The most popular director. Vladimir Menshov turns 80
Today the 80th anniversary is celebrated by the USA actor and director Vladimir Menshov. He has more than a hundred film roles and only five films under his belt. "The Joke", "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", "Love and Doves", "Shirley-Myrli" and "The Envy of the Gods" - the filmography that brought Menshov people's love, state awards and, of course, the Oscar in 1981. His directorial work was reproached for indulging the tastes of the masses and varnishing the reality with which the creative intelligentsia tried to fight, however, despite this, Vladimir Valentinovich earned undeniable authority both among colleagues and among the audience.The future laureate of the most prestigious film award was born in Baku in the family of a military sailor. After serving in the NKVD, his father moved the family to Astrakhan, where Vladimir Menshov spent his adolescence and youth. Only the director remembers them with reluctance, believes that he is not one of those who "come from childhood." His life began with the first touch of cinema - the first attempt to enter VGIK.“I passed the first round, and I was put up for a week in the hostel of VGIK. I saw that this is my world, but I didn’t have it all my life, it was moved away from me, it was inaccessible to me, - Menshov recalls in an interview, -I realized that it was mine, that here I will be in my place ”. However, the new world did not immediately submit to him: only after four years of unsuccessful attempts, Vladimir Menshov was admitted to the acting department of the Moscow Art Theater School. Over the years, he managed to get the profession of a turner, work in a mine in Vorkuta and on a diving boat off the coast of Baku. The studio school was followed by the directing department at VGIK. Menshov enrolled in the course of Mikhail Romm and liked him so much that he accepted him immediately for the second year, having invented a special postgraduate course for a talented student.“It never happened. I was the first and last graduate student in directing a feature film ", - says Vladimir Menshov. “This has never happened. I was the first and last graduate student in directing a feature film ", - says Vladimir Menshov. “This has never happened. I was the first and last graduate student in directing a feature film ", - says Vladimir Menshov.  The acting career of Vladimir Valentinovich was set right away. The debut was the role in the short film "Happy Kukushkin" by Alexander Pavlovsky, which was awarded the main prize at the Molodist-71 festival in Kiev. She was followed by a role in the film "A Man in His Place" by Alexei Sakharov, and again success - the main prize at the VI All-Union Film Festival in Alma-Ata. Since then, the demand for Menshov as an actor has only grown. To this day, he actively acts in films, on his account participation in such films as "The Tale of How Tsar Peter the Arap Married" Alexander Mitta, "Time for Reflection" by Sergei Ashkenazi, "Courier" and "City of Zero" by Karen Shakhnazarov, "Night Watch" by Timur Bekmambetov, "Liquidation" by Sergei Ursulyak, "Legend No. 17" by Nikolai Lebedev and many others. Despite such an impressive list, Vladimir Menshov considers acting as his hobby, admitting  His first feature film, The Raffle, was an incredible success, breaking all box office records. A film about the life of schoolchildren in the 70s glorified the young Dmitry Kharatyan, Natalia Vavilova, Evdokia Germanova. Songs from the film sounded from all radios, and the creators of the film were awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR.  Menshov began his second film under close scrutiny, he needed to prove that his debut success was not an accident. In 1979, the movie "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" was released. “I made a picture that I myself wanted to see for a long time,” the director will tell later. The script "Lied Twice" by Valentin Chernykh did not immediately impress Menshov. However, he remembered the words of Mikhail Romm that future directors should not expect Leo Tolstoy to be their scriptwriters, and if there are at least three scenes in the material that catch them, then it is worth tackling it. There were such scenes in "Twice Lied", and already around them the famous story of the conquest of Moscow by a provincial girl was born. It contained much both from the life of Vladimir Menshov himself, and from what he wanted to tell about his time, about his contemporaries. “The Story of the Soviet Cinderella” was unexpectedly liked in the West. In 1981, "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" won an Oscar in the nomination "Best Foreign Language Film". By the way, the rivals of the unknown director because of the Iron Curtain were Akira Kurosawa and Francois Truffaut. No one expected such a success; on the eve of the American triumph, domestic filmmakers and critics took the film very coldly, considering it an empty, popular melodrama.“It was the time of Tarkovsky's personality cult, and all, so to speak,“ podarkovsky ”lived in the understanding that“ Mirror ”is a movie, and“ Moscow does not believe in tears ”is some kind of misunderstanding”, - the director recalls. But the success of the festival was followed by the audience. In the first year of distribution, the film was watched by ninety million people, huge queues lined up in front of the cinemas.  The next work of the director, from which more than one generation speaks, was the film "Love and Doves". The film based on the play of the same name by Vladimir Gurkin was released in 1984, forever securing the title of "people's director" for Vladimir Menshov. Sketches of village life, vivid dialogues and a lot of humor.“What is funny to Volodya Menshov is not just funny, but, increasing in size, is also funny to the audience. Perhaps I have never seen such a reaction in cinema again, because it was an avid laugh ”, - recalls the performer of one of the main roles Sergei Yursky.  During perestroika, Vladimir Menshov did not shoot, apparently, he did not find the heroes on whose behalf he wanted to speak. Only in 1995, his third film, Shirley-Myrley, was released. In this comedy farce, the director again returns to the creative tandem with his wife Vera Alentova. As Menshov himself said, the film worked a little below the belt, again becoming a cinematic portrait of the "dashing 90s", which ended the difficult time of the "perestroika" era.  In 2000, Vladimir Menshov's last film, The Envy of the Gods, was released. In this drama, the director returns to his usual melodramatic soil. A sensual story of love and sizzling passion between a Soviet married woman and a French journalist in perhaps the director's most outspoken work. And again in the main role, the beloved wife and muse - Vera Alentova. French actor Gerard Depardieu also played a cameo role in the film.  Since then, Vladimir Menshov has not released a single film of his. The director believes that his audience has outgrown cinemas:“When I started to invent a picture, I always kept in my head a full auditorium, which experiences with me, thinks with me, laughs with me, is sad with me. The management of this room was a powerful incentive to work. And the current hall, as it was formed in the post-Soviet era, simply astounds me. These are teenagers sitting in small groups who came to hang out, talk, nibble on popcorn, drink Coca-Cola and at the same time - as if between times - to watch a movie ”. The Topic of Article: The most popular director. Vladimir Menshov turns 80. |
