Colored archaic

After Stirlitz and Cinderella, we painted Merry Fellows. Channel One is clearly proud of the coloring: it was shown not just in prime time, but in golden prime time, on Sunday at 19.00. The creators of the color version are confident that it will attract young people. You look at the coloring and do not immediately understand what is annoying? And here's the thing: the film began to look insanely archaic.

"Merry Fellows" by Grigory Alexandrov is perhaps our only classic film that was made in the musical genre - in the Hollywood-Broadway sense of the term. From films with songs and film operettas, which are numerous in the history of Soviet cinema, the musical differs in that the song does not slow down the development of the action (stopped - sang - went on), but actively continues it. In addition, "Jolly Fellows" is a groundbreaking film. There are at least two crazy pieces: the initial, almost five-minute passage of the singing shepherd Leonid Utyosov with the herd, filmed in one shot without editing (in fact, there is one editing cut, but it is disguised); and the second is the brawl of a jazz band during rehearsal, synchronized with the music the band is playing. "Merry Fellows" was filmed by revolutionary cameraman Vladimir Nielsen, who was shot in 1938 on charges of counterrevolutionaryism.

To show on TV the original version of the film with an explanation of what kind of innovation to pay attention to in it - young people prone to cinematography might really have pecked. But the painted "Merry Fellows" ended up in a context alien to themselves. They look like a prospectus of a travel company. Sky is blue. The grass is green. The sea is aquamarine. Faces - with a pleasant tan. Everything is not just computer, but glamorous. At the same time, the elderly age of the actors, their faces, and the plot itself do not correspond to the concepts of glamor. They are from great-grandmother's centuries. So it turns out - archaic.

And here is the second trouble: ideology flooded out of the picture. It always seemed that “Circus” (Alexandrov’s next film) with its motive “I don’t know another such country where a person breathes so freely” is already the fulfillment of an ideological order. And "Jolly Fellows" is a joke. Yes, guys and girls who graduated from academies, conservatories and nothing at all, are shown in it as more talented than those who set themselves and aim at the conservatory. But earlier this was seen (as in the roll call of a class-conscious herd of cows, goats and pigs) as Aleksandrov's slight irony over the standards of the time. Now we have a poster: the intelligentsia is a synonym for philistinism.

Many did not like the experience with painted Stirlitz. “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is a graphically verified picture; what are the black SS uniforms worth alone against the background of white walls. In color, the film is terrifying, especially if some other stylish black-and-white spy film of the same years is shown on a parallel channel: “Shield and Sword” or “Dead Season”. Shocking red fascist armbands, which have become the brightest spot in the frame. The episode when the painted Stirlitz watches the black-and-white “Girl of My Dreams” in the cinema, which is actually just color, has become a byword.

But things don't stop. And it is no longer limited to painting. An idea was voiced to translate Alexander Mitta's Crew into 3D. It is not difficult to predict the result. Now "Crew" is a recognized classic. The author of the recent computer superhit "2012" Roland Emmerich stole whole episodes from it. But in 3D, a film made in the pre-computer era would fall into the context of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. And then everyone will understand that technologically it is naive, imperfect, archaic. And why watch it?