“I completely fell out of love with cinema”
Translated from http://theoryandpractice.ru/posts/8073-german_dolin
“Hard to Be a God”, the long-awaited film of Aleksey German, has premièred at Rome Film Festival. T&P and “New Literary Observer” publishing house present an excerpt from Anton Dolin's book “German: Interview. Essays. Screenplay”, in which the director, not so long before his death, speaks about complicated process of film shooting, modern cinema, barbarity, Putin and hopelessness.
— You approached to make a film adaptation of Strugatsky brothers’ novel “Hard to Be a God” multiple times. In the meantime, there has already been a feature film based on the book…
— When we were starting “Trial on the Road”, everyone thoughtlessly told us, well, how many great movies about partisans had already existed. They meant a typical Soviet compendium on the topic. And Larisa Shepitko filmed “The Ascent” even after “Trial” had been banned. Comparisons are inevitable — so let it be that. We took off “Hard to Be a God” three times. First screenplay had been being written together with Boris Strugatsky since 1967. He would come, ask for tea and sugar candies, and then we would spend half of our time arguing about international political situation. He was highly educated, opinionated, knew everything… and everything he said was so far removed from reality. He was perfect to work with and hard to be friend with, but we were friends. We made a reasonably good screenplay for its time. It was supposed that main character would be played by Vladimir Retsepter, a good actor and interesting person. It seemed to me that he would play all right, though now I think it would be wrong.
— The project subsided before shooting started.
— Yes. I was assembling the team when military conscription office started to call me up. I wasn't really afraid because I was a reserve officer. Still, I was quite reluctant to do the same thing I'd done the previous time, to waste my time somewhere directing concerts that are praised by battalion superiors. They always promoted me afterwards, last time it got me Officers' House concert: I was transported by military ambulance car and wore jersey… In a nutshell, I deflected to Koktebel. I got there, slept a night, went out in the morning — and saw a woman. The reason I fancied her is unknown to me. It was Sveta. That day, 21st of August 1968, our troops went into Czhechoslovakia. I instantly got a telegram from studio's chief editor that my project is ceased. I asked him why. His response was, “Aleksey, forget it. Forever. Keep in mind there's some black order invading Arkanar…” That was the end of it. Then I met Svetlana, so it was tit for tat.
— Did you try to restart “Hard to Be a God”?
— That time I got a touching letter from Strugatskies about their good connections at some second rate film magazine — not even “Soviet Screen” — and they hoped to get the approval through it. If not, they were finishing “The Inhabited Island” and considered it would become a very good script. Bottom line, nothing passed. Then, right when Gorbatchev came to power, I heard the film was being made in Kiev, and it was directed by Peter Fleischmann. I write a letter to cinema minister1 Kamshalov: what is this? He speaks, “We'll kick the the heinie away, he's some kind of spy. Go and get your movie from him”. I went to Kiev. Everybody hates me there: everybody's belly is filled with German beer, everybody strolls around with German radio, the German is universally adored, and I am not wanted. I came, saw the film set and dropped my jaw as I had never seen anything like that in my life. Enormous city quarter — houses, squares, lanes — and everything is made from some strange foil.
A little man appeared, “Hello, Mr German, I am Fleischmann, and you are sent to shoot the film in my stead”. I said, “Yes, but I was told you were expelled from USSR as a deliberate non-payer”. He replied, “They can not relieve nor expel me, as I put the money into this picture. Still, it would be my pleasure to get you shoot it because I can't work here, I'm totally going to hang myself”. I said, “Why? Look how grand the stage set is”. “Aleksey, just imagine a horse and a man brandishing his sword here!” I did and it really didn't fit.
They built him some kind of ptushko2. Totally unsuitable, you couldn't film anything. First thing I suggested was that we had to rewrite the script, he replied we couldn't because behind every frame there's a bank and sum of money. He added, “What a pity, I would love to hire you, you're so nice”. So we chatted like that, drank some beer, and I left. Then Kamshalov tells me, “Okay, we give you a million, go make a film. We'll compare which one is better and have an experiment”. We got down to write. But right then and there — Gorbatchev. Everything rejoices and sings, tomorrow we are becoming democrats, the day after we are swimming in sausages, the day after that they are releasing Sakharov… The possibility of filming gloomy Middle Ages and onset of fascism was completely out of accord with that. All evil was defeated! So we dropped it.
— Is the story actual again today?
— Yes. When Putin gave me the award, I told him that I was making a film named “Hard to Be a God” and he would be its most intrigued viewer. Impenetrable silence set in that hall — until he moved. One will endure for long, then get mad, understand noting can come out from these Russian reforms because everyone is a crook, then it will happen… the second half of my picture. Nothing can be done. They steal the same way in our country, everyone takes bribes, universities are put down the drain, and slaves are unwilling to leave stocks. Speaking about politics, this film is a warning. To everyone. Including us.
— How did the new title, “Chronicle of Arkanar Massacre”, appear?
— As soon as it was known that I am working on “Hard to Be a God”, TV started broadcasting Fleischmann's movie, again and again. As if it was intentional. Then we clashed with Yarmolnik, he made a record, an audio book for “Hard to Be a God”. So I thought: attack, enemy barbarians. My movie will be different no matter what. I'll make, for example, “Chronicle of Arkanar Massacre” and lose something, supposedly some of modern people who are interested in god. Then I can always add “Hard to Be a God” to the posters. “Chronicle of Arkanar Massacre” may not be the best title, but it agrees with what's happening in the picture.
— What are main differences between your film and Strugatskys' novel?
— This film is about finding a solution to the world. To slash, to be tender, to oversee, to help, to do what? No solution, everything hero does devolves into blood. You don't want to kill and want to be kind, then it will be like that, almost stalled to zero. You want to kill, the reforms will go, but you will be terrible, bloody man. Strugatskys got it easier, their novel has communards from prosperous, happy, civilized planet Earth, people who know the truth and know how. Can you find those communards on today's Earth? We can't solve our own problems, say in Chechnya. You see, through all the film the hero searches for thinkers not to save them, like Strugatskys intended, but to have their advice on what to do with that world. To stop the horror of bookworms being drown in crap-houses.
— Wasted in outhouses!3
— The film starts with them drowning one of the thinkers in the crap-house. Parallels often come from real life experience, for instance, the scene with wristband of protection which is worn to stop monks from catching you. I went by train to Kiev with a lady, in 1957. On the same train, there was a man who had been released from a labour camp and was returning to his family. He had been in prison since 1936, for 21 years, and wrote in a letter that he would tie a pioneer's red scarf on his hand so they could recognize him. We came to Kiev and run along the platforms like crazy for more than an hour. He was raising his hand with a scarf, and, in the end, no one met him. What could you do? I bid good-bye.
— You told that for the film to succeed you must sight yourself, mom or dad in it. Who and where have you sighted in “Chronicle of Arkanar Massacre”?
— I've sighted all of us. We made a film about all of us. Nothing is different in Arkanar: the same denunciations, the same villainy, the same prisons, the same Blacks, the same Greys. We achieved nothing, the same things that happened in XVI century happen in XXI. People of Earth are not the best piece of work.
— Did you have the same dreary view in the first version of the script?
— It was less philosophical, more adventure cinema. The final was also different. Rumata wouldn't return to Earth, like in Strugatskys' version, and wouldn't stay in Arkanar, like in the current version. He would die. But people would return to that planet. The other team. The final was like this: some merchants and medieval monks are walking on the modern launch site, and strange white ships start floating into the sky and fade there. So I was also different, and believed in different things. I knew the nightmare goes on in our country but, at the same time, considered the very idea worthy of keeping alive, noble in itself. That said, I remember telling Vladimir Vengerov that Stalin and Lenin are equal murderers around the same time. The scandal was immense…
— Today's Rumata played by Yarmolnik is anybody but man from better tomorrow.
— Rumata is the man from modern Earth, we sent him there. He's your bro. The exact same shit is on Earth. We even had lines in the script, “on Earth there were preparations for another war, so no one bothered”. Earth has nut hospitals and prisons, Earth is full of idiots. Humans are sent to that planet because there they started to build strange tall yellow houses after the fires, and humans came to conclusion the Age of Enlightenment started on Arkanar! So they had field trip team of thirty to help that Enlightenment. Maybe there was no Enlightenment. Just a streak. But reaction to it is fearsome: all thinkers and bookworms are killed, they crawl through horrid bogs lighting their way with a splinter, get caught by bandits and soldiers alike, and everywhere is rope, rope, rope and death, death, death.
— Pretty realistic picture. What, there is no chance of solution, even for infinitely powerful deity?
— Why does Rumata search for Budakh the bookworm and recite our wonderful line from “The Fall of Otrar”4, “The fact that we are speaking to each other doesn't really mean we have a conversation”? He searches for Budakh because the man is both from that community and smart, can't he give some advices? Again, Rumata can do everything — mince the kingdom, as we see — I simply ditched the miracles when he makes gold out of shit. On the other hand, he's no god, he's just playing. When everything is designed to execute him, he starts playing like everything they say about him is true, acts like a son of god, and scares his opponents.
— Demoniac don Reba from Strugatskys' book has also changed beyond recognition…
— In my film he is a monstrously effective schemer. Rumata, a medieval intrigue postgraduate, can't understand how he got himself fooled by that slice of fat. But you can easily scare a medieval man, so Rumata manages to stay alive despite being indicted for murder of the king.
— After staying alive, he realizes he won't find any answers anyway.
— He finds Budakh. What's next? Budakh happens to be a fool and a doctrinaire, citing something that resembles Earth's philosophy. Also having a hard time pissing. Doctrinaire, but a smart one, when taken into washing barrel, he says, “Human body is full of little holes”… Rumata doesn't know what to do next. No one on Earth team knows, but others found their archduke-level positions and live well enough. Rumata is a dissident. Others would finally take off and give a finger to that planet. He would stay. Well, he has no way out, completely breaking the regulations by slaughtering half of the city. But even Arata, medieval Pugachev, has the same plan as Rumata! In twenty minutes, he's in the same mess: everyone steals, everyone drinks, everyone stabs everyone else. You need to endure the suffering, but you can't.
— So medieval parable is directly connected to our time.
— O-ho-ho! Its theme is the onset of fascism, which, in my opinion, is a threat to our country. Because fascism makes everything clear. Whom to waste, whom not to waste. We never get it the easy way. Even the most concrete problems. For all my life I remember reading articles, “vegetables arrived, packaging doesn't”. My dying dad asked me three days before his death, “Lyosha, I'm dying, keep an eye on the papers, as I'm interested in how long will they write ‘vegetables arrived, packaging doesn't’”. Dad died in 1967, count the number of years yourself… Russia always had two disasters: harvests that were too small and harvests that were too big. Either was going to happen, there was no difference. If yields were spectacular, they wrote about it a lot in newspapers, then timidly reported that it rot for this or that reason and everything got worse than in previous year when yields had been too small. If yields were too small, they were just too small.
to be continued