Translated material
Twenty years later. Take two...
I will not comment on which people’s artist stole what from which people’s artist. The “mutual outpouring of wash” (Dostoevsky) between two groups of the film community was somehow not very artistic. I don’t know “their morals” well, but deductively I would venture to suggest that the “guardians” steal no worse than the “liberals” - and vice versa. But high titles and other excuses are neither evidence nor justification - just one of the circumstances of the case.
There are three interesting things about all this nonsense.
Mikhalkov.
His opponents.
The symbolic meaning of this whole story.
Mikhalkov's motives...
I don't think it's all about money. Nikita Sergeevich is a billionaire (ruble or dollar?). It is unlikely that the income from some “creative holiday homes” worries him much. Of course, a penny saves a ruble, as in the famous joke about a student who killed old women for three kopecks, but Mikhalkov would not get dragged into a scandal for the sake of this despicable copper.
Another explanation: the fussy Mikhalkov is sorry to lose at least one of his 100 posts, at least one of his 200 opportunities to “sit with Putin” once again. This is, perhaps, warmer - especially since love with top management brings more money than all the junk of this “union”.
And yet, I think the main reason is different.
Paratov could not give Larisa away - even if he didn’t really need her. And even more so, he cannot yield to all these... pencils! “I have a rule: don’t forgive anyone anything; otherwise they will forget fear, they will begin to forget.”
Moscow liberals are lucky: “Thank Kharita Ignatievna. I forgive you. Just, my dear, sort people out! I’m going and going, I’m not whistling, but if I run into it, I won’t let you down!” I somehow remembered (I guess I’m not the only one). At some meeting, one National Bolshevik slammed a cake into our Paratov’s suit—not even his mustache. After that, the hunter woke up in his bed - with a wild whistle, he jumped into the hall, personally supervised the capture of the attacker and, when two guards were holding his hands, he kicked him right in the face, from the heart!.. Then, however, the most Christian director explained that there was nothing like that, it was just a photomontage. Okay, this time there were no editors...
All in all. Mikhalkov, it seems to me, would have left if the union had humbly accepted Porechenkov. But you, gentlemen, deign to rebel, raise your tail against the master, sedition has started? Great! So let's see who will take it!
Mikhalkov started the war for exactly the same main reason why the United States attacked Iraq, Russia attacked Georgia, Georgia attacked Ossetia. Pride = pride + credit.
Mikhalkov's opponents.
I won’t go through their names and motives...
“Woe to the vanquished” - especially if they are clearly FEARING their conqueror. “If you are afraid, don’t do it; if you do, don’t be afraid.” It was clear that Mikhalkov - at least for these quite obvious reasons of pride, noble arrogance and Paratov's mustachioed brutality - would not retreat. His resources - administrative, monetary, just acting and vocal - are well known to everyone.
So how could adults get into a fight if they are AFRAID of the enemy? And if they are not afraid, why did they not accept open battle at the congress? Yes, in unfavorable conditions - and if you want to fight under “most favored nation” conditions, then it’s best to fight right on the couch.
In general, it’s a pitiful picture. I have no sympathy for the “noble pencil people”.
And finally, the main thing.
SYMBOL.
I’m not even talking about the mise-en-scène from “Boris Godunov”: “Oh, have mercy, our father! rule over us! Be our father, our king! In a theater-studio production, the film actor doesn’t look very good...
And it’s not that these people forbid us to pick our noses - on occasion, some of them, oh, how they don’t mind talking “about exploits, about valor, about glory,” and about “civil society.”
And not about the fact that not only in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Tatarstan, Moscow, de facto lifelong rule was introduced, but also in the Russian Academy of Sciences (the president has not changed since 1991 - a record in the history of the Academy after 1917), and now in Union of Cinematographers. And even an ATTEMPT to legally change leadership is perceived as an attack on the foundations, for which - “word and deed”, the whip and Siberia! Well, the people and the people's intelligentsia are united. A single, so to speak, archetype, paradigm and... what other clever words can be used to explain that we are given the authorities by God, and if for some reason they (the authorities) demand that we “elect” them, then we will do so, Let’s endure everything without complaint, without even asking why these undertakings are needed, sir...
But the main symbol lies elsewhere.
“We were once trotters” - about 20 years ago a “revolutionary congress of the cinematographers’ union” took place.
Lightning flashes of civil anger flashed there, and Mikhalkov got the worst of it; he almost got kicked out of the podium (and he’s still moving his mustache to this day!). From that congress, in fact, “public policy” began in the USSR.
Many participants of the congress (the majority) are alive and not far away - they were probably at the last congress. But the play changed... Instead of Schiller’s “The Robbers”, with the motto “against tyrants!” We put “Truth is good, but happiness is better.”
The symbol is so clear that one cannot help but wonder what happened?
The country has changed. “The iron winter died - and there were no traces left.”
Then, 15-20 years ago, Mikhalkov himself was no stranger to sedition - in the spirit of the times, he filmed his “Burnt by the Sun” for an Oscar. Well, and now - in the spirit of the times - “Burnt by the Sun-2” for the State Prize. (And - also in the spirit of the times - a blockbuster cannot be finished... And also, by the way: the title “Burnt by the Sun” for a state-patriotic film about the Victors in the Second World War sounds a little... strange).
The artists are again “with my people, where my people unfortunately were.”
20 years ago, people wanted, if not freedom, then at least bread and circuses.
Now there is bread, football and Sobchak are in place. And the artists, sensitive to the moment - then they were burning with civil anger, now they limit themselves to dividing up chairs, perhaps in one of them there will be a precious filling...
And one last thing.
“Once upon a time we were trotters” - and then?
“...And we knew dashing riders.” So - about the riders.
During that revolutionary congress, A.N. stood behind the film fighters. Yakovlev is a member of the Politburo who actually led the ideological restructuring. I don’t know whether anyone coordinated their theses with Yakovlev. But everyone felt his “roof” - everyone understood that they were rebelling against the authorities under the guise of the authorities.
This is how revolutions are made in Russia...
No, of course, the desires of higher power also do not appear on their own, they do not appear from a trembling of the left calf, they also obey the spirit of the time, etc. etc. This is all clear.
But without an impulse from above, the car does not move - somehow this is how it is designed.