Legend of stage and screen: remembering the best images of Oleg Basilashvili in honor of his 90th birthday
Oleg is a symbolic name for theater and cinema, in general for the world of artists, one might even say sacred. Efremov, Tabakov, Dal, Yankovsky, Borisov - am I not right? There are such people in our cooperative! And another Oleg recently celebrated his 90th birthday (wow!) - Oleg Valerianovich Basilashvili.
The TV, of course, did not miss such a date for such a person. And now, dictating these lines, I’m already looking forward to “Station for Two” on First. You can watch forever, right?!
This is a conversation not about the past, but about the present itself. So you see 90-year-old Oleg, and you understand that in him, in this current image of him, there is everything, our whole life. One layer is a very young Oleg, who has not yet hatched into freedom, who has just come to the BDT with his wife Tanya Doronina at the invitation of Tovstonogov. It’s as if he doesn’t know anything yet, doesn’t know how, but Doronina is already a superstar. He is not given roles for a long time. That’s why the look is so searching, like that of a chick. And another shot from “The Elder Sister”: he sits on the examination committee, looking so respectable, and performs in the arena, on Doronin’s proscenium: “Do you love theater as much as I love it?” He looks at her there, lovingly, and like a student, I will accept the most.
New layer. He is no longer with Doronina, but in the BDT he is the king. Not alone, of course, but the king, don’t even doubt it. And he looks differently. But stop here! Differently does not mean that it is condescending, at all. This is the same look, direct eye to eye, always doubting, dissatisfied with oneself, only clear and simple. This is Oleg.
And here’s Oleg Ryazanovsky, he sounds like a prince. This should have been in “The Irony of Fate”, yes, Hippolytus. But all that was left of that “disgrace” was a photograph, slowly flying onto the snow like a butterfly. (A butterfly and snow are a paradox, but Basilashvili is made entirely of paradoxes.) So Yuri Yakovlev came out with his genius, although for some reason Nadya and Zhenya kept his photograph covered and hidden all the time. One thing is clear: it would have been a completely different movie. But it won’t happen anymore, and there’s no need to.
But two years later, Samokhvalov Yuri Grigorievich - “Office Romance.” What a passage! Nature has never known such a polished, handsome, brilliant scoundrel. But Oleg did it, after which he became famous throughout the world, if you call the world 1/6 of the land mass, the Soviet Union. And another scoundrel who was just as successful for him - well, of course, Merzlyaev. Then the letter “l” disappeared from it, remember? But for artists, such roles are actually a gift. Although, if we talk about complex things, then everything comes from yourself, your loved one.
But the same Ryazanov has such a Basilashvili, I have never seen a better person on earth. Here’s “Station for Two,” which I’ll be watching soon. For me, his Platon Sergeevich Ryabinin is the ideal person. Of course, he was a sinner, he served time, but for whom? For my beloved (unloved) wife, and nothing more. And so you look - one continuous kindness and decency, spilled over time.
Another character we love so much is Buzykin in “Autumn Marathon.” And he, too, is a sinner (and who is not without sin!), loves another, cannot leave that one Nina Evlampievna-Gundareva. But he never did harm to anyone, this child is a friend of man, but not a dog.
This is Basilashvili, Basik. They will tell me: for whom is Basik, and for whom... Oleg Valeryanovich. Of course, but I really want to call it that. Oleg’s loved ones do this all the time. Basik - it suits him so well.
Here is an interesting phenomenon: the most worthy people, Tovstonogov’s chicks, have played and continue to play in the BDT. Look: Luspekayev, Kopelyan, Strzhelchik, Lavrov, Yursky... This is dignity. Tovstonogov covered them all, protected them, educated them. But myself... I remember at the exhibition I saw the front page of the Izvestia newspaper and a small article denigrating Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. Underneath this is the signature: G.A. Tovstonogov.
Basilashvili, the son of his great theatrical father, now looks like a walking virtue. But this is true! A man carried through his entire life, without dropping a drop, what is simply called “honor.” It’s clear that he’s no longer a revolutionary now, although we remember his parliamentary membership and his indifference at the perestroika congresses. But is it worth shouting about something, proving something, when everything is already visible. By the face, by the way, what the person says.
Now it's almost like a monument, but it's not at all like that. Even after Woland or what he did with Shakhnazarov in the 90s and 2000s, he will never be a monument. Because he is Oleg, Basik. And our whole life is in it.
Newspaper headline:
Prophetic Oleg
