Sergei Parajanov would have turned 100: choreography lessons, prison, an idea about King Lear from the collective farm

January 9 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of film director Sergei Parajanov, who directed “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, “The Color of Pomegranates” (“Sayat-Nova”), “The Legend of the Suram Fortress”, “Ashik-Kerib”… It turned out that by the date in It is impossible for Moscow to organize a retrospective because there are no rights to his paintings. Parajanov’s life was connected with several countries – Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan. And now they are separated by tragic circumstances.

But a retrospective dedicated to the director’s 100th anniversary can be seen in Estonia.

Parajanov is an Armenian, born in Georgia, studied in Moscow, worked at the Kyiv film studio. Dovzhenko, “Armenfilm” and “Georgia-film”, who served time in a Russian prison.

Parajanov studied at VGIK in the workshop of Igor Savchenko, and was a classmate of Marlen Khutsiev. For 15 years he was deprived of the opportunity to make films. His films were considered incomprehensible in Soviet times and had difficulty getting out on screens. And Parajanov himself was considered one of the citizens hostile to Soviet reality who maintained relationships with nationalist-minded elements. In the KGB certificate, he was described as a morally corrupt person who organized a den of dubious people in his apartment, prone to debauchery and anti-Sovietism.

Parajanov was forbidden to make films, and he took up collages, creating from fragments, beads, and rags found in a landfill. He even made a collage out of his mother’s old robe. He didn’t throw it away, folded it in a special way and it turned out to be a work of art that is still admired to this day.

They have been following Parajanov since 1963, as evidenced by the KGB archives declassified in 2011. On December 17, 1973, he was arrested, and on April 24, 1974, he was convicted of sodomy, production, sale and distribution of pornographic items. We also remembered the speech in Minsk on December 1, 1971 to creative youth. The KGB archives contain information that Parajanov, receiving guests in his house, told them: “I was the first to raise the sword to expel the red commissars from the cinema, perfumed with “Red Moscow.” I was the first to dig the grave of socialist realism with my films.”

Film playwright Pavel Finn told in our interview how, at the peak of Parajanov’s fame, they wanted to make him the head of the association at the film studio. Dovzhenko. And to this he said that he would accept the offer if party tickets were laid at his feet. It was incredible then. Parajanov remained an absolutely free and fearless person all his life.

He passed away in 1990 after a serious and incurable illness.

Every time we visited the Sergei Parajanov Museum in Yerevan, where we certainly went during the Golden Apricot festival, we learned incredible facts from the director’s life. Now the founder of this wonderful museum, Zaven Sargsyan, is no longer alive. He died from coronavirus. There is a recording of our conversation that took place shortly before the pandemic. Here are a few of its fragments.

“Sergei Parajanov’s father was from a wealthy family. His real name is Parajanyan. I had to change it for some reason. They told him: “You must have a Russian surname.” Sergei’s father was imprisoned twice. Once for running a brothel in Tbilisi. This was in 1923 during the NEP. He owned three restaurants and a brothel called Family Comfort.

Sergei’s mother’s name was Siranush. This is her full name. There was a famous actress with that name, so many girls were called that. She was a housewife, but Sergei said that his artistry comes from his mother. She apparently sang well. Sergei was the third child. He had two sisters. The eldest Anna had two diplomas, married the hairdresser Zhora, who worked on Rustaveli Avenue, earned good money, but it was not considered very prestigious. (One of Parajanov’s collages – “Hairdresser Zhora” – was made in 1969. On it he depicted his son-in-law, hairdresser Georgy Khachaturov. When they carried out his coffin, the neighbors clicked the scissors that Parjanov had collected around the city on the eve of the farewell – S.Kh.). The youngest of the sisters, Ruzanna, was married to a Russian and lived in the Moscow region. He loved her very much.

Sergei studied choreography and was always very flexible, although overweight. He danced very beautifully. His school friend told me how a famous Russian dancer came to Tbilisi. The whole city was talking only about her. Returning after lessons with his comrades, Parajanov led them into the entrance, threw his briefcase and danced the dance of this ballerina. Then he entered the vocal department at the conservatory. And while he was a student, during the war, Sergei gave a lot of concerts in hospitals. He had a good voice. At the age of 22 he entered VGIK. Sergei recalled that there were many people maimed after the war, he said: “We have two Nelsons in our course.” It’s about two one-eyed students. One of them is Heinrich Gabay, who later directed The Green Van. He left for the USA, and we met in New York in 1991.

For some time, Sergei worked at a Tbilisi toy factory. Maybe that’s why he had a knack for making dolls.

Sergei enrolled in a course with Igor Savchenko. When he began filming Taras Shevchenko, Parajanov persuaded him to take Sergei Bondarchuk, whom no one knew yet, for the main role. Grisha Milikovakov, who studied with them at the same time, told how Sergei begged Savchenko on his knees: “Take it. This is the spitting image of Taras.” And he persuaded. They say that Stalin, after watching the film, said about Bondarchuk: “He plays like a People’s Artist of the USSR.” The newspaper Pravda was published, which reported on the awarding of the title. Grisha bought it, took a bottle of port and went to congratulate her. Bondarchuk then lived with Inna Makarova in the basement. Showed them the newspaper. Bondarchuk went for beer and bought a three-liter bottle. Noted. Then Parajanov and Bondarchuk diverged, but Sergei appreciated his film “Waterloo”. In the speech for which Parajanov was imprisoned, he mentioned “War and Peace” and said that he did not have as many troops as Bondarchuk. To show the Khan’s invasion of Armenia and Georgia, he filmed the dagger hitting the wall of the temple, and then grenades, that is, blood.

Sometimes I suddenly learned from people who were older than me and communicated with Sergei that he liked certain films, for example, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” And I liked Chaplin. Sergei retold the films very funny. If you saw any of them, you might think that we are talking about something completely different. He saw something completely different in them. He had a very funny script about King Lear on Soviet soil. He was the chairman of a collective farm, built houses for his older daughters, bought them cars, but gave nothing to the youngest. When he was imprisoned, she was the only one who came to see him in prison.

He was a dreamer since childhood, he constantly came up with something at school, played pranks on people, loved to turn into Aunt Charley, Andersen’s heroes. This was his passion. They had a chest in their house, which he called the chest of his childhood. You could hide in it and not go to school.”