"Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears" is my third musical"
On September 4, the series "Moscow does not believe in tears" will be released in the online cinema Wink. Everything is just beginning." Not a literal remake of Vladimir Menshov's film, but an eight-episode musical. The series was directed by the spouses Zhora Kryzhovnikov (the creative pseudonym of Andrei Pershin) and Olga Dolmatovskaya. In an exclusive interview with Izvestia, they told why they see nothing wrong with referring to the classics, how their lives changed after "The Boy's Word" and what William Shakespeare has to do with it. We also shared an exclusive fragment of the series — watch it on the website. iz.ru .
"It's based on Black's script, which we've acquired the rights to"
— "Moscow does not believe in tears. Everything is just beginning" is your joint directorial project. Did you split your responsibilities in half, or did someone have a lot more work to do?
Olga Dolmatovskaya: The idea of the series originally came to Andrey Nikolaevich, who later led a large script team, which included Evgenia Khripkova, Alina Tyazhlova, Yulia Gulyan and Aksinya Borisova. On the set, absolutely everything — from casting to any little thing in the frame — was also claimed by Andrey. Therefore, it seems to me that this is more of his project.
— And if we talk about the series as a whole, is it a remake or rather a homage to Menshov's film?
Zhora Gooseberry: I don't want to compare myself with Shakespeare on the second question, but as you know, he didn't have a single original story. All of them were based either on short stories he had found somewhere, or on plays that he had remade. But in the history of literature and theater, these subjects remained thanks to him. That's why I don't think a remake is something bad or flawed. Many stories require to be retold anew. The Lion King cartoon is a retelling of Hamlet. And Hamlet is a retelling of a play by an unknown author who lived before Shakespeare. Therefore, the word "remake" does not cause me any negativity.
O.D.: But we don't have a remake, either.
J.K.: We watched the movie and wanted to tell the story of three friends 20 years later, just like in the original. That is, first we see them in the early noughties, and then in our time. The line of our main character is very similar to that of Valentin Chernykh in his script "Lied Twice", which won the script contest about Moscow and from there already got to Menshov. But her two friends have completely different stories, conflicts and problems. We don't have a hockey player, we don't have a construction worker. In general, everything is different with us. That's why it's a remake, and it's not a remake. Homage, and not homage. But it cannot be denied that it is based on the Black script, to which we acquired the rights and which served as a starting point for our search for how such a story could develop in our day.
— But the series will still be compared with Menshov's film, and for sure someone will not like it. Are you ready for this? In general, there is no feeling that something sacred has been violated?
Zh.K.: Olya, did you encroach on the sacred?
O.D.: Yes, I did (laughs).
J.K.: Our attempt to retell this story will not make it worse for the Saint. The holy thing is the holy thing that is immaculate and pure. Therefore, at least our project will increase the number of views of the film "Moscow does not believe in tears" on all platforms. And again, in the history of drama, something is constantly being retold, and in movies it happens more than regularly. The Little Mermaid cartoon is based on Andersen's fairy tale, and Aladdin is based on the Arabic fairy tale of the same name. And we have a boom of fairy tales in the cinema now. But I want our series to find its audience. And in this sense, we are not afraid of haters, because absolutely everyone cannot like something. There will definitely be haters, so we are calm and not so naive as to expect otherwise.
"I was really looking forward to taking the subway again"
— Unlike Olga, Andrey, you didn't grow up in Moscow. Do you remember your very first impressions of the city?
J.K.: I really liked the subway because there wasn't one in my hometown. There were colorful coin-changing machines, into which you throw 15 kopecks, and three five-kopecks fall out. And at that moment, when the money was being dumped out, they looked like one-armed bandits in a casino. I was really waiting for us to take the subway again, they would give me a coin toss, and these piglets would fall out.
— How old were you then?
J.K.: About five or six years. Well, I also have other childhood impressions: the Durov Corner Theater, VDNKh. There was also a trip to the Leipzig department store, where there was a toy railway, and you could stand and watch a train ride along it. In general, Moscow was a place of miracles for me.
— What's it like to work together when you're husband and wife? What are the pros and cons, pitfalls?
O.D.: There can be many pitfalls and obstacles if the participants in the process do not understand who is in charge. I had no problem with that. At the very beginning, we had some difficulties, but due to the fact that our tastes coincide, it was a pleasure to work. And you, Andrey Nikolaevich, what do you say?
J.K.: I will say that there were no surprises in our joint work. It's just that when you work alone, you don't have to coordinate anything. And when it's just the two of us, it's already necessary. And at first, we needed to work out a protocol quickly enough — as we say, a mutual OK. Olya worked more with artists, and I sat at the playlist more often, but we needed to know that we look at some important things the same way. Therefore, we have learned to ask each other if we have an agreement on any issue, and if not, then discuss it.
— Do you talk about work at home? Or do you leave everything on the playground?
O.D.: For us, these are inseparable things, so we enjoyed talking about something at home, thinking it over, writing it down. It didn't happen that we went over the threshold and basically didn't talk about work anymore.
J.K.: In general, it seems to me that if work is not discussed at home, then something is going wrong.
"In the first episode, we have three songs about Moscow combined into one number"
— How difficult was the casting for this project? You have a lot of heroes, and in two time periods.
J.K.: This casting was mainly conducted by Olya, and I only took some samples and sometimes came to the ensemble. But for me personally, the most difficult thing was to figure out whether we would have two "sets" of actresses or one. If there is one, then we take 30-year-old actresses and first make them funny braids, and then we lower their bangs, put on glasses and pencil skirts. Or are there two? Should I change the men or not?
Fortunately, we were reviewing the samples and came across Tina Stojilkovic, who seemed to be a simple and charming girl, but very young. We invited her and talked to her. We did a sample of what she would look like if she played her character as an adult. And it was a little ridiculous: it didn't look like she was many years old. And then at the APKiT Awards, where the "Word of the Kid" awards were presented, we saw Marina Alexandrova, who surprisingly resembled our main character in adulthood — she radiated the vibe of a successful, beautiful woman. On the other hand, she looks very similar to Tina. So we accidentally found this first pair, and after that we had no doubt that there should be two ages after all. And then they started looking for these pairs.
— The genre of your series is declared as a melodrama. At the same time, in recent years, this genre has been rather for a not very demanding female audience ...
O.D.: I love melodramas in general.…
J.K.: The question here is whether a melodrama can be "premium" and extraordinary. Of course it can. "Moscow does not believe in tears" is an example of a high—class melodrama that was successful at the box office in France, in other European countries, and in the United States. She also won an Oscar. "Sleepless in Seattle," a pure melodrama, I personally have watched many times. It seems to me that everything depends on the quality of the script and the level of the artists. Plus, our project has a genre lens: it's a musical. Our characters sing and dance, which also changes perception in some way. Therefore, there is a feeling that we have enough bonuses (smiles).
— What's your favorite musical?
O.D.: Before working on "Moscow," we watched a huge number of American musicals from the 40s and 50s, and this genre opened up to me in a new way. I fell in love with him. As it is, I really like "Singin' in the Rain." "La La Land" hit me hard too. The finale, when Emma Stone looked at Gosling and imagined the life they hadn't lived together.… Even now, when I talk about it, tears come to me.
J.K.: And my favorite is the Moulin Rouge.
— How did you choose the songs for the series?
J.K.: This is my third musical, after "The Best Day" and the second "Ice." And the technology of the songs appearing in a musical film is always about the same. Maybe someone works differently, but first we write the script without musical numbers, not knowing where and what they will be. And then at some point you feel which scenes might have musical development. And the search for the right song begins. For example, in the first episode we have three songs about Moscow combined into one number. They are all slightly different and reflect the city in different ways. I mean, it's music that should be the handmaiden of drama, not the other way around.
O.D.: And the songs in our series are the music of my youth.
"Outsourcing turned out to be very interesting
— Last year, the "Word of the Kid" thundered. What has changed for you after this huge success? Has the character deteriorated, have the demands and fees increased, or has the size of the trailer you use increased?
J.K.: Nothing has changed, except that people are taking pictures with me now. It's calmer now, but I was on vacation recently, and suddenly a man caught me and took a picture with his children, and he has three of them. He also had a friend, and the friend also had a son. That is, even a small queue formed for me to take a photo.
— What is more important to you — creative success or commercial success?
O.D.: It seems to me that they cannot be separated. But it's cool when they match and you're not just doing something for yourself, but you have an audience. And you, Andrey, what do you think?
J.K.: We work in the spectator cinema, so our commercial and creative success, in theory, should coincide. If no one has watched our project, we cannot say in our segment: "But the film is good."
— Andrey, you recently launched a channel with reviews of Soviet films. How did this idea come about? And will there be any new releases?
J.K.: Yes, I will make an issue about Gaidai in the near future, which I have already announced. Then I'll move on to Danelia, and then we'll see. It so happened that since about 2013, I have been regularly giving lectures on Soviet comedy in various places — at VGIK, at the Moscow Film School, and at Industry. Every time it turned out that people were interested in this, so I thought it was time to fix it in some way. Well, there is another plus: I no longer need to give this lecture to the students of my annual intensive courses for screenwriters. I can tell them, "Look online."
— Do you often watch movies and TV series yourself? Which of the last ones did you like?
O.D.: We are in time.
J.K.: We regularly watch at least the first episodes of everything that comes out on competitors' platforms. If we talk about Russian, Outsourcing turned out to be very interesting.
— What is your favorite Wink series? Besides what you shot for the platform yourself.
O.D.: "The word of a kid." I didn't take it off, so I have the right to name it (smiles).
J.K.: It so happened that I participated in the work on the "Combination" — both at the level of ideas, at the level of casting, and even sat for a while during the installation. Therefore, I will call it a "Combination". And yet the first season of "Fisher" is a highly artistic work.
— Andrey, you have a reputation in the industry for being a very demanding person, they say it's sometimes difficult with you. Do you agree with this?
J.K.: Olya, you answer first.
O.D.: Yes, a very complicated person (smiles). But here's the situation: if you're not a professional, you're going to get hurt. But sometimes it hurts for professionals too. Because the requirements are really high. And Andrey has a sharp way of communicating the truth to people. But it's always not out of spite, without getting personal and just for business.
J.K.: I don't want to compare myself with the greats, but the diaries of the assistant operator on Stalker have been preserved, which begin something like this: "I decided to get on the Tarkovsky project. It was a piece of cake to do this, because the requirements were high." That is, few people wanted to go to work for Tarkovsky, because they had to do something there and be responsible for it. There's a different rhythm, a different energy, not always entertaining and relaxing. Tovstonogov, by the way, said that when using the Stanislavsky method, the joy of creativity is carved out of the process of work. And it seems to me that our gang of professionals — and with many of us we are doing at least a second project together, with some and more - we are getting joy. So, all this is not in vain.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
