Behind the scenes "Scarecrows": Why the film provoked a scandal, and how the fate of the child actors developed

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

35 years ago, the premiere of this film took place only after the intervention of Andropov - the officials did not want to release it on the screens due to the fact that Soviet children were shown too cruel. Emergence "Scarecrows" caused a very violent reaction from both the audience and the critics: the director Rolan Bykov was accused of excessive portrayal of child cruelty and forcing black paints, not suspecting that the plot was based not on a fictional, but on a real story. A few years later, the film received the USSR State Prize and received positive reviews in the foreign box office. Little actors have earned all-Union popularity, although for many of them these roles were the first and last in their film careers.

The Scarecrow script was created 10 years earlier by Vladimir Zheleznikov. The plot was based on real events. The writer said: "".

Only in 1982 was there a director who decided to film this story - Rolan Bykov. The plot seemed to him very close and understandable, because he himself was persecuted and felt the same outcast as the main character Lena Bessoltseva - after everyone took up arms against him for the film "Aibolit-66".

When everyone found out that Alla Pugacheva's daughter Kristina Orbakaite was starring in the lead role, they decided that she got into the cinema "through pull" and there could not be other applicants. But in fact, the search for an actress for the role of Lena Bessoltseva lasted long enough, the director chose from 17 thousand girls from all over the Soviet Union. And the candidacy of Orbakaite Bykov at first rejected - he said that "". He was looking for an angelic face, blond curls, a naive childish look. But then I realized that I was wrong: "". The heroine must still be strong-willed - after all, purity must be protected and defended. And Christina was approved for the role. On the fifth day of filming, she broke her arm, but did not refuse further work and, despite the objections of her mother, continued to go to the set in a cast, wrapped in a scarf.

They also searched for the main character for a long time. Dmitry Egorov's friend auditioned for the role of Dima Somov, and he came with him for the company. "", - he admitted later. But it was he who was approved, and so the only son of Natalya Kustinskaya, the adopted child of cosmonaut Boris Egorov, with whom she was married at that time, got on the set. Unfortunately, the fate of Dmitry Yegorov subsequently developed tragically: he graduated from the Faculty of Economics of MGIMO, got married, but after the death of his young son, his wife began to drink, and after her, Yegorov himself became addicted to alcohol. In 2002, he died under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was heart failure, but his mother Natalya Kustinskaya was sure that her son had been killed.

For most of the kids who starred in Scarecrow, this experience was their first and last attempt at filming. So, for example, Ksenia Filippova, who played the role of the Iron Button - the antipode of the Scarecrow, never acted in films again. She also graduated from the Faculty of Economics of MGIMO, worked for 4 years at the Rolan Bykov Foundation, then in a commercial bank and an advertising agency, and then got a job in an art gallery. When asked why she did not continue her film career, Filippova replies: "". But thanks to this film role, she met her future husband: the audience then bombarded the young actors with letters, and the director gave one of them to Knopka. At that time she was 14, and her fan was 20. They began to correspond, and 4 years later they got married.

The film debut was the role in "Scarecrow" for Pavel Sanaev, the stepson of Rolan Bykov. After that, he starred in three more films, but at VGIK he entered not an actor, but a screenwriter. And he made a successful career as a writer, screenwriter and director: his sensational story "Bury Me Behind the Skirting Board" became a bestseller.

Even before the film appeared on the screens, it was heavily criticized - because it turned out to be even harsher than the script. Bykov was accused of thickening the colors. But after "Scarecrow" was released, a real scandal erupted: outraged teachers wrote letters to the director demanding to come to their school and see what kind of Soviet schoolchildren really are, - they say, there is no such cruelty among children. The newspapers published devastating reviews. However, 3 years later, the film received the USSR State Prize, and later it was purchased in Europe and America. The audience thanked the director after the screening: "We have the same problems!" And foreign critics admired the acting skills of Soviet adolescents and the depth of common human problems raised by Bykov in the film.

In one of his last interviews, Rolan Bykov said: “”.

Child actors rarely continued their film careers in adulthood, and sometimes their fates were completely tragic: 5 movie idols of Soviet teenagers who passed away too early.