How the life of the "great European of Soviet cinema" changed after the collapse of the USSR: Juozas Budraitis

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The actor can rightfully be called a unique phenomenon in Soviet cinema. And the point is not even that most often he embodied the images of foreigners on the screen. Juozas Budraitis has always been on his own. He was not a full-time employee of film studios and wandered from film to film, and joined the Union of Cinematographers solely in order to avoid punishment for parasitism. But then the era of Soviet cinema ended.

A meeting that changed fate

Juozas Budraitis never dreamed of an acting profession. He was born in a village in central Lithuania, immediately after the war, the family moved to Klaipeda, but she did not live there for long. Already in 1947, due to the threat of deportation, the parents of the future actor, together with their three children, moved to the village again.

At school, Juozas was known as a desperate brave man. He could easily swim across a wide river on a bet, jump over a high fence or play a trick on the teacher. He took part in amateur performances with pleasure, but was not going to connect his life with art.

His father wanted Juozas to become a lawyer, and the young man, while serving in the army, attended evening school in order not to forget the school curriculum and prepare for entering the university. At the Faculty of Law, he chose the specialty "criminal law" and was confident that he would become a good lawyer.

At the university, Juozas Budraitis took part in student productions and even once starred in an episode in a movie, but did not feel any desire to change his future profession. But later, fate gave him a meeting with Vytautas Zhalakyavichyus. The director invited Juozas to play the role of one of the sons of the protagonist in the film Nobody Wanted to Die. And the young man after these shootings was deeply impressed by the director's personality. Budraitis had a desire to meet again with Zhalakevičius on the set.

He did not leave the university, received a law degree and even worked for some time in his specialty. But now he was looking forward to being invited to shoot, hoping to work again with the director who left such a deep mark in his heart. Subsequently, he managed to work with him in the films "The Whole Truth About Columbus" and "This Sweet Word - Freedom!"

Juozas Budraitis never received an acting education, but this did not prevent him from filming a lot. His filmography includes many excellent films: Ut and Sword, Two Comrades Served, King Lear, With and Without You, The Legend of Thiel and many others. In the late 1970s, Juozas Budraitis graduated from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors at the USSR State Committee for Cinematography, however, he did not really work out with directing. He always considered himself a film actor, but the theater did not attract him, although he played several serious roles on the stage.

He was invited to act by the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, but he could not present the script of his future film to Soviet officials from the cinema, and, of course, no one allowed the actor to go abroad.

Between Vilnius and Moscow

At one time, Juozas Budraitis refused to enter the troupe of the Film Actor Theater, even despite the prospect of obtaining an apartment in Moscow. He flew to the capital of the USSR for the shooting, but preferred to live in Vilnius, where his beloved wife Vita and two children, a son and a daughter, were waiting.

He met his wife Juozas Budraitis during his student years. After graduating from university, she became a chemist, but, most importantly, the most honest critic of her husband. Juozas Budraitis is still grateful to his wife for enduring all his whims, endlessly cleaning up the scattered books behind him and supporting his wife in all his wildest endeavors.

It was not for nothing that Juozas Budraitis was called the great European of Soviet cinema. Indeed, on the screen, he often embodied the images of foreigners. And all his life he dreamed of playing a lonely cowboy or a homeless, forgotten tramp. Such characters were close to him in spirit, but they were almost never in Soviet cinema.

Once he was even told that he could be accused of vagrancy. After all, he was not assigned to any office, and if they wanted to call him to military training, it was not even known where he could be found. And he lived from film to film, traveled around the country to shoot, loved to visit friends in Tbilisi and Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad. Only in winter I tried not to act in films, as I liked to spend the cold season in Vilnius.

After Soviet cinema

When the actor is asked how he accepted the disintegration of the country and the disappearance of Soviet cinema, he confesses: he yearns for communication and friendship, and also for his departed youth.

At first, after the collapse of the USSR, Juozas Budraitis succumbed to a general impulse and opened his own cooperative for the sale of folk art, but business turned out to be alien to him, and therefore the actor happily accepted an offer to work in the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where his legal education was very useful to him. And then he was invited to become a cultural advisor at the Lithuanian embassy in Moscow, in this place he served for 15 years.

While working as a cultural attaché Juozas Budraitis, he started filming, using his days off and vacations for this. Even today, he will never refuse to re-enter the frame and breathe in the air of the set. For him, it has a special aroma that cannot be confused with anything.

Juozas Budraitis is still recognized on the streets today, although in Moscow they know him better than in Vilnius. He does not hide the fact that he is pleased with the attention, but much more the actor appreciates the attitude towards himself not as an actor, but as a person. And yet the cinema does not let him go. He continues to act today, and the last work of Juozas Budraitis in the cinema was a small role of an old chess player in the American TV series "Queen's Move".

In Soviet times, the Baltics were considered almost abroad. There was a completely different culture, special traditions, unique architecture, and rare films that were unlike everything else were filmed there. Baltic actors were popular, they were recognized on the streets, their careers and lives were followed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they remained abroad, but interest in the life of Soviet foreigners has not faded to this day.