Demons of the week

The first to pay attention to the telecritic Arina Borodina - how the grid of the Rossiya television channel on May 25 was flashed: 17:50 - “Demons”, 20:00 - “News of the Week”, 22:00 - “Demons”, 0:30 - “Sunday evening with Solovyov”. The mini-series "Demons" will be shown within one day-the day of the presidential election in Ukraine. What demons is hinting at the TV channel, of course; The sequence itself, in turn, gave rise to a wagon of jokes: “Demons with Vladimir Solovyov”, “Sunday Demons”, “Demons of the Week”, etc.

The director of the series "Demons" Vladimir Khotinenko is actually everything is good. No, besides jokes, now is his time.

It film “demons” - where everything, including the name, is saturated with the spirit of conservatism and anti -Modernism. Here it would be possible to present that “Dostoevsky is deeper” - but Khotinenko does not invent anything, strictly follows the plot. And, perhaps, we can agree that Dostoevsky himself - about this; And, of course, you can’t imagine the best for today's propaganda. There is some simplification - the figure of the investigator is introduced instead of the narrator; All revolutionaries are smeared with one paint; But all this can also be attributed to genre assumptions.

Khotinenko is not just a conservative, but a monarchist - he does not hide his views; Although, of course, he shot “demons” as a work of art, even before any Kiev events, in the summer of last year (he first wanted to modernize, transfer the film to the beginning of the twentieth century, but then abandoned this idea ). Is it possible to say that this is an ideological movie? Yes, of course; But the views of the artist in this case completely coincide with the ideology of power.

Khotinenko himself has said many times that he did not see anything bad in the state order (we recall that he shot the first custom -made movie in the latter time - “1612”), and when he was asked about this, he cites the example of Andrei Rublev or Leonardo da Vinci - that, they say, the state order did not prevent the artist from creating great.

In general, Khotinenko shot a completely sincere movie, which says that the enemies of order and law are aesthetes, students and intellectuals; Those who believe in Kant and Marx, and not in God. The idea of ​​Khotinenko can even be understood so that the enemies of Russia, in principle, are excessive reflection and aesthetics. That the aesthetics in itself is already evil for Russia - because it destroys the root, instinctive ethics of the people. That evil begins with provocative art projects, and ends with cutting icons; And then already murders and riots. Moreover, again, Dostoevsky has everything. And if you look at this through the eyes of an ordinary conservative, then he must skip off the chair, beat himself on his knee and say: “Exactly! It was just like that! Masha, go look - everything is like ours! " Evil can be recognized by some physiognomic signs-by the Moscow Art Theater of Verkhovensky.

After all, Putin is also an artist.

Finally, Khotinenko wants to say that evil is something brought, initially not inherent in Russia. Here is this town - in which the bad suddenly begins to occur - this is Russia; And the bad was brought with them by strangers, unhealthy people. Evil always comes to Russia “from somewhere from there,” says the author and, surrounding Stavrogin with a mystical halo (thunder, lightning and wings behind his back), only emphasizes him, evil, foreignness. Stavrogins have always been and will be guests here, the author tells us. And the police, women and men, smart investigators - they are mulberry, they have always been and will be here.

But still, Khotinenko wants to remain in history not a propagandist, but an artist.

And the authorities - in the person of the TV channel "Russia" - enters with the artist amazingly. Building the series on the special “Hate Day”, into the context of anti -Ukrainian propaganda, it seems to be given to the artist where his place is with all his ideas and claims to artistry. It thus levels all its meanings, simplifies them to impossibility and inserts them as cartridges into its patronage tape; For a machine gun, which will be scribbled on May 25 by the enemy without interruptions. Evening, even ideological, but cinema of little independence and offering to consider it as a kind of information attack. Settling the problems of modernity as demonstration and other intellectual pranks.

This is a kind brilliant - with one wave of the pen (or the mice that they have there) to turn the artist with all his ambitions into part of the propaganda machine.

This story is instructive in several points. Firstly, for those contemporary artists who live in the belief that the artist can remain free and deep, to do “something of their own”, observing the rules of the game with the state. There are also a number of artists who believe that if you sincerely love power, then it will answer the same. The answer is: there is no independent within the framework of ideology. Whatever you do for the state, everything will be used by him for himself, and not for the benefit of a work or artist.

Many here argued - whether Putin is changing, it does not change - these are all high matters; But you can say for sure: a system built by one person has become more jealous over these 14 years. At first, she could not allow political competitors, and now she does not tolerate even an artist nearby - even “socially close”.

Khotinenko made a completely sincere movie, which says that the enemies of order and law are aesthetes, students and intellectuals.

This, of course, is a story about another well -known person. Once, in the endless times of the series “Thaw” and the Olympics, in the past era, his case was considered a unique, almost impossible option “to remain a decent person and at the same time achieve success”. Konstantin Ernst claimed the role of the humanizer, the softener of the customs of Putin’s Russia, such a “Leonardo under Putin”. There was a weak hope that the grandiose show at the opening of the Olympics can even affect Putin (and we remember his face during this show, he was really shocked). The program was agreed in advance - all the same, Ernst on this day became a competitor to Putin, offering his own version of Russia. Universal, multicultural, organically inscribed in the world and European context. No need to go anywhere, as he said, - everything is already. Take and use it. Live.

Immediately after the Olympics, we saw Putin’s answer - his own production, where all the symbolic acquisitions, all “European” was thrown back, put into scraps, all illusions - which have accumulated over 23 years. Moreover, Putin created his work with the same means - put forward mobile structures on stage, sculpted the men, changed the scenery. He did everything to emphasize the difference between “Russia” and “Europe”. It was the answer not only to Ukraine, but also to Ernst. Putin laughed at Ernst and his contexts and hints. Of course, he did not do all this specifically for Ernst, but it turned out symbolically - Putin is also an artist.

There were many conservative turns in Russia, but the peculiarity of the current one is that the person who arranged him is jealous even to the artist. The position of Leonardo, the softener of morals, is now abolished. There can be no “educators under the emperor”, the audacity even to claim this role. Those who dream of becoming the “nightingale of the state order” are mistaken - they will not even have the minimum rights that the court artists of the past had. Now the power itself wants to be an artist - and she needs all the rest to bring brushes, paints and beekeepers. From any Da Vinci now they make “Davinki” - from the word “crush”. The court artist will be trolling, like Ilya Glazunov, advising him “a sword more authentic” , or as a contemporary theater . Mikhalkov is smart and burned, he was the first to understand - wasn’t he dictated by the hardcore “Tired of the Sun - 2”? Did he not specifically bring the topic to the point of absurdity - so that the authorities could not “appropriate” him; For her, it would be too radical.

The authorities want to be now to everyone - and at the same time. To be a conservative here, and across the border, by the stream, is a radical Chegovara. To create reality - with the involvement of millions - and immediately cancel it. To be both war and the world - at the same time. Be all.

Therefore, the first after the suspension of the conventional project “Novorossiya” will be the conservatives of the conservatives, soil-state-state-owners-who in these two months might think that they were power here. The fate of Prokhanov and other supporters of the “Russian world” is unenviable-a person who started all this and will start something else, does not want to share fame with anyone, even in such a subtle aspect.

The same story happened with Khotinenko, although, of course, on a smaller scale. He had his own ideas, he wanted to speak on behalf of a conservative class, on behalf of numerous supporters with a protective manifesto - and this would even be interesting to discuss under other circumstances. But now - what to argue with him when the discussion is conducted with the help of a hammer; And the series “Demons” in this context is perceived by no more than one of the nails, interrupting between urgent news from Ukraine. The host Solovyov will say: here, we just saw with you, expensive viewers, how all the revolutions end (and the audience in the studio will applaud), and now let's move on to the events in Ukraine. And the next morning he will not remember such a series and his director - there will be other demons.