The film "Moscow does not believe in tears": reviews, summary, history of creation, crew, actors and roles

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

This February marks thirty-nine years since the release of one of the outstanding masterpieces of Russian cinema of the Soviet period - the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", which is a very sincerely told lyrical story about three girls who once ventured to come to Moscow from the provinces in search of a lucky lottery ticket.

This picture deservedly won a real triumph, the solemn procession of which spread to one hundred countries of the world and was crowned with the "Oscar" of the American Film Academy. However, the triumph of this wonderful film directed by Vladimir Menshov, at least in Russia and the post-Soviet space, continues, and not a single holiday TV broadcast can do without it.

However, not everything and not always went smoothly in the process of creating thisworks of Soviet cinematic art.

A few words about the creators of the picture

Who were these people who generously gave such a magnificent gift to millions of viewers? The film crew of the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" was the following creative team.

The script for the film was written by the famous screenwriter and playwright Valentin Chernykh, familiar to viewers from such movie hits as "Earthly Love", "The Taste of Bread", "Marry the Captain", "I declare war on you", "Love by -Russian", "Children of the Arbat" and "Own".

After some hesitation, Vladimir Menshov, known both for his many roles in films and for such directorial works as "Love and Pigeons", "Shirli-Myrli" and "Envy of the Gods", acted as the director after some hesitation.

Honored Artist of the RSFSR Igor Slabnevich, who worked on the creation of such Soviet films as "Liberation" and "Stalingrad", became a director of photography, and Said Menyashchikov became an artist.

The film was edited by Elena Mikhailova, and songs based on poems by Dmitry Sukharev, Yuri Vizbor and Yuri Levitansky were written by Soviet singer-songwriter Sergei Nikitin.

But the most important participants in the creation of the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" was a whole army of actors, whose number exceeded sixty people.

Summary

Today it seemssurprising, but in those distant 80s, when a picture was shot, the plot of which is known almost by heart for several generations of our compatriots who have reviewed this tape dozens of times and still continue to laugh and cry along with its heroes, many famous and not very Soviet actors simply refused to participate in the filming of the film directed by Vladimir Menshov.

Recall what the content of the picture was.

Acquaintance with its main characters takes place at the end of the 50s. From a distant province, three girl friends come to Moscow - Katya, Luda and Tonya. Each of them has their own character and concept of the structure of their own lives, and they also represent happiness in their own way.

Quiet and sincere Tonya works at a construction site and considers taking care of her husband and children the main female mission. Having become the wife of her colleague, simple and correct Nikolai, she is happy with her small and ordinary family joys.

Powerful Luda, and more often Ludmila, as she herself prefers to introduce herself to young people, is intensely looking for a groom among difficult and accomplished men. She marries rising hockey star Sergei Gurin. But in the end, Sergei becomes an inveterate drunkard, and Lyudmila, divorced from him, endlessly continues to search for her happiness.

The simple and understandable life of the moral but gullible Katya is one day destroyed by pregnancy from an affair with the imposing Rudolf, working on television, who was with the girl mainly becausethe legend invented by Luda about the father-professor and a luxurious apartment in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. Accusing Katya of deceit, he runs from her and from his unborn child like fire. Having given birth to her daughter Alexandra, the heroine is torn between work and the child she raises alone. Going to bed deep after midnight, she sets the alarm clock to an even earlier wake-up time and cries…

The alarm clock rings and the film is set twenty years ahead. Katya wakes up as the director of the chemical plant, Ekaterina Alexandrovna. From that moment on, the summary of "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" fundamentally changes. Having achieved success in her life and career, she is still lonely and unloved by anyone. But fate had already prepared for her a meeting with the locksmith Gosha…

History of Creation

The story of the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" is quite unexpected.

It all started with a script by Valentin Chernykh, which Vladimir Menshov considered uninteresting at the suggestion of the outstanding screenwriter and director Jan Frid.

The only thing that Menshov really liked was the episode with the same alarm clock that takes the main character twenty years ahead. Seizing on this idea, the director asked the scriptwriter to make significant changes to the material. When Chernykh flatly refused, Menshov himself undertook to correct the script. As a result, the text almost doubled, and the audience saw the picture as it had a chance and not become. However, Menshov managed to correctthe original script so that, according to reviews, "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" has been holding the palm among the most beloved Russian films for almost forty years.

For example, having become the director of the plant, Ekaterina, according to the original version, was going to meet with voters, but in the end, by the will of the director, she was sent to communicate with the director of the dating club.

Rudolf was supposed to have a father who worked at the factory as a turner, and Katya, invited by Rudolf to television, was supposed to be present on the TV sets of KVN, and not Blue Light.

Below in the photo in a black hat you can see director Vladimir Menshov, who also played a tiny role in the picture.

Gosha, meticulously repairing a vacuum cleaner, initially watched hockey on TV and drank beer. And from Nikolai's well-known answer to Gosha's famous question about the lack of stability and the seizure of an airplane by terrorists - "What is being done there in the world?" - for the sake of political correctness, Menshov removed the name of the airport. In the same scene, instead of starting to sing "Walking along the Don", Gosha and Nikolai, who were pretty tipsy, began to butcher the ram loudly, and this episode itself became one of the funniest in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", according to the audience.

Gosha and Ekaterina

Let's take a closer look at the main characters of our favorite movie.

According to authoritative recommendationmanagement of the film studio "Mosfilm", only such stars of Soviet cinema as Anastasia Vertinskaya, Zhanna Bolotova, Irina Kupchenko and even Valentina Telichkina should have applied for the role of Catherine. However, none of the listed celebrities was interested in the script of the new film directed by Menshov at all.

The famous actress Margarita Terekhova already wanted to agree to the shooting, but in the same period she was offered a role in the serial film "D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers", and the actress chose Milady Ekaterina.

Ultimately, the role went to Menshov's wife, Vera Alentova. Worried that many might think that his wife got into the picture by pull, Menchov constantly broke down on her, turning into a scream, considering her a bad actress and getting the most out of her. So, having gone through severe trials, Vera Alentova became the very Katya that we all fell in love with.

With Gosha, everything turned out to be very difficult too. Such well-known actors as Vitaly Solomin, Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Oleg Efremov could perform his role. But all of them did not fit the image that Vladimir Menshov imagined, who, out of desperation, was already about to take on the role of Gosha. But at that wonderful moment, he saw the famous actor Alexei Batalov on the TV screen and immediately realized that in front of him was Gosh in person.

Surprisingly, Batalov himself did not like the scenario presented either, becausehe did not imagine himself as an intelligent locksmith at all.

After going through all the described thorns, it was Vera Alentova and Alexei Batalov who were destined to become one of the most beloved romantic couples in Soviet cinema by the audience.

Sergei and Lyudmila

Few people know, but the actor Alexander Fatyushin, who played the role of hockey player Sergei Gurin, could well become Nikolai. Indeed, it is not at all difficult to imagine him as the right husband of Tony's heroine, since both of these heroes are somewhat similar in character. Or maybe they even represent a kind of metaphorical message of the director, indicating that for the most part all men are the same, and the only thing that matters is which woman will go with him through life. A simple builder, Nikolai, was lucky enough to meet his woman. And the famous hockey player - no …

One way or another, but Alexander Fatyushin in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" eventually played the rather tragic role of Sergei Gurin, a drunk athlete. Moreover, Fatyushin turned out to be so externally and internally similar to Gurin that later in ordinary life many people seriously considered him a former hockey player and alcoholic.

Brilliant actress Irina Muravyova did not like her rude and even vulgar heroine Lyudmila at all, representing everything that she could not stand in people. By her own admission, she even cried from resentment. But be that as it may, Irina Muravyova in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" played one of the strongest and most significant roles incareer.

Nikolai and Tonya

Shy Tonya, or Tosya, as her on-screen husband Nikolai affectionately called her, could be such actresses as Galina Polskikh, Lyudmila Zaitseva and Natalya Andreichenko, but it was in the performance of Raisa Ryazanova that Tosya looked the most authentic, and this role itself became the most memorable and truly significant actress in the creative life. At the same time, as Raisa Ryazanova later recalled, the image of Tosya did not make her famous at all, since all the glory went to two other performers of her on-screen friends, Katya and Lyudmila.

For supporting actor Boris Smorchkov, who has played more than eighty film roles in his career, the image of Nikolai also became the only work of this level in his entire career. For a brilliantly played role, one of the most significant in the entire film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", according to the audience, Boris Smorchkov, by and large, received only a lot of warm memories and many years of friendship with his on-screen wife Raisa Ryazanova.

Other actors and roles

Director Vladimir Menshov managed to shoot a picture in which there is not a single episodic role. Even the smallest and fleeting image is important and complete.

In particular, such characters as the dormitory watchman, performed by actress Zoya Fedorova, for whom work in the film under discussion was the last in her life, or Anton, the deputy head of the main department, played by the wonderful Vladimir Basov and his famous phrase: "In 40 years life onlybegins" are just as important as the presence of the main characters.

Liya Akhedzhakova in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" became the owner of a very small, but very bright role. She played an energetic and purposeful director of a dating club, extremely surprised by the fact that Ekaterina, who came to her from the Moscow City Council, is also alone, like all her wards.

Ekaterina's daughter Alexandra was played by a young twenty-year-old actress Natalya Vavilova. Her parents were categorically against filming, and only Alexei Batalov managed to persuade them to agree, whose charm was absolutely impossible to resist.

Oleg Tabakov in the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" played an important role of Vladimir, Katerina's lover, with his image and presence denoting the very impossible line of Catherine's loneliness, beyond which she has nowhere to go.

Opinion of the artistic council of "Mosfilm"

The reaction of the artistic council of the film studio "Mosfilm" to the picture shown to him was a long silence. At the time of strict censorship, it was fashionable to scold rather than praise. There was nothing to scold, and it was not fashionable to praise. The Council was silent, groaning approvingly. The director of the film studio Sizov could not resist the first. Being a rather stern person, very far from sentimentality, he got angry at cautious praise from the seats, got up and, unexpectedly for the already desperateVladimir Menshov said that, in his opinion, "Moscow does not believe in tears" is a film that millions of viewers can love. However, then, face to face, he asked Menshov to cut out some intimate episodes.

In the end, the picture was viewed by L. I. Brezhnev himself, who was really delighted with it. From that moment on, the film's happy fate was a settled issue.

Menshov and Oscar

In 1981, Vladimir Menshov, along with the entire film crew, was invited to the annual Oscar ceremony, but the director was never released from the country.

At that time there was no internet yet, and that his film "Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears" became a laureate in the nomination "Best Film in a Foreign Language", Menchov found out much later than the ceremony itself. On the solemn day of the announcement of the winners, he was sitting at the radio and trying to catch the Voice of America radio station, but due to interference he could not make out anything.

Gold figurine "overtook" the director only in 1989, eight years later. It was presented to Menshov during his awarding with the Nika Prize.

Instead of afterword

According to official statistics, in the first year of its release, the number of viewers who watched this wonderful film in the USSR alone exceeded eighty-five million people.

The rights to show the film "Moscow does not believe in tears",reviews of which exceeded all the wildest expectations, bought by more than a hundred countries. Like a devastating tsunami, the triumph of the brainchild of director Vladimir Menshov swept across the planet. However, the director himself did not manage to attend a single premiere of his own film.

The reason was an anecdotally absurd denunciation, revealing the whole predatory essence of unreliable citizen of the USSR Vladimir Menshov, who once dared to admire the abundance of food in one of the foreign stores…

Viewers still consider the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" a film for all time, soulful, vital and truthful. They call it a classic of Soviet cinema with an amazing storyline and acting.