how do you watch this film today, what is it about, what is it to us from those times, says dovzhenko, how do you watch it today? and i would say that this particular film, i understand that you decided to take a trilogy, is that it? first of all, this is a very interesting artistic experiment and technical experiment, because in this film in zvenihor, dovzhenko used a lot of such camera and editing techniques, which were innovative, because there were combined shootings, because after all, he tells a myth, and it is so little , as if a fairy tale, and... and this fairy tale it must be

characteristic of many films about ukraine as a certain mythical territory detached from reality in which it is necessary to create a new world and bring it from the outside, ugh, because it already prepares us for the fact that in the films of dovzhenko and many of his contemporaries, there is kavaleridze, for example . or cordyuma will appear this late on the path to finding a ukrainian, but he is no longer quite a ukrainian, but this is already a soviet person who comes in his place, that is, he is the original ukrainian whom we see in the film, his if it is a shame, and someone has to replace him, and the rebirth, that is, it is yes, we see it as a rebirth, it is like a rebirth, but at the same time, it really

begins to model some new reality, that is, it is a function of cinema, which is peculiar to the soviet, the soviet space, and this film, despite the fact that this rebirth seems to be visible, it is the same, it was also repressed, banned, because of the fact that through mike johansen and through yurk tyutyunnyk, i understand correctly, it is both and plus he was already there, although it is still the 27th year another period vuvku vuvku ceased to exist in the 30th year, that is, by the 30th year we have to explain to the audience what vuvk is? vuvku is an all-ukrainian photocinema management, the easiest way to define it as ukrainian hollywood, and well, this will not be an understatement, because the all-ukrainian photocinema management has absorbed all the infrastructure necessary for the work. and

the existence of cinema, i.e. there were three film studios, there were film schools, and later the film institute appeared, there were publications, authors and people who worked within the university, they, they were part of the kharkiv cultural elite, they grew out of the literary and theatrical tradition, because les kurbes actively cooperated with vofku, that is, for literally eight... years from the 22nd to the 30th, it was a very progressive institution , which developed on the go, but in the 1930s it was banned and ukraine-film appeared, which was already completely subordinated to moscow. the uniqueness of vovku also lies in the fact that it acted autonomously, that is, the policy of filmmaking was determined locally, in ukraine, in odessa, in kyiv, and... and therefore, in principle, prominent names x

of film artists are connected precisely with the all-ukrainian photocinema management, and when the working atmosphere in moscow became unbearable, brothers kaufman and dzigovertov fled here, ugh, and they continued their activities here, which of course, well, the wolf was enriched at the expense of very unusual personalities, it cooperated with foreign directors and... cameramen, and dovzhenko really liked working with josef rona, a german cameraman who, in principle, became his right-hand man in many projects. and then, and then it was banned because of what? as a result of the so-called coming into force, stalin, the chief producer of the soviet union, stepped in and himself began to determine already, i was so struck by how much he, how much he was.

tangentially, how active he was in , so to speak, in producing and ordering movies, and this is actually what needs something like that anyway. a very complex study, how, who, who was this producer of the creation of the wolf in the first place, that it shot like that, that it worked like that, because now we see in the management of the cinema, rather degradation, and we see that there is a lot, well, cinematography now relies on independent initiatives, that is , state representatives rather bring confusion and uncertainty there, i planned it. we and we are definitely with you about this at the end , my last question will be exactly this, but it is good that you said now, for us, that is why the experience of vovku is very interesting for us, and, because for 8 years they, well, the policy of ukrainization was in effect , coronations, films were shot

in ukrainian, and the dovzhenko center managed to find ukrainian intertitles for the film zemlya and to restore them, because they were mostly lost, there were a few of them preserved, and this... a few years ago restored them, so we got evidence that our films are in the ukrainian language, but in the 30th year the holiday ended, wolf also closed ukrainian films that were shot on the territory of ukraine, and these were the yalta, odesa and kyiv film studios, they were all sent to moscow, to white columns, to the guest film fund of russia, where they originated, the negatives are still there. are there, and ukraine already received these films later by acquiring positive copies, i.e. they are either in foreign archives, i.e. it all collapsed together with the collapse of ukrainization, in principle, and clearly yes, behind this was a great producer of nations, who already had other

ideas and visions about how everything should develop , and we will talk about it later, but we have arsenal next, a film in the arsenal... and for me, for me, it is actually arsenal and schors, for me these are two films that precisely show dovzhenka's internal rupture. arsenal, i remind you, is a film about the bolshevik uprising at the arsenal plant in in kyiv, when the bolsheviks, the workers, yes, rose up against the authorities of the unr, against, against the army of the unr, which actually suppressed this uprising and... dozhenko was in this army.

elena, i read that dovzhenko even served in the same root of the black haydamaks, which dispersed this one. the bolshevik uprising, so at least he had a hat with a black brim hanging in his parents' house, and i am now, excuse me, i am rude now, maybe this is a very rude analogy, but for me to make such a film is an arsenal, i am not talking about the artist its cost, yes, i am talking about this internal gap of dovzhenko, yes, for me to shoot such a film, arsenal or shchors, petlyurovsky. it's the same as for our veteran to make a film about - about givi or about motorola, but it's like that, i'm deliberately exacerbating it, just what must have happened to a person, how could he turn so internally, and what is he for, what is this for , what is

this kind of internal self-destruction or what is it? well, here i will probably still lack details about... about what happened to him, but we see that in the arsenal subtitles are already in russian, and this happens as if... such universalization of the language of cinema, yes, and it is necessary to reach as many people as possible, and we see in the frame very often crowds appear in the frames, and in several films by dovzhenka we it 's watching, yes, when there's a crowd of people listening intently to somebody, and we may not even see the speaker himself, but it's very important for us to see what's happening on the... on the faces of those people, how they're there, or disbelief, or vice versa they are enraptured,

there is a kind of elation in them, and these things are also in the picturesque works, because in the national art museum in 16, in the 15th year, there was an exhibition of the heroes of the inventory attempt, the museum then studied the construct of the hero, how it is formed, and after the maidan this research changed, because... well, the maidan influenced the how we look at our heroes, and we decided to be more so restrained and give the audience the opportunity to judge, and here is one of the spaces, these were portraits of lenin, which are kept in the art museum, they have a certain artistic value, but this very interesting object for research, and there were several canvases where lenin only stands with his back, his view can be seen only from behind, well, we understand from the lack of hair who he is, but in front of him... there are young people who are inspired, who are on fire, whose eyes are burning, who are excited, and by this reaction, that is, this

is the reaction of a witness who is passionate about something, and it seems to me that dovzhenko received, perhaps caught this wave, that he can influence something and change, and how do you explain to yourself why he shows so scathingly, we deliberately chose this moment. he shows members of the central council of these bourgeois, that's all, it's so emphasized, it's disgusting, yes, he shows these people, and yuriy shevelyov wrote in letters to roman korogotsky, so he wrote that this is a compensatory mechanism of self-justification due to the humiliation of the presenters of the program competitions. and this, i will quote now: why do you need them in the arsenal? those scumbags from the second camp, and why are they so scumbag, scumbag, so, so, so disgusting, and here

we have the key, because they didn't manage to win, it turns out that they are guilty of a lost, lost war, so it's not a tribute to official requirements, and the sincere truth, ousted and suffering, i am all in the anthem, but i am not responsible for it, i am responsible... this is wild dostoevism, which is very close to the truth, this interpretation of dovzhenko is close to you, it is very interesting, perhaps it is important even for us in a broader sense for understanding ourselves, and here i can't help but think about what if... kvn, which is present in our lives, yes, which we seem to be, and we, this is

some kind of intellectual part, does not like him, but a large part of society does i like it, it's like self-mockery and self-mockery, there's really such a valuable thought that we're laughing at them because they didn't win, if they couldn't with their, i don't know, their background, they couldn't win. to live, and that is why they need to be portrayed that way, although dovzhenko, he was always ironic, he, his first films, he wanted to make comedies, the first films there were vasya the reformer and yagidka kohannya, these are typical, by the way, of german cinema of a european style , because in zvenihor and in the arsenal and in zemli dovzhenko is already somehow inventing his own language, but these two films, vasya the reformer and... berries, they were so typical with make-up, they were urban stories, they

were very playful stories, but really there are people from such a bourgeois class, they they looked mean, not very nice, and dovzhenko also drew bourgeois on the posters, in the claws of the soviet government, he also drew them unsympathetic and unattractive, and this is how i actually remember his kharkiv period, when he also flew in the publishing house... he drew cartoons on the unattractive petliura, vennichenko, skoropadskyi, i.e. people who were supposedly close to him in terms of value, but let's look at... at the next film earth, which is certainly the most famous ukrainian film in the world now, yes, which brought world fame, brought dovzhenkoi, the film about collectivization, which supposedly the picture was supposed to glorify collectivization, but showed absolutely the opposite, it showed the disconnection of people with the land, with the roots and with

nature.

and now this film earth is released, and i understand that it is in the box office for nine days, and on the ninth day, an article by kremlinsky is released trumpeter demyan bedny, i just can't resist quoting demyan bedny in the news, he writes such a devastating article and , in particular, he writes the movie thing earth and to which dovzhenko reacts in such a way that he wanted to die at first, and at the same time, in parallel, parallel to this of the abominations written by dimyan bedny, suddenly such a procession begins, so

in the world, so he recognizes this film, dovzhenko becomes. a star abroad in europe, america and so on. what, how, how do you think, what is the strength of this film, what was the innovation of the earth, why did the world suddenly perceive this film? he became for many, if, well, no, not instructive, but he became an example of a view of nature, probably, and in this... film , one can feel a kind of dovzhenkivskaya task, and the gap is very strongly felt there, the impression is that he is already beginning to doubt his impulse, that is, this is such a story about not being himself and losing himself, and this dualism, maybe he would strengthen the voice

of this film. yes, by the way, this is a very interesting thought, and the soviet authorities immediately felt it, this dualism and this gap with himself, perhaps because the film was, well, you are now asking why the film was so popular, dovzhenko was in it, he still could not, no matter how hard he tried to play along with the authorities somewhere, like or play in such a revolution of remaking his residents and... now i lost my mind, well, i will come back, but there, but dovzhenko, he was a pantheist in his essence, that is, he was not a christian, or very atypical, he lost his faith during his studies, probably, but he was

completely integrated into nature and... and for him, nature was everything, and if watching the film that filmed the construction of dniproges there, and together with the films of other directors, it resembles such a very painful realization that something is wrong with us and we are being led somewhere wrong, and they are trying to change us to the point of destroying us, so that we are gone. and there are these typical ukrainians in the land, who, if something should be done with them, or changed, or hidden away from civilization. there are already people of a new generation, and there is simply a great nature that captures all this, against the background of which it takes place, where there is almost such a mythical thinking,

where an old man in goodness goes to another world, where there is a naked woman, which was also a very, revolutionary move at the time, and this was his wife, it was yulia sontseva, who later, with whom... he continued to work already in there is a lot of moscow, she was his assistant, and then she grew into an independent director. if we have time, i will also ask you about yuliya sontseva, but before that i want to ask you about the one you said flirted with the authorities. for me , the relationship between stalin and dovzhenko remains somewhat of a paradox. why did stalin not destroy dovzhenko like kurbas, like this whole generation, why him he was even saved by dovzhenko's words several times, that's what dovzhenko thought, why? well, i think you can only fantasize here, because we don't know what was in stalin's

mind, and what, what, what did stalin admire dovzhenko in your opinion? here is yerena tsymbal, and the researcher is a literary critic, she believes, she is a researcher of the actually shot revival, and she believes that because dovzhenko was so authoritarian himself, well, he also... liked the power and authoritarianism of stalin himself, as if he was attracted, attracted stalin, his figure, a valid opinion, i, since he was a director, he could well have been attracted by this figure from an anthropological point of view, yes, because he was undoubtedly an outstanding personality, but now i have the thought that it is possible, dovzhenko , when... this repressive flywheel began to spin, maybe he had some illusion that he would sacrifice himself, and

well, that is, if he takes the side, so to speak, of evil, then it will be like such a ritual a victim, and maybe others will suffer less from this, maybe he somehow believed, that he can influence the situation and persuade, maybe he. that his art influences stalin, and stalin listens to him, but this, this is now my assumption, because dovzhenko, it seems that he constantly doubted this decision, and i saw this opinion that stalin, for example, offered him to move to moscow in the 33rd year, it seems, dovzhenko, when he left, he offered him so that dovzhenko would not see the famine that... is happening in ukraine, so that he could not somehow be a witness of it very closely, although dovzhenko did not could not know of course, the parents were here, yes, the parents were

here and it affected them, but in 1932 he filmed ivan on the dniproges, ugh, which also fell on the shelf, although it was shown at the venice festival, it was the first at the first festival . and perhaps the fact that both zemlya and ivan were already published abroad played a role here, they were seen there, as in the case of peradzhanov, when the publicity of his film, which did not manage to be hidden in time, raised the voices of the world film community, and perhaps therefore, with dovzhenko, they managed in this way, and the next film, after the 32nd, it was already the 35th year, the airport, which he was filming. for according to the idea of ​​stalin, in fact , perhaps this was one of the reasons as well, but i agree with you that i also think that it is because of his world fame and because stalin

may have understood that it is better to use him , and stalin used it to the full, it seems to me, both in relation to erograd and in relation to shchors, because shchors was also stalin's idea, to shoot the ukrainian chapaev like that, yes, and there in both. in principle, in films, it is very, well , very well traced, if there is more in the ground these hesitations, and there are a lot of them in ivan too, there is a hesitation between that, well, such an artistic understanding of whether what is happening here is good, whether this transformation is good and where it leads, because dovzhenko puts it into the mouths of his characters these doubts, certainly they look, are not very motivating for those who start to start building. aerograd and shchors are already quite like that, they are not a reflection of reality, they are clear constructs, as it should be, and

megalomania is very well written in aerograd. and here is such a desire for something gigantic, gigantic, great, majestic, to conquer, to take away, to conquer, ugh, and this is also something that is not characteristic of ukrainians, i also planned to ask you to talk about, in my opinion, the most tragic scenario of dovdzhenko, which is called ukraine on fire, this scenario , the film script he wrote in 1942, if i'm not mistaken, yes, we found his address where he says these words ukraine is on fire, it's at the beginning of the war, he addresses as if with an appeal, it seems interesting to us just to look at the temperament oleksandr dovzhenka. ukraine is on fire, in our wide spaces, so beautiful and

joyful in the recent past. cities and villages have been relentlessly burning for two years now, movileten jokers illuminating the great tragedy of our time. listen, contemporaries of the great era, ukrainians of the burning fire of ukraine. the decisive time of the liberation struggle is coming, let us be worthy sons of our great time. in general. in this movie script, you know what's amazing? striking, how it hurts him, so this disaster of ukraine, which became the battlefield of the second world war, yes, how he is in terrible pain. i found a quote, written by dovzhenko on november 6, 1943. and listen, just now, in these days, in this, at this historical point, how painful it is to read, and how it hurt dovzhenko himself. he writes: ukraine is destroyed like

no other. country in the world , all the cities have been destroyed and looted, we have no schools, no institutes, no museums, no libraries, our historical archives have perished, painting, sculpture, architecture have perished, all bridges and roads have been destroyed, the war has ruined the national economy, destroyed people, beat, hanged, drove into captivity, we have almost no scientists, not many artists, so he writes film scripts, shows. khrushchev, yes , khrushchev somehow, i don’t know if it is khrushchev, or somehow this film script gets to beria, and from beria it gets to stalin, and stalin, terribly, stalin, with whom dozhenko walked, walked around moscow, who ordered the script, he is completely satisfied with stalin, dovzhenko, he is terribly indignant, and we also chose a quote

from stalin, it’s just that... they cut it down, and dovzhenko writes his famous it is impossible to shoot this film, this is absolutely the whole phrase in his diary, he writes that on january 31

, 1944. year i was brought to the kremlin, there i was cut to pieces and the bloodied parts of my soul were scattered for shame and drowned in all gatherings, i held on for a year and fell, my heart could not withstand the burden of untruth and evil, i was born and lived for good and love, i was killed by the hatred of the great just at the moment of their smallness, isn't this the moment of truth for dovzhenko, this is the story of ukraine on fire? che is a moment of truth for him, but with on the other hand, he then continues to film something, he then films michurin, that is, it is not the end, no, it is not the end, and during, well, actually during the war , he also filmed a chronicle film, ugh, such notes about the war, but later there remained proshkovaya america in the 51st year, and also proshkovaya america was absolutely also a propaganda film, and it is about a criminal one.