Faust". At the presentation of the main prize, jury chairman Darren Aronofsky noted that “the decision was unanimous: this is a film that changes the life of everyone who sees it.”

In December 2011, the Consul General of Japan in St. Petersburg, on behalf of the Japanese imperial family, presented Sokurov with the honorary Order of the Rising Sun with golden rays. .

In 2015, the director’s next film, “Francophonie” (produced in France, Germany and Holland), was released, in which he was both the scriptwriter and the director.

Alexander Sokurov plans to finish the trilogy begun with the films “Mother and Son” and “Father and Son” - the project is called “Two Brothers and a Sister”. The director also has plans to make one historical film and a picture related to ancient Russia of the 12th-13th centuries.

What is he famous for?

One of the most famous Russian film directors in the world, Alexander Sokurov became a participant and laureate of many international festivals. Retrospectives of his films are held almost every year in different countries around the world. He has repeatedly received awards from international film festivals, the FIPRESCI Prize, the Tarkovsky Prize, is a laureate of the Russian State Prize (1997) and a laureate of the Vatican Prize - “Third Millennium Award” (1998).

Sokurov was nominated 43 times for prizes at the most prestigious film competitions, of which he won 26 times.

In 1995, by decision of the European Film Academy, the name of Alexander Sokurov was included among the hundred best directors of world cinema.

What you need to know

Alexander Sokurov is actively involved in urban protection activities. For several years he has been heading a public group of urban protection activists, the so-called “Sokurov Group,” which has been conducting a dialogue with the city authorities on the topic of preserving old St. Petersburg.

In May 2011, Sokurov joined the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage under the government of St. Petersburg.

But already in 2013, the director, tired of defeats in the fight with the city authorities, announced his intention to stop public and urban protection activities. “I think that I will leave this activity completely, because I am not the person who can have any qualitative influence on this process. I can’t change anything, I’ve been doing this for almost seven years and I don’t see any results,” Sokurov explained his decision. The director also called the situation that developed at the Lenfilm film studio his personal defeat.

“I was defeated in opposing the death of Lenfilm. And this is one of the most serious problems that will continue to exist for me for some time. Although I haven’t filmed at Lenfilm for a long time,” Sokurov said.

However, in June 2016, it became known that Alexander Sokurov was part of the initiative group to prepare a citywide referendum on the admissibility of the appearance of a bridge named after Akhmat Kadyrov in St. Petersburg and sent a letter to the governor of St. Petersburg Poltavchenko with an appeal to prevent this.

Direct speech

About the state: " The state is not a developing structure, not designed to improve life: only to preserve itself. This applies to all modern forms of state." .

About cinema: " Cinema is rapidly aging at an ever-accelerating pace. The more artistic the film gets, the faster it gets old. Only documentaries or those that are on the verge of documentary do not age. And gaming is deteriorating at a catastrophic rate. Five or six years pass and the film is no longer needed.”

About his film “Faust”: “ I don’t see any rental prospects here. The time in cinemas is scheduled, and it is not for Russian films. Well, maybe one or two halls in Moscow will give several sessions...” .

About renting your paintings: “ In terms of distribution, I can say one thing: no one has ever suffered a loss with my films - and there have never been any problems with their showing abroad. We can’t get through to the audience.” .

Arseny Tarkovsky about Sokurov’s first film:“Look at the film called “The Lonely Voice of a Man”... The actors in this film are not actors or even amateurs, but just people from the street. At the same time, there is some strange style, a cut - some strange aspects, there are pieces that I simply, openly, envy, because I will never be able to film... I can say that in some In other scenes I could have gone higher, but I have never done this... There is a piece in black and white, shot in rapid-fire and... silent. It's not even one frame. There are four brilliant shots there. ...you know that just for this one picture... Do you remember Vigo?.. He made two pictures, and he is already a genius, he has remained for centuries... Level! Do you remember “Zero for behavior”? Sokurov has strange things, inexplicable, even stupid, seemingly incomprehensible, incoherent... But... a genius! The hand of a genius..."

Publicist Yan Smirnitsky about Sokurov:“He is not the chairman of the Union of Cinematographers. He does not drive on the median with a flashing light (or without). His name, at best, was associated with Tarkovsky, and not with the development of budgets, the increase in space, etc. He is out of this game. And he managed to live to 60 with clean hands, without taking on his karma all the main sins of our filmmakers, the main one of which is betrayal of oneself in the profession. So he is a black sheep in everything. There is no other way to remain human today.”

5 facts about Alexander Sokurov

• While studying at VGIK, Sokurov was an excellent student and received a personal scholarship from S. Eisenstein.
• As his thesis, Sokurov shot the feature film “The Lonely Voice of a Man” based on the works of Andrei Platonov, but the management of the institute did not accept the film. The filmed material was subject to destruction. Sokurov and Arabov hacked into the archive and stole the positive copy and source materials of the film, replacing them with others. Subsequently, the film received several prestigious festival awards.
• In difficult times, when Sokurov’s films were not released, Andrei Tarkovsky twice organized for him to travel abroad, but the director, according to him, was held back by fears for the fate of his relatives and the treasures of the Hermitage: “Then I was held back by the thought of loved ones - what would happen to my parents, sister, this was not a completely legal way to leave the USSR. And then I found the Hermitage, I could go there two or three times a week and just sit. And I began to look at Russia differently.”
• The idea for Sokurov's film "Russian Ark" (2002) was formulated back in 1980, and the director waited twenty years for the technical possibility to realize it. The film, shot in 1 hour 27 minutes 12 seconds “in one shot” in one take (that is, without stopping the camera and editing cuts), became the only Russian film that is included in the list of the best films in history. This list is compiled every 10 years based on a survey of more than 800 of the world's most famous film critics.
• In addition to feature films, Alesandr Sokurov has made more than 30 documentaries.

Materials about Alexander Sokurov