One of the most intriguing entries at this year's Kinotavr Russian national film festival ?€” which opens this weekend and runs through June 14 ?€” will be the June 10 world premiere of Andrei A. Eshpai's "A Hill in Blossom in an Empty Field." Shot on a shoestring budget with a digital camera and Eshpai's wife playing the role of the main heroine, the film is groundbreaking for many reasons ?€” not the least of which being that it was simultaneously filmed in two languages: Russian and English. On the eve of the opener, Eshpai, 45, talked to The Moscow Times about problems in Russian cinema and about his unusual decision to make an English version of his movie which, with a wink to Woody Allen, he titled "Anna's Hill."
Q:Your best-known film "The Insulted and Humiliated," (based on a Dostoevsky novel) starring Nastassja Kinski and Nikita Mikhalkov, was made in 1990 when you were 34. How did you pull off that casting coup?
A:It surprised me as much as anyone. My editor, Alla Savranskaya, was working for the Moscow Film Festival in 1988 when producer Ibrahiim Moussa was a jury member. She told him my film had just entered production. He said, "Did you know my wife is Nastassja Kinski?" She said, "Yes." He said, "Did you know her children are named after Dostoevskian heroes and that she dreams of playing Dostoevsky?"
In short, complex negotiations ensued, filled with studio intrigues. Kinski was sending me faxes I never received. Finally, she sent a telegram to studio director Mikhail Litvak and me that read: "Andrei! Michael! Come to Roma!" Eventually, we headed for Rome.
Q:"The Insulted and Humiliated" was poorly received when it came out in 1991 but now is widely admired. Do you predict the same results for your latest film?
A:I made "The Insulted and Humiliated" when the dam had burst. Everybody was trying to see who could be the most vulgar. Incidentally, that is what caused the film crisis of the 1990s. My pictures arise from the flow of my own life, from my personal connection to what is transpiring around me. "Insulted" was the first Dostoevsky adaptation to avoid a narrow, social point of view. It was about the thoughts people have, about what goes on in their inner worlds.
Q:Ten years have passed since your last film. You were idle for the entire decade while the Russian cinema played dead.
A:Well, the word "idle" does not fit my understanding of life or time. Some people try to respond to every aspect of the age they live in. I back off and view things from a distance. I have absolutely no sensation that I wasted time. I worked on many projects during those years. But I was not among those few who made films in the 1990s. I'm glad I wasn't. If we can say something of value was happening in the theater at that time, in film there was almost nothing.
Q:What is happening now?
A:A flood of television serials is being made. Serials are not cinema, but they are beginning to do what Soviet film always did ?€” conduct a complex dialogue among actors, directors and spectators. I'm talking about a spiritual, heart-to-heart dialogue. With the collapse of the film industry, we lost access to the role models that must exist within each of us. When this model reappears, our society can be reborn. By the same token, the distortion of this model has dire consequences. Right now the West has a very skewed image of the Russian role model. The Russian for the West is an odious figure.
Q:For example, that of Vladimir Mashkov, who is making a career in Hollywood playing Russian bandits?
A:Yes, but if this were the only true image, Russia would have rolled over and died. The reality is more complex. This country has weathered a tremendous shock. You don't emerge from something like that quickly. But, you can't write off art and science in Russia. Or all of the enormously talented young people. The West has ignored this, although I understand why. What we see on the surface are the crooks who control this country's money and policies.
Q:Your new film is a challenge to those preconceptions.
A:I am appealing to that part of human consciousness that exists out of time. The plot is quite banal. A woman talks about leaving her husband. She dreams up a chain of events to help her do it, but the story is simple. On the other hand, the significance of her actions is complex.
Q:And the form in which you shot the film is challenging.
A:A lot has happened lately in cinema, including the appearance of the Dogma movement of hyperrealism. I employ a subjective camera and the devices of documentary film, while including scenes that are traditional in their staging. I combined that all into one.
Q:It sounds as if you saw Lars Von Trier's films and decided to imitate him.
A:I read Yury Vyazemsky's story, on which my film is based, in 1986. And I spent years thinking about it. I resolved to have a subjective camera, that is, to influence the spectator's perception of the heroine through the cameraman's attitude to her. Later, when I saw the first Dogma films ?€” Von Trier's "Idiots" and Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration" ?€” I realized they had paved the road to mass audiences for such experiments.
My film incorporates many personal elements: It stars my wife, Yevgenia Simonova, and my daughter Marusya, who plays her character in flashbacks; much of it was filmed near the dacha where my parents live; it uses music written by my father, the composer Andrei Eshpai; the story was written by my brother-in-law. This all supported the film's documentary nature and infused it with deeply felt, familial, human qualities. Everything I have just said is in sharp contrast to the prevailing Western attitude toward Russia. But, Russia is a big, varied country. You can't pigeonhole an entire nation.
Q:The notion of Russia as a complex, enigmatic place is stronger in "Anna's Hill," the English version you made. Why two versions?
A:The Russian version was purposefully structured on the rich complexities of the Russian language. We perceived it as a "return" to real Russian, not the one that is so junked-up now. So I wanted to avoid subtitles when showing the film abroad. And since Simonova speaks English well, I simultaneously shot the whole thing twice ?€” once in Russian, once in English. But while editing, I realized that the structures of the two languages were forcing me to make different cuts. These caused more changes that ended up altering the final products. The two versions evolved into independent films with diametrically opposed endings: The Russian off-camera character (the cameraman) abandons a book he planned to write, while the American goes home to write one.
Q:When will "Anna's Hill" be shown?
A:That isn't certain yet.
Q:You shot these movies on digital equipment and have transferred them to film for distribution. I know you are passionate about this idea as one method of combating Russian cinema's current financial crisis.
A:Digital films are an ideal way to experiment. You don't get the quality of celluloid film, but if the lower resolution is a part of your artistic method ?€” as it was with my pseudo-documentary ?€” then digital lets you work for far less money. I would have shot this story very differently on film. When shooting with film you have enormous problems to solve before shouting, "Action!" With digital, you can strike while the iron is hot. This is ideal for putting young filmmakers ?€” who otherwise don't have the means ?€” to work. For the last decade, everything that has arisen in the student sphere has been nipped in the bud. This is no less a catastrophe than the absence of role models. If directors cannot experiment and seek their own cinematic language, nothing new will arise in the mainstream. And, after all, what arises on the fringes is what eventually seeps into the mainstream.
?€” Interview by John Freedman
Q:Your best-known film "The Insulted and Humiliated," (based on a Dostoevsky novel) starring Nastassja Kinski and Nikita Mikhalkov, was made in 1990 when you were 34. How did you pull off that casting coup?
A:It surprised me as much as anyone. My editor, Alla Savranskaya, was working for the Moscow Film Festival in 1988 when producer Ibrahiim Moussa was a jury member. She told him my film had just entered production. He said, "Did you know my wife is Nastassja Kinski?" She said, "Yes." He said, "Did you know her children are named after Dostoevskian heroes and that she dreams of playing Dostoevsky?"
In short, complex negotiations ensued, filled with studio intrigues. Kinski was sending me faxes I never received. Finally, she sent a telegram to studio director Mikhail Litvak and me that read: "Andrei! Michael! Come to Roma!" Eventually, we headed for Rome.
Q:"The Insulted and Humiliated" was poorly received when it came out in 1991 but now is widely admired. Do you predict the same results for your latest film?
A:I made "The Insulted and Humiliated" when the dam had burst. Everybody was trying to see who could be the most vulgar. Incidentally, that is what caused the film crisis of the 1990s. My pictures arise from the flow of my own life, from my personal connection to what is transpiring around me. "Insulted" was the first Dostoevsky adaptation to avoid a narrow, social point of view. It was about the thoughts people have, about what goes on in their inner worlds.
Q:Ten years have passed since your last film. You were idle for the entire decade while the Russian cinema played dead.
A:Well, the word "idle" does not fit my understanding of life or time. Some people try to respond to every aspect of the age they live in. I back off and view things from a distance. I have absolutely no sensation that I wasted time. I worked on many projects during those years. But I was not among those few who made films in the 1990s. I'm glad I wasn't. If we can say something of value was happening in the theater at that time, in film there was almost nothing.
Q:What is happening now?
A:A flood of television serials is being made. Serials are not cinema, but they are beginning to do what Soviet film always did ?€” conduct a complex dialogue among actors, directors and spectators. I'm talking about a spiritual, heart-to-heart dialogue. With the collapse of the film industry, we lost access to the role models that must exist within each of us. When this model reappears, our society can be reborn. By the same token, the distortion of this model has dire consequences. Right now the West has a very skewed image of the Russian role model. The Russian for the West is an odious figure.
Q:For example, that of Vladimir Mashkov, who is making a career in Hollywood playing Russian bandits?
A:Yes, but if this were the only true image, Russia would have rolled over and died. The reality is more complex. This country has weathered a tremendous shock. You don't emerge from something like that quickly. But, you can't write off art and science in Russia. Or all of the enormously talented young people. The West has ignored this, although I understand why. What we see on the surface are the crooks who control this country's money and policies.
Q:Your new film is a challenge to those preconceptions.
A:I am appealing to that part of human consciousness that exists out of time. The plot is quite banal. A woman talks about leaving her husband. She dreams up a chain of events to help her do it, but the story is simple. On the other hand, the significance of her actions is complex.
Q:And the form in which you shot the film is challenging.
A:A lot has happened lately in cinema, including the appearance of the Dogma movement of hyperrealism. I employ a subjective camera and the devices of documentary film, while including scenes that are traditional in their staging. I combined that all into one.
Q:It sounds as if you saw Lars Von Trier's films and decided to imitate him.
A:I read Yury Vyazemsky's story, on which my film is based, in 1986. And I spent years thinking about it. I resolved to have a subjective camera, that is, to influence the spectator's perception of the heroine through the cameraman's attitude to her. Later, when I saw the first Dogma films ?€” Von Trier's "Idiots" and Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration" ?€” I realized they had paved the road to mass audiences for such experiments.
My film incorporates many personal elements: It stars my wife, Yevgenia Simonova, and my daughter Marusya, who plays her character in flashbacks; much of it was filmed near the dacha where my parents live; it uses music written by my father, the composer Andrei Eshpai; the story was written by my brother-in-law. This all supported the film's documentary nature and infused it with deeply felt, familial, human qualities. Everything I have just said is in sharp contrast to the prevailing Western attitude toward Russia. But, Russia is a big, varied country. You can't pigeonhole an entire nation.
Q:The notion of Russia as a complex, enigmatic place is stronger in "Anna's Hill," the English version you made. Why two versions?
A:The Russian version was purposefully structured on the rich complexities of the Russian language. We perceived it as a "return" to real Russian, not the one that is so junked-up now. So I wanted to avoid subtitles when showing the film abroad. And since Simonova speaks English well, I simultaneously shot the whole thing twice ?€” once in Russian, once in English. But while editing, I realized that the structures of the two languages were forcing me to make different cuts. These caused more changes that ended up altering the final products. The two versions evolved into independent films with diametrically opposed endings: The Russian off-camera character (the cameraman) abandons a book he planned to write, while the American goes home to write one.
Q:When will "Anna's Hill" be shown?
A:That isn't certain yet.
Q:You shot these movies on digital equipment and have transferred them to film for distribution. I know you are passionate about this idea as one method of combating Russian cinema's current financial crisis.
A:Digital films are an ideal way to experiment. You don't get the quality of celluloid film, but if the lower resolution is a part of your artistic method ?€” as it was with my pseudo-documentary ?€” then digital lets you work for far less money. I would have shot this story very differently on film. When shooting with film you have enormous problems to solve before shouting, "Action!" With digital, you can strike while the iron is hot. This is ideal for putting young filmmakers ?€” who otherwise don't have the means ?€” to work. For the last decade, everything that has arisen in the student sphere has been nipped in the bud. This is no less a catastrophe than the absence of role models. If directors cannot experiment and seek their own cinematic language, nothing new will arise in the mainstream. And, after all, what arises on the fringes is what eventually seeps into the mainstream.
?€” Interview by John Freedman
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