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Video: Why did they write a denunciation against the front-line director Chukhrai, who made cult films about the Great Patriotic War
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
May 23 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous film director, screenwriter and teacher, People's Artist of the USSR Grigory Chukhrai. His very first works - films "Forty-first" and "Ballad of a Soldier" - brought him not only all-Union fame, but also world recognition, because they were awarded prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. At the same time, at home, the director had to defend them with a fight, since officials considered them a failure. "The Ballad of a Soldier" was called a film defaming the honor of the Soviet army, and "Forty-first" was even branded after the denunciation, in which the work of the front-line soldier Chukhrai was called "White Guard concoction" …
If someone had the moral right to talk about wartime events, it was Grigory Chukhrai, because he knew about the war firsthand. At the age of 19, he went to the front, became a paratrooper, repeatedly visited the enemy's rear, defended Stalingrad, crossed the front line twice, and was wounded three times. After that, all his life he believed that it was not by chance that he survived the war: "".
War has its own laws
In 1953, Grigory Chukhrai graduated from the directing department of VGIK and began his career in cinema as an assistant director, and then as a second director at the Kiev Film Studio. After 2 years, he switched to Mosfilm, and a year later he shot his debut directorial work - the film Forty-first. He will devote his next picture to the theme of the Great Patriotic War - "The Ballad of a Soldier", and Chukhrai decided to start his journey to the cinema with the theme of the Civil War.
The script was based on the story of the same name by Boris Lavrenev about a woman sniper from the Red Army, who destroyed 40 White Guards, and fell in love with the one who was supposed to become the 41st. The work was written back in 1924 and was already filmed by Yakov Protazanov in 1926. Chukhrai read this story for the first time at the age of 17, and the idea to make a new film adaptation of it arose during the war, when he was in the hospital after the third wound. The recovery was lengthy, the future director fell into the hands of Lavrenev's book, and he pondered the plot and images for a long time.
Later he recalled: "".
Slippery theme
Protazanov's film seemed to Chukhrai tendentious, removed from the "class positions", because the White Guards were villains there, and the Reds were noble heroes. From his own experience, he knew that in war everything is not so simple, that villains are found both among enemies and among their own, that real feelings do not know this division into friends and foes. At the same time, the director understood what pitfalls such an interpretation of events hides. "", - said Grigory Chukhrai.
The director's fears were not in vain. The script had to be rewritten 6 times before it was approved. Chukhrai worked on it in co-authorship with Grigory Koltunov, who saw the main idea of the film in a completely different way: he tried to smooth out the rough edges and condemn the main character Maryutka for her criminal love, and Chukhrai defended the truth of human feelings. At the artistic council, both versions raised great doubts: they say, Soviet cinema should educate the viewer, and not inspire him with the idea that it is possible to fall in love with the enemy. Moreover, the white officer looked noble and intelligent, and the audience's sympathy could be on his side. The fate of the film was decided by Mikhail Romm, announcing that Maryutka did her duty.
Chukhrai removed from the script several episodes written by Koltunov, and the screenwriter did not forgive him for this. The director found out about this later, when he brought the finished material to Mosfilm. The director of the film studio, Ivan Pyriev, summoned him to his office and gave him a blast for the fact that some scenes were not filmed according to the approved script. At the same time, Chukhrai knew that Pyryev had not yet seen the film. As it turned out, he was based on the words of Koltunov - he wrote a denunciation against the director, accusing him of sympathizing with the whites and declaring that he would not put his name "under this dirty White Guard concoction." Chukhrai managed to convince Pyriev to look at the footage before sending it for processing. And he was delighted and gave the go-ahead for the release of "Forty-first" for hire.
World recognition and test of time
The premiere of the film did not bring recognition and popularity to the director. At that time, no one knew about the debutant, and he could not even get into the House of Cinema, where the premiere took place. Ticket ladies stopped him at the entrance and demanded to show a ticket, not believing that this young man in an old suit could really be a director. For help, I had to turn to the famous cameraman Sergei Urusevsky, who was filming "Forty-first" - only after his intervention Chukhrai was allowed to attend the premiere of his own film. And his success at "Mosfilm" was attributed not to the director, but to the operator - the winner of two Stalin prizes.
When Nikita Khrushchev himself approved the film, Forty-first was sent to Cannes. Only after Chukhrai received a special prize "For original script, humanism and romantic greatness" at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957, he was finally talked about at home and his talent was recognized. In Europe, "Forty-first" made a splash, it was called a "red miracle" that does not pursue any didactic goals, except for the affirmation of the greatness and power of love. And in the USSR it was called "a film about courage and duty."
65 years have passed since the picture was released, and time has shown who was right in this dispute. No matter how the attitude towards the White Guards and the Red Army changed in society during this period, Chukhrai's film did not lose its relevance, because it had the main thing - the truth of feelings and characters.
This means that in his very first work, the director managed to realize the credo of his whole life, about which he said: "". Views on the "truth of life" have changed dramatically since the collapse of the USSR, but the truth of art has remained unshakable and imperishable.
Maryutka in "Forty-first" remained the brightest role of this actress, who was allotted only 38 years of life: The Extinct Star of Izolda Izvitskaya.
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