Star ticket

The final screening of the Kuleshov Effect program: “Mary Pickford kiss” Sergei Komarov and the Swedish Free Dzhaz on August 27 in the Museon Park.

In the yard 1927, on the screen is the diversity of human faces. Reception is frequent in the cinema of those years. The camera peers in living features, enjoys types and tries to capture the mass-the protagonist of the Soviet 20s. True, in this case, for some reason, the persons are mainly lady. Having bulging their eyes and losing their mouths, the ladies look towards the viewer, as if in front of them are some kind of unprecedented sight. What did they see there? Cossacks? Demonstration? Insurrection?

But there is nothing like that. A pretty girl in a Russian kokoshnik and an impressive mustachioed gentleman warmly wave their hands and smile. This is Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbenks. Stars, which are usually written about on the first lanes of newspapers. Now they are in Moscow, and their visit caused unprecedented excitement. And it is not surprising: their popularity did not bypass Soviet Russia. All Soviet boys want to be like arcs, and all Soviet girls strive to be like Mary. Moreover, all the operators of the executive committees, stenographers, nurses and librarians, who live even in the most remote district towns, hang their photos in their rooms with paper roses, geraniums and “her love” on the nightstand next to the bed.

The chronicle personnel of the Farbens and Pickford visit in the USSR frames a whole story. Goga Palkin (Ilyinsky) is in love with Dusya Galkin (Anel Sudakevich), but Dusya dreams of meeting some celebrity. In the darkness of the cinema, she looks at Farbens with admiration in the role of Zorro, in the lobby - with envy of the Soviet star, Vera Malinovskaya, who can go to the wardrobe without a queue. The envy of Dusi is clear, Malinovskaya is the only Russian film actress noted by Pickford. The American spoke flattering about the “tall girl with long blond hair”, adding: “It is possible that she will come to America with the assistance of Douglas and mine.”

Goga decides to become a celebrity. A series of gags and comic trials, and here he is at the film studio. He was seen by Pickford itself. One kiss ... and a miracle occurs. The man whom Mary herself kissed! Didn't her star grace come upon him? Isn't he a star now? All men want to be like him, all women want to be with him. A crazy crowd tears his clothes, hunters pay money to celebrities to look at how he lunch, from a window, from under the sofa, even a person with a movie camera climbs from the stove, ready to shoot every movement of it.

The reception that Komarov uses is not new. Even the great comedian Max Linder (the same one in 1913, Moscow students carried in their hands from the station to the hotel) shot his foreign tour, and then inserted these frames into films, but it was Komarov’s use of personnel with celebrities into a meaningful statement.

Some believe that Mary Pickford kiss is a movie about the movie. But this is not entirely true. This “movie operator” of Buster Keaton talks about the mercy of the film, which imperceptibly and compassionately observes us, attaching the importance of all our suffering. Komarov talks about something else. He talks about the aura of cinema, about his devilish obsession, about the stars and their star life.

The mass does not want to comprehend the revolution, the mass wants gossip and movie stars. It is not enough for us to look at the famous actors in the cinema. Anyone who is at least somehow connected with a magic white screen no longer belongs to himself. Every event of his private life is connected with us, with each of us, with those who are monitored by the presentation of Oscar and are able to distinguish Brad Pitt from Angelina Jolie.

And now a whole crowd lined up to spy in the keyhole at Gogi Palkin, and the faces of numerous operators in the frame express their delight, bordering almost erotic lust. Where is there any refine with his "neon demon"! The joy of peeping is almost Hitchcock.

But with all this, “Mary Pickford kiss” is also just a very funny comedy. Light and sometimes quite elegant. Igor Ilyinsky was not accidentally the most popular Soviet comedian of the era, and Anyel Sudakevich was an actress of incredible beauty, unless except with Anna Stan. As it is almost always in the cinema, other movie stars are attracted to talk about the obsession.

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The arrival of the Swedish jazz quartet Nacka Forum is a unique case for Moscow. Firstly, all the musicians of the quartet are residents of the cult of the Portuguese label of Clean Feed -records with their various collaborations went there many times. Secondly, more than half of the quartet outplayed in the famous Fire! Orchestra under the control of the great Mats Gustafsson. Thirdly, by virtue of its origin, Nacka Forum is a great example of the so-called melodic free jazz (let's just remember what sweet melodies can be found in Swedish music-for example, in ABBA songs). Well, fourthly, nacka forum is distinguished by a wonderful sense of humor, which manifests itself in everything-starting with the covers of albums (the latter called “We Are the World” , for example, shows a screenshot of YouTube with a disheveled cat) and ending with music (atypical citation, sounds of mobile mobile phone mobile phones, sounds Yernichka over a freris like over a style). This is what the true freedom is heard. Nacka Forum will come to Russia as a trio - there will not be a smuggler of Johan Bertling, which will drain their sound and make the group sound even more fiercely.