Vitaly Melnikov - screenwriter and director, winner of the "Nika" award for his contribution to the development of cinematography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Few people know him by sight, but among the older generation there are those who would not watch and fall in love with his films, and even more actors for whom he opened the way to the big screen. These are Mikhail Kononov and Mikhail Boyarsky, Natalya Gundareva, who died early, and Nikolai Karachentsev. His authority in cinematographic circles is so great that the artists in his last film "The Admirer" (2012), in the absence of funds, worked on credit, showing creative heroism.

Celebrating his 88th birthday on May 1, screenwriter and director Vitaly Melnikov this year received the Nika Award for his contribution to the development of cinematography, which is the exception rather than the rule. For the director does not have an affair with film festivals, he does not strive for PR and ex altation of his own role in the success of the film, but he definitely has people's love and recognition of the audience.

Son of an enemy of the people

It's hard to imagine how fate would have turned outVitaly Melnikov, if not for Eisenstein, who had a theory that young directors need to be raised from scratch. And then a guy came to Moscow from Siberia to enter VGIK, whose entire experience in cinematography consisted only in the fact that he played films in a film shifter. And in this he so ideally suited the theory that he ended up on the course of Mikhail Romm and Sergei Yutkevich.

But the guy had more than enough life experience. Born in the village of Mazanovo on the Irtysh River (Amur Region) in the family of a teacher and a forester, he and his parents wandered throughout Siberia, listening to the free conversations of exiles and migrants who found themselves there against their will. The father's profession required living in remote places and small villages. After the promotion of Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, the family ended up in hungry Blagoveshchensk, from where he was “taken away” forever.

Vitaly Melnikov remembers how his mother Augusta Danilovna wrote to Stalin. She hoped and waited, leaving the city only after receiving news from her husband demanding to leave so that the wife of an enemy of the people would not be separated from her son. The difficult pre-war time passed in hardship, among relatives and friends who tried to somehow help a woman with a child. “They took away” the grandfather, and then the war broke out. Many years later, VV Melnikov, Vitaly's father, was rehabilitated. But, alas, posthumously. Before the eyes of the director, the whole life of a mother will pass, boundlessly devoted to her husband and keeping love in her heart until her last hour.

The path to feature films

Vitaly Melnikov studied togetherwith former front-line soldiers Sergei Bondarchuk, Pavel Chukhrai and Vladimir Basov, not only learning the profession, but also learning the school of life. After receiving his diploma, he was assigned to Lenfilm, the young specialist worked in documentary films. His whole future life will be connected with St. Petersburg. Here he will find his destiny, having lived all his life with one single woman, a former siege of Leningrad.

Documentary films are another life school of the director. These are traveling around the country, communicating with hundreds of people, developing their own style and acquiring versatility, which forced them to take up their own scripts in the future. He made films about everything: from scientific and educational about livestock specialists and land reclamators to biographical films - portraits ("Kibalchich", "Lomonosov"). Realizing that all this had a certain ideological component in those years, Vitaly Vyacheslavovich comes to an understanding of what the viewer really needs in feature cinema. Ten years later, he starts working in feature films.

The first films of Vitaly Melnikov

Today the filmography of Vitaly Vyacheslavovich consists of 22 works in the field of feature films. If we do not take into account his participation in the film as the second director of the short film in 1964, then the historical tape in the style of the ironic passage "Head of Chukotka" (1966) can be considered his debut. A magnificent improviser, a brilliant storyteller and a good-natured mocker, Vitaly Melnikov, director of the heroic comedy, managed to giveparodic notes to the historical and revolutionary material, including thanks to the ingenious acting duet of the recognized master Alexei Gribov and the novice Mikhail Kononov, who became one of the favorite actors of the director.

Among the first works is the unforgettable "Mom Got Married" (1969) based on the script by Y. Klepikov, who fell out of favor with the film authorities. A well-established debut film director is given the right to film the script, but the audience will not see a brilliant picture at the box office. It will appear on blue screens only in the seventies. Here, for the first time, Oleg Efremov appears as a former alcoholic, and Luciena Ovchinnikova plays a woman who dreams of simple human happiness. There has been a tendency that Vitaly Vyacheslavovich does not strive to become a fashion director, focusing on the lyrical canvas and giving a person the opportunity to better understand himself.

Writer debut

Melnikov turned out to have a lot in common with Alexander Vampilov, which allowed him to penetrate deeper into his dramaturgy, riddled with sad irony. Realizing that the main thing for the author is not the plot, but unexpected observations of changes in the human personality, Vitaly Vyacheslavovich himself writes scripts for two of his paintings based on the works of A. Vampilov, although he always collaborated with the best screenwriters of his time: A. Zhitinsky, V. Merezhko, V. Valutsky. These are “The Elder Son” (1975) and “Vacation in September” (“Duck Hunt”, 1979), which have become real film masterpieces of the master.

Both paintings are the undeniable success of the inimitable Yevgeny Leonov,forcing the viewer to empathize with his touching and internally unprotected characters. This is the talent of the director, who creates a situation of acting looseness on the set, mobilizing like-minded people to solve a common problem, and not giving commands to a person who is convinced only of his own rightness. In his scripts, sadness is side by side with fun, mockery is mixed with sensitivity, and observation is permeated with exaggeration. All together - this is a unique style of film storytelling, the author of which is Vitaly Melnikov, the screenwriter of seven of his films. In addition to the works of A. Vampilov, the most famous are "Marriage" by N. Gogol (1997) and "Poor, poor Pavel" about Paul I (2003).

Historical films

In the 90s, when history was being created in Russia right before our eyes, the master wanted to make a whole series of historical films that would make it possible to better understand his time through comparison. These are not epic paintings. Vitaly Melnikov does not change himself, peering intently into the characters of the characters, their formation and development. Paul I for him is not a banal tyrant with the manners of a martinet, but a great dreamer who dreams of making people happy by sitting in Gatchina for thirty years. Reality, dependence on certain circles and the realization of which country he rules makes him what he has become.

Vitaly Vyacheslavovich has a special gift for choosing actors. Talking with the applicant before the film, after a while he clearly understands whether he is suitable for the image of a movie character or not. So Victor got the lead role. Sukhorukov, for which no screen tests were required. For this role, the talented actor received the Nika award. Among the historical films of the director are the films "Royal Hunt" (1990) and "Tsarevich Alexei" (1997).

Vitaly Melnikov: filmography, creative failures

The author himself names two unsuccessful paintings among them: "Unicum" (1983) and "Two lines in small print" (1981). This does not mean at all that he did not invest his talent and labor in them. Unfortunately, this is the case when the latter won in the struggle between creativity and censorship. The 1981 film is a collaboration with the GDR, which also had a hand in editing the film.

Vitaly Vyacheslavovich believes that today his filmography is closed, this process is too difficult for a venerable age - shooting a full-length feature film. But he is tempted to work on scripts, which means that many more interesting things can be expected by movie fans. In addition to the above-mentioned works of the master, the following films are in the piggy bank of the People's Artist of the RSFSR: "The Seven Brides of Corporal Zbruev" (1970), "Hello and Farewell" (1972), "Xenia, Fyodor's Beloved Wife" (1974), "Someone else's wife and husband under the bed "(1984), "Marry the Captain" (1985), "First Meeting, Last Meeting" (1987), "Chicha" (1991), "The Last Case of Boiled" (1994), "The garden was full of moon" (2000), “Agitation brigade “Beat the enemy!” (2007).