Two loneliness

On June 19, Channel One begins to show the four -part film Oliver Stone The Putin Interviews. Why did the president need this film - the New Times found out

In 2015, Oliver Stone arrived in Russia to work on the feature film about Edward Snowden. It was then that he met Vladimir Putin. In parallel, Stone as a producer worked on the documentary “Ukraine on the Fire”. Putin agreed to state his vision of events in the Crimea and in the Donbass for the picture. Apparently, the interlocutors liked each other: one interview was not limited to one interview, the director and president repeatedly met in two years. Stone shot 30 hours of conversations with Putin, of which four were included in the film. In his Facebook, Stone called “Interview with Putin” (the film will be called simply “Putin”) “Putin”) “The Culture of the Career”. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov still said in the spring that both the president and his administration “premieres are looking forward to”. In America, on the Showtime channel, the film was released on June 12, just when riot police beat and detained people chanting “Putin - thief!” In Moscow and St. Petersburg

Oscar -winning non -conformist

Stone came to the cinema after the war in Vietnam - a veteran with military injuries and combat awards. His debut was a short film about the war, and later the so -called “Vietnamese Trilogy” - the feature films “Pillars”, “Born the Fourth of July” and “Heaven and Earth” - made it famous. “Salt” - “Oscar” for the best directorial work, “Born on the fourth of July” - also, Stone still has an Oscar for the best script. Glory and authority is enough to calmly and consciously tease the film critics and political observers of liberal American media. Stone is being scared, his last films are not particularly popular, but when you have three Oscars, this is not so important.

In America, on the Showtime channel, the film was released on June 12, just when riot police beat and detained people chanting “Putin - thief!” In Moscow and St. Petersburg

Since the mid-1980s, Stone-documentary has been specializing in criticism of the US and American establishment policy. In this sense, “Putin” is a logical continuation of all his films, starting with Salvador (1986), which shows the atrocities “Contrass” supported by the Ronald Reagan administration. He shot Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, trying to prove that America excessively demonizes these leaders, who, from the point of view of Stone, are simply fighters for sovereignty and prosperity of his own countries. Putin fits completely into this series.

In recent years, Russian television channels are willingly showing the pictures of Stone. The director, of course, solves his own political and artistic problems, provoking the political elite of the States. But his cinema lies perfectly in the channel of Russian propaganda. Therefore, the Russians could see “Ukraine in the fire” (where Ukraine after the Maidan is shown by the estates of the neo -Nazis), and the “unexplored history of America” (a film about how the United States tried to control the whole world for a hundred years, supporting terrorist regimes and shade warfare).

And this seems to be family - since 2015, the son of the director Sean has been working on the Russia Today television channel.

Hard interlocutor

According to the NT source close to the presidential administration, the initiative to make the film came from Stone. Stone himself, in an interview with Rossiy Gazeta, claims that the film was financed exclusively at the expense of producers and “partners in Latin America and England”. “The Kremlin hardly planned the film as some kind of propaganda special operation,” political analyst Alexander Morozov agrees with this version. “We decided: if it turns out well, it will come in handy for the image, if bad, there will be no big trouble.” The head of the Effective Policy Fund, Gleb Pavlovsky, in a conversation with NT, emphasizes: after working on the film “Ukraine on the Fire” in the Kremlin, they knew that Stone is “a suitable person for conversations with Putin”.

The only message that the Russian should count from the screen is short and simple: the international isolation of our national leader is myth

Stone’s desire is understandable: in 2015, when he began to make a film, this was just another way to annoy the American elites. By the time of the release, the conjuncture has only improved - now Putin (Anti) Hero number one for the world media, a person who is able to intervene in the American elections, the main villain of modernity. Naturally, the interest in the work of Stone only fakes up. Full texts of all interviews of the film were published in the United States with a separate book. "Know your enemy!" - calls the slogan of the film, and the Americans really want to know their enemy.

It is more interesting to figure out why Putin needed all this. According to Pavlovsky, for example, Putin simply “needs an interlocutor”, in a person who “would tell him that his, Putin, the picture of the world is true.” Putin needs a person who will explain to him that he, Putin, correctly understands the structure of world politics and his place in it. Stone is famous for his anti -Americanism, besides, he is an external and status person. “Such a film could be made by Vladimir Solovyov or Mikhail Leontyev,” says Pavlovsky NT, “but they are a second -class people for Putin. And Stone is a real first variety. ” It turns out in such a way that Stone decides more psychotherapeutic for Putin than image or political technological tasks.

Hits and misses

“But pragmatist is also important,” Pavlovsky stipulates. - Of course, Putin takes into account the number of film screenings per capita, and not only in Russia ”( the film will be shown in Germany, France, England and Israel. - NT). “For the Western audience, of course, the result will be insignificant,” says Alexander Morozov. “There everyone knows well that Stone is a political freak by his eyes.”

If the propaganda effect of the film was not planned in advance, then, for sure, the post -fact is calculated. “For deep Russia,” says Morozov, “there will be a certain effect. The viewer will see that in the USA there are normal guys who understand how correct we do everything. ” The Russian viewer, an experienced consumer of state propaganda, of course, will not see anything especially new. Over the past 17 years, we have been told so many things about Putin, which is already not any closer and relatives in the world. The only message that the Russian should count from the screen is short and simple: the international isolation of our national leader is myth. The most famous director, three times an Oscar -minister, is ready not just to talk to him for hours, but to yell and assent.

The viewer is being prepared: information agencies publish retelling of individual fragments of the film for the second week, stories about how it was mounted, as well as Stone's comments on all issues of being. The television channels, forgetting about competition, announce the prime minister of the first. And, undoubtedly, after the official release of the film, he will be enthusiastically discussed in all political talk shows.

Alexander Morozov suggests that the film is one way or another (for example, through the RT channel) they will see “in knowingly anti-American audiences”: in Latin America, in Southeast Asia. “And there will be an effect there,” the political scientist is sure.

But the main viewer, like any show, the film of Stone has one in Russia. He is the main character. He needs confidence that he is still right in everything, and can safely win the next elections. He makes no mistakes. It is not in isolation (in the end, the military operation in Syria was started to overcome international isolation; against this background, thirty hours of conversations with a famous director are not such a serious matter). In this sense, Putin is the same ordinary viewer as everyone else, and the film brings him the same message.

“He needs someone who will help to feel that he is not alone. Anyway, who. It is no coincidence that he throws him to the leftists, like Stone, then to ultra-right, then at all for film artists who demonstrate a desire to live in Russia, even if they do not live later, ”says Pavlovsky.