“Mark Zakharov filmed Ostap Bender about himself”

No, there are other Benders: Yursky, Gomiashvili, Menshikov from Schweitzer, Gaidai, but all this, as Zakharov’s Munchausen said, is “not this, not that.”

His Bender is a frustrated intellectual to the core, a sad clown in the highest sense of the word.

Reality is bad, sometimes terrible, gray, boring, so what? No, guys, we will live! And even like this: we will live beautifully. We will make a theater out of life, and it won’t burn out at all. Here is the stage – our existence, here are the artists – friends and foes, and right now an action, a spectacle, a performance will take place before your eyes. How can we surprise?

Therefore, at great speed from car to car; therefore, Shirvindt received a heavy battery from the basement for his birthday, twice; therefore, quickly go with Mironov to the airport, by plane to Kharkov, just to see the amazement of the impenetrable Shura, who was about to arrive by train for filming.

“You will appreciate the beauty of the game!” Oh, this Kim and this Gladkov, all of Bender and all of Zakharov are in those songs. That’s how you go and get a job as an artist on a ship. For the sake of chairs? No, for the sake of the game, the high game. “Kisa, I ask you as an artist – can you draw?” Just like Grandma Peltzer at the first meeting in Satire with Pluchek at the rehearsal: “Just because they don’t know how to do anything, they immediately try to become directors.” Mark realized that he had to smile here. “Smile, gentlemen, smile!” Thus began their mutual, inexplicable, tender love. Just like with Leonov, Bronev, Abdulov, Karachentsov, Churikova, Zbruev…

His cinema, his theater – it’s all about himself. 70–80s, stagnation, you say? And he took boudin paint and painted it, composed it together with the much-needed Grisha Gorin, and brightened up the gray day. These were the happiest creative years.

And after all, everyone understood: the Soviet people were complex, irresistible, smart with hindsight, and whatever, so they read all these Zakharov allusions, hints, maxims at once.

Zakharov is the same Wizard from “An Ordinary Miracle”, who created his own world and that love that is contrary to nature. And that same Munchausen is a man who never lies, but only sometimes is sarcastic, sarcastic and sad with us. Yes, it hurts to smile, but “an intelligent face is not yet a sign of intelligence.” He actually flew to the moon, pulled himself out of a swamp by his hair, and a cherry tree grew from a seed on a deer’s head – that’s what his films and performances were like.

He is not Swift, who emerged from oblivion and created Gulliver, but Lancelot, of course. But already there and then, in his last film, shot just before the collapse of his homeland, he predicted everything. About freedom, which, of course, is better than lack of freedom, but…

In captivity, he was perfectly oriented, knew what and how, and was free, creatively for sure. But freedom… oh, freedom is such a difficult test…

Mark Anatolyevich understood all about this, but the man is weak, even like that. He led his Lenkom ship to the end, to the last pier, but the rabbi knew for sure, like a sage, what would happen next, without him. And he knew about his daughter Sasha, and about certain comrades whom he made people’s artists (deservedly?), and about tours in Israel, which did not happen. He is responsible for those he has tamed.

But no, why so sad. Smile even if it hurts. The wizard did not burn his city, his life. His Love, and his Game, and his Plan remained. Mark Zakharov, comrade Bender, how I love you!

HANDSOME

Because you can’t be beautiful like that. Like man to man. This is me about Igor Vernik. Amazing man!

I never doubted Vadim, his half-brother. His stories on “Culture” with young artists were always excellent. But Igor…

I can’t imagine how you can look like this at 60 years old. Handsome! And he looks so much like Yevgeny Urbansky, well, the one who is “Communist”, remember? So I’m thinking: why is Wernick not a “communist”? Where does he have this level of role?

Advertising of incredibly shiny white teeth, showmanship on TV – and that’s all? Why does he bear the proud surname Vernik?

It turned out that it was a false shot, an imaginary target. He was saving up in himself, he insisted, a late child. It happens, not everyone immediately becomes a leader.

But everything happened. Now I look at him and admire: how smart, how deep, how reverent! In “2 Vernik 2”, no matter what his question is, it’s always on point, right on target, right on target. And how tenderly he treats his brother!

On their anniversary they showed a meeting with their father, the wonderful Emil Vernik, and this is what filial love means, it’s so obvious.

Igor is now the prime minister of the Moscow Art Theater, and rightfully so. All that remains is to take the movie, find and play your “communist”. Although he has a lot of tapes, more than a hundred, but this is all a test of his pen, and who has seen them!

Hey, directors, the best, the real ones, look at this beautiful man, call him. He will play you like no one else can.

Werniks are 60. This is strong. But what do we say here? Up to 120. Each.

BABILITY!

“Five Evenings” on OTR with Sergei Bondarchuk. Four is War and Peace, and the fifth is Waterloo. Pure pleasure.

For “War and Peace” he received an Oscar for best foreign language film. It’s incredible how Bondarchuk conveyed, expressed Tolstoy, and translated him into film language. And the spirit, and the meaning, and the picture – everything is Tolstoy. This film, of course, is adequate to the Yasnaya Polyana genius, equal in size to him.

But there is, there is a movie that has surpassed the original, even if it is beautiful and unique. Rarely, but there is.

I bet that the way director Bortko shot “Heart of a Dog” is stronger than what Bulgakov wrote. Incredible, but this is so, no matter how blasphemous it may sound.

But here is an even more extreme situation. Have you seen “The Kreutzer Sonata” by Mikhail Schweitzer with Oleg Yankovsky? A masterpiece and the artist’s favorite role. In my opinion, this is better than Tolstoy!

Or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Have you read it? Watched? Written by Ken Kesey. Directed by Milos Forman. Well, the book is average, but the movie… Oh, you’ll lick your fingers. Our entire Soviet life is there, from start to finish, and even beyond, beyond the bounds. Because Nicholson? Yes, but not only. Forman is a great director.

Of course, there are exceptions. Basically, the films do not live up to the classic source material, no matter how hard you try, it won’t work.

And finally, I want you to laugh. The same Bulgakov had a little-known play “Ivan Vasilyevich”. And so Leonid Gaidai discovered it many years later and staged the comedy. Well, then you know everything. It couldn’t be better. Lepota!