Behind the scenes of the film "Kalina Krasnaya": Why during the filming Shukshin consulted with the bandits

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

July 25 could have turned 89 years old to the famous Soviet writer, director and actor Vasily Shukshin, but he has not been among the living for 44 years. His last film work and the pinnacle of his creative path was the film "Red viburnum", which has received several prizes at Russian and foreign film festivals. Many interesting details remained behind the scenes: the audience did not know that one of the heroines was not an actress, but a resident of the village in which the shooting took place, and real bandits became the director's consultants.

The shooting of the film "Kalina Krasnaya" at first became a "necessary measure" for Vasily Shukshin: he intended to make a picture about Stepan Razin, but the officials of the State Film Agency set a condition: before working on a historical plot, the director must create a film about modern Soviet reality. And Shukshin chose his story "Kalina Krasnaya" as the basis for the script, which he wrote in 2 weeks.

How Shukshin created this story was told by his wife, actress Lidia Fedoseeva-Shukshina: ""

Difficulties began at the stage of approving the script: Shukshin was even offered to replace the main character - they say, a criminal cannot be in the center of the plot, besides, he turned out to be a positive hero that arouses the sympathy of the audience. Better to make him a law-abiding citizen. But the director managed to defend his character, without which the film would not have taken place at all.

When the director was preparing for filming, he watched a huge amount of archived film materials, and in one newsreel he saw a prisoner singing a song to Yesenin's poems "You are still alive, my old lady." This episode impressed him so much that he decided to include it in the film: "This is where the living soul yearns!" And the name "Kalina krasnaya", according to Lydia Fedoseeva-Shukshina, appeared after her husband heard on the first day of their acquaintance a song with this name in her performance.

The shooting took place in the Vologda region, in the city of Belozersk and surrounding villages. The colony, from which the protagonist Yegor Prokudin came out, used to be the Kirillo-Novozersky monastery on a bulk island. Nowadays, it is a strict regime colony in which criminals with a life sentence are serving their sentences. And the office of the head of the prison was rented in the Kryukov prison near Moscow.

Many scenes were filmed in the semi-abandoned village of Sadovaya (formerly Merinovo). The mother of the main character was supposed to be played by the actress Vera Maretskaya, but she refused at the last moment - she did not want to play the "flawed old woman": "". Then Shukshin decided to shoot a local resident in this role - her resemblance to the heroine of the film was too striking. The fate of Efimya Bystrova was in many ways reminiscent of the story of Yegor Prokudin's mother, and the director asked her to tell about her sons, Lydia Fedoseeva-Shukshina. And the operator filmed this dialogue through the window with a camera installed on the street. The old woman did not even know that the shooting was already underway - she thought that the preparation process was underway.

The shooting involved the famous stuntman and stunt director Nikolai Vashchilin, who more than once worked with Shukshin and other famous Soviet directors. He told: "".

In the process of working on the film, so much material was filmed that the film could well have turned out to be a two-part film, but Shukshin abandoned this idea, cutting out many episodes. But both Mosfilm and Goskino were dissatisfied with the finished material and recommended making so many edits that it was easier to shoot the film again. But when he was taken to Brezhnev's dacha for evening viewing, he approved him and ordered him to be given the highest category.

Cinematographer Anatoly Zabolotsky, who worked with Vasily Shukshin on the set of the films "Pechki-benches" and "Kalina Krasnaya", later published his memoirs: "". After the premiere, Shukshin received several letters from thieves in law - they accused the director of being unreliable, assuring him that former “colleagues” did not kill those who decided to give up their thieves' life.

The film became the leader of the box office - it was watched by more than 62 million viewers - and received several prizes at international film festivals. According to the results of a survey of readers of the magazine "Soviet Screen", he became the best film in 1974, and Vasily Shukshin was named the best actor. Unfortunately, "Kalina Krasnaya" was the last directorial work of Vasily Shukshin. During filming, he turned 45 years old. And six months after the premiere, it became known about his sudden death. People brought clusters of viburnum to his grave.

In the fact that Shukshin burned down so quickly, his wife saw a certain pattern: "".

For many, he remained a mystery, even for those close to him. Maria Shukshina about her father: "I could really understand him only now".