"I don't know what to say to students"

Temur Chkheidze - about cinema, theater, illusions, compromises and post -Soviet syndrome

Temur Chkheidze, People's Artist of Georgia and Russia, laureate of the 1986 Lenin Prize for the film "Your Son, Earth!", Where he played the role of the secretary of the district committee. In Soviet times, he headed the Marjanishvili Theater, after the collapse of the USSR in different years was the chief director and artistic director of the Tovstonogov BDT in St. Petersburg. In recent years, he lives and staged performances in Tbilisi, at the Royal Quarter Theater.

- The Soviet government generously financed culture, theaters received solid money from the state. The salaries of folk artists were comparable to the salaries of professors at universities, not to mention fees for participating in films. In today's Georgia, power takes care of culture, as the Communists did a quarter century ago?

- Not always. But I can’t say that we are deprived of all support. Looking objectively at the situation, at the general position in the country - the theater is not abandoned to the mercy of fate, they help us if possible.

- Does the theater survive?

- Yes. But in Soviet times there were no so many theaters. I do not presume to judge whether it is good or bad. The situation will show what is destined to survive, what is not. Competition and audience interest show which theater people are more inclined, which theater is more trusted with. But most importantly, there is no or almost no censorship. In Soviet times, we learned the willy-none of her cleverly bypassing her. Now we can talk about anything. Another question is, does this, paradoxically, dull our imagination? Roughly speaking, thirty years ago we could not put a performance that ends with the slogan "Down with Soviet power!". (Laughs.) Of course not! Now, in general ...

Temur Chkheidze

- ... You can put the play "Down with Ivanishvili!" Or "Down with the president!"?

- You can ... the theater will not be closed, but this is a frontal move. He is primitive, has nothing to do with a direct art. The frontal move is a slogan and a poster. The poster cannot move art. There is no subtext in it. One of the best posters during the war-"Mother Mother is calling!" Correct for your time, but this is a flat image. Art should not be one -dimensional.

- How do you evaluate your cooperation with the Tovstonogov BDT? Did you feel like a foreigner in Russia with a Georgian passport?

- If I felt a stranger to the BDT, I would not be there for 22 years. He staged performances here and here, on average six months in St. Petersburg, six months in Tbilisi. I collaborated with the Tovstonogov Theater before the collapse of the USSR, then Kirill Lavrov was the leader, I am the main director. I was accepted, felt in my own family. After leaving Lavrov, he headed the theater, and for five years he was an artistic director. Naturally, he could no longer go back and forth, for the sixth year he returned to Tbilisi, because ... It is time to know the honor.

Returned to Tbilisi, because ... it's time and honor to know

- In the Soviet Union, large writers were considered the author of the Blockade of Chakovsky, Yuri Bondarev, Georgy Markov, Vasily Belov and many others ... After the collapse of the USSR, interest in them was lost. Did the same revaluation of the cultural elite occur in Georgia?

- Probably, it happened, but it could happen without any collapse of the Union. Those with whom this happened did not enjoy special popularity and love in Georgia. There is time-a judge, and not some political attitudes.

- Not quite so. For example, if you studied at a Soviet school, you were obliged to read Fadeev’s “Young Guard” and the “Tale of a real man” of Field. Now these writers are not in the school curriculum.

- My older children went to Soviet school, but they no longer read the "Young Guard."

- Is it good or bad?

- This is a given. Good or bad - I don't know. I remember how frightened I was when, after the collapse of the Union, a writer as Gorky was threatened. It seems to me that it is necessary to forget the certain body movements after the revolution. Gorky is a big writer, his prose, his play ... And time proved, irritation to Gorky went somewhere, and in the theater "at the bottom" or "summer residents" remained. This is the main thing when I say that time will still judge. Then, at first after the collapse of the USSR, they didn’t want to hear about Gorky at all!

-If you get to Moscow during the holidays, you will see people with the portraits of Stalin at demonstrations, they will put a bust somewhere, they can build a museum. The authorities do not see in this negativity, somewhere even encourages these initiatives. In Georgia, you can see longing for the generalissimo?

- I think no! Of course, there are people who say: "Stalin is an outstanding personality! You can’t remove it from history like that. Time will pass - it will arrange in its place." True, the Lord does not give that such a time return. Imagine what will happen to my children and my grandchildren. I don't want to return the era!

Imagine what will happen to my children and my grandchildren. I don't want to return the era!

- What illusions did you have to part after the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991?

- With no one ... illusions are what is laid in the family, in school, in youth. A person has accumulated them from the moment of birth. It seems to me that the rest of life is an attempt to realize what you dreamed about in early youth or even in childhood.

- How does Soviet aesthetics live in Georgian culture? Did you have to put performances on the anger of the day?

- I didn't. But I can’t say - everything was bad in the USSR, oh, how we were choking. There were certain obstacles, obstacles, but the situation forced to come up with allegorical moves so that this reaches the viewer. We managed to somehow pass these barriers. Then time changed, gradually became more liberal, even during the USSR.

- Have you had to compromise in creativity?

- A compromise is when you remove, you eliminate a certain thought, a certain direction in the name of what is not accepted. I did not fundamentally change something in comparison with the idea. I was lucky. I always put what I wanted. Always! And in this regard, I am a pamper of fate.

Temur Chkheidze

- In 1980, you starred in the film director Rezo Chkheidze "Your Son, Earth!" They played the secretary of the district committee, later the Lenin Prize received for this role. How did your fans and critics react to this work?

- Differently. I remember we asked Nikita Mikhalkov in Moscow, I was not so familiar with him, but somehow stood next to him when he shook our hands, and our operator Lomer Akhvlediani asked: "Nikita, tell me honestly, we did well, did you like the picture?" “I tell you honestly,” said Mikhalkov, “if here in Russia they shot a picture of the secretary of the district committee, it would be a meeting from beginning to end, and you shot a film about the land that I must save! And I liked this approach.”

- How did Georgian critics react to the film? Your press is spoiled by the works of Tengiz Abuladze, Otar Ioseliani, Eldar Shenglay, there are other interesting directors ... "Your son, Earth!", The picture shot in a completely different style.

- The picture was that it was necessary to save the Earth and no one except us would save it. I have determined for myself that no political or state formation frees a person from conscience. Every person must have a conscience! For myself, I decided: as long as this system is, you need to make a maximum to use it in the name of salvation of the Earth!

- Your secretary of the district committee looked like those that you saw in life?

- Several people knew - secretaries who acted, demanded everything to save the situation as much as possible! Frankly, I am not an actor, I did not try to enter the image. This is not the case when I, Temur Chkheidze, play another invented person. I walked from myself, from my biomechanics and organics.

- How did the secretaries of the district committee evaluate your work when you saw the image of an official on the screen?

- In general, good. They liked what we showed them indifferent people, they saw a hero who tries to do something.

- Was it not a poster hero?

- I think no. We did everything so that this would not happen. On the contrary, I remember in the picture, three or four times my hero fell simply into a hopeless situation, where he no longer knew how to be ... But he did not fight the Soviet government, but he had to ...

- You do not regret that you took part in such a project based on today?

- I sincerely think, well, it fell to our share that we were born in Soviet times and spent the bulk of life there. I always believed that there is no need to whine and endlessly suffer about this. Let's do something! In the theater, in the cinema and everywhere. Justify yourself by the fact that "I am unique, but here is such a system", no.

Justify yourself by the fact that "I am unique, but here is such a system", no need

-After receiving the Lenin Prize, some incentives always follow. The government offers cars, allocates apartments, imported furniture, etc. What did you get?

- With an apartment - I have been waiting for 8 years. Someone would use this more quickly, I took it calmly. I did not refuse, but did not go to ask.

-And the prestigious Volga GAZ-24? According to the status of the laureate of the Lenin Prize, she is supposed to him out of turn.

- received the one who had money. That is, the laureate could buy a car for his price, but I do not.

-The apartment was given in some prestigious area of the city?

- In the normal area where I still live.

- How did the director Rezo Chkheidze use the Lenin Prize to further move his career?

-The director of Rezo Chkheidze, he is the author of the famous painting "Father of the Soldier", the head of the Georgia-Film film studio, he had nowhere to move further. He is a well -known person, popular, alas, a year ago he was gone. The "father of the soldier" is still shown on all channels. Zakariadze is brilliantly playing. If he used something, then not for personal purposes, but as much as possible for the studio. At that time, Georgia-Film flourished.

- film "Kodak", cameras "Ariflex" and other imported technology ...

- Not only ... the statement of the script that did not take place in high instances. Rezo Chkheidze is a unique human type ... All the time I was surprised how he manages to solve problems. Here is a shooting, a colossal scene, 800 people, and at this time he says: "Stop! Mall me from the crane!" It is associated with someone by phone. What's happened? "So, got ready, everyone!" And he later says to me: "Listen, they do not say (someone) in Moscow. I called him. I called now, said that I would fly up for one day." That is, he all the time, despite the fact that he shot his picture, was in the know ...

- What happened around, inside the studio.

- Yes, yes. Or, one rather famous director comes to us on the shoot and says: "For two days, lend me this camera ..." Rezo says: "Yes, give him this camera. We will shoot without this camera." That is, for him a sense of corporate contentment was important. Why didn't you criticize Rezo Chkheidze? Everyone understood that the emergence of such a picture as "your son, earth!", Then could go for the good of the same studio, the same Georgia. The guys who were filming the same, the same Joseliani, Schengila, they understood that such products were also needed to move others. Many were grateful to Rezo Chkheidze about this, a man did good.

- Did you build your life with the expectation that the Soviet Union is eternal?

- No, I built my life on a different principle. It always seemed to me, and even now it seems that the theater should affect not political, but moral issues. We need to talk with the viewer about morality, and then in no case with a index finger. The problem of morality can stand everywhere, and you always have to be on the alert. One step - and you turn into a immoral person yourself. I was more afraid of this than any political cataclysms.

Nani Bregvadze

- A couple of days ago, Nani Bregvadze talked with the People's Artist of the USSR. She is pleased that in Russia she is so represented. Would you be proud of such a title?

- Don't know. I am a People's Artist of Georgia and Russia. I can’t say that in the morning, waking up, I am proud of this, but, in any case, then it was like that - they distributed these same titles.

- You go to the stage of the BDT theater, and you are announced: "People's artist of the Soviet Union Temur Chkheidze!" - Would you be pleased?

- I am one of the first to refuse to write regalia on the poster ... They were written by others, my only name and surname, that's all. "Director Timur Chkheidze." I said: "Do not print - People's Artist. All! Without it!" It is calmly necessary to treat such things.

- What is the cultural trend or vector today in Georgia? What topic dominates? Is there something uniting creators?

- I have no unequivocal answer. Who like. For example, I am busy looking for, and in life too, the first duty of my own mistake. What does this mean in art? It is very thoroughly to develop everything to know where I can make that fatal mistake, which will not be fixed later in my life. Therefore, I do not share what is good and what is bad.

- Georgia lost the last two wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. How much are you worried about this, are these events reflected in your work?

- I worry that there was a war as such, one and the other. Having lost all this, how can I not worry? I don’t know what to say to students. Don't know! Otherwise, I can’t name this as a capture of foreign territories. On the other hand, I always want them, like us, to know Russian culture and respect it - my students, youth. Without reading in the original Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, in my opinion, they will not be full-fledged creators.

Don't know! Otherwise, I can't call it the capture of foreign territories

- On the other hand, you know very well that in the wars the leading role was played by Moscow. Is this reflected in public, on their thinking?

- Naturally!

- And in art? Are films about refugees from Abkhazia, from South Ossetia? Are the dramatic human stories related to the war removed?

- Yes, of course. The film "Mandarins", which was one of the nominees for the Oscar Award, was shot, it is only about it. Performances too. I had to put in the Sukhumsky Theater.

- Do you mean the theater that moved to Tbilisi from Abkhazia with the troupe?

- Yes, with the troupe. This was a performance about how people were opposed to each other at certain points in history, they, by and large, cannot without each other. In a nutshell - this is about that.

- What is the name of the performance?

- There is no accurate translation, this is a line from the poem of Galaxation Tabidze. Literally translates - "Far, Far Sea ...", with a multi -plate. But in Georgian it sounds good.

- Who are the heroes of this work?

- These are the heroes who studied together at school, then at the university, one Abkhazian, the other Georgian. The Georgian, who was on the other side, in general, is not very legal, having arrived in Abkhazia for several days.

- Watch your home?

- Native home is gone. Be on the grave of the father. At night I had to leave this territory. And they met secretly, spent one night together. It was a very difficult conversation. I am pleased that many ... I know the Abkhazians who watched the video cassette, they were surprised that such a performance was in Tbilisi. There was no tendency in the play that “we are right, they are to blame” or vice versa, but what should we do? What should we do tomorrow, where is our mistake, what are we to blame for? Be on the grave of the father. At night I had to leave this territory.

- And the answers to these questions still ...

- There are no answers! Everyone is to blame! Everyone is to blame ...

- On the other hand, if the empire had been preserved, there would be no split and bloodshed. Do you have such a feeling?

-So, something was lushing such that the empire still held this state of unity, which means that it was accumulated for years. The pain accumulated. So then it spilled. I don’t know ... I have no unequivocal answer. All your life you think about where the mistakes are and how to be?

The pain accumulated. So then it spilled. Don't know...

- Do you agree that in Soviet times, Georgia was considered one of the most well -fed republics against the background of everyone else?

- No, I don't think so. This is in a certain sense an exaggeration. The same myth that Georgians were not taken to the front during the Second World War, the Patriotic War, because they are Georgians. I even know such people in Russia. 600 thousand Georgians out of 3 million fought!

- And the image of the rich Georgian in Moscow, which lies with money in Moscow restaurants, replicated in cinema and in jokes?

- Those Georgians who did this remained anecdot and in Georgia too, I dare to assure you. We have little in common with him, although one nation.