Films of Karen Shakhnazarov: complete filmography

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

Karen Shakhnazarov is a person known not only in Russia but also abroad. Film director, screenwriter, producer and just an outstanding personality - it's always interesting to work with him.

Famous people, revealing the formula for their success, always mention hard work, self-confidence and a little bit of luck among the ingredients. All this is also characteristic of the life of Karen Georgievich, however, his family largely influenced his formation as a person and the formation of his life path.

Shakhnazarov is a descendant of a princely family

The parents of the future film director, although they had no direct relation to art, were always enthusiastic and versatile people, surrounded by creative theatrical representatives. In their house were Vladimir Vysotsky, Yuri Lyubimov. The young Karen had the opportunity to constantly attend numerous theatrical performances, a pleasure that was scarce and inaccessible in those days to most people. And this did not pass without a trace, but in many respects influenced the formation of the film director's personality, his views and role in art, and left an imprint on his spiritual organization. It should be added that, among other things, Karen Georgievich is a descendant of an ancient Armenian princely family, whose history begins inMiddle Ages, in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Karen Shakhnazarov came to the cinema, driven by vanity, and, as he himself admits, at first he placed the accents incorrectly, giving an assessment of the work of the director, because in his youth everything is seen differently … He believes that in fact the world of cinema is a cruel world, where it is extremely difficult to break through, and whoever succeeds, he is kept by heaven. Karen Shakhnazarov graduated from VGIK. His debut film is considered the film "The Good Men", although in 1975-1977. two short films saw the light: “Wider step, maestro!” (thesis) and "On the slippery road". In 1980, the lyrical comedy "Ladies invite gentlemen" was released, in which Shakhnazarov acted as a screenwriter.

How it all began

Karen Shakhnazarov's films are very different. In total, the director's track record includes 15 films: some brought him fame, others, according to Shakhnazarov himself, turned out to be less successful. Among the early films of Karen Georgievich, one can distinguish the paintings “We are from Jazz” (1983), “Winter Evening in Gagra” (1985), the lyrical comedy “Courier” (1986).

One of the director's paintings is compared with the film "Jolly Fellows". This is a film, even more of a musical comedy, with the sonorous title "We are from Jazz." The action of the tape takes place in the 20s of the 20th century, during the time of the New Economic Policy - a historically ambiguous period. The protagonist of the film loves music and wants to "bring it to the masses", but everything is not so simple. Jazz is music for which you can get kicked out of an educational institution and arrange difficulties in life. A film about friendship, youth, love so fell onto the soul of the viewer that he was dismantled into quotes. The film became one of the top box office films in Soviet film distribution in 1983.

Different from other directors

In 1988, Shakhnazarov's film "City Zero" was released - a very peculiar mixture of human realities and strange incomprehensible events bordering on the absurd. The film tells about how the protagonist, going on business to the city of N, finds himself in a certain space in which things are inexplicable and not amenable to the logic of a Soviet person. Time there either freezes or rushes wildly.

Everything is exactly the same as in the era of the release of the picture - it is difficult for a person to realize and comprehend, to accept everything that happens in troubled times. But he is an adaptable creature, and what seemed at first unthinkable to put up with, later no longer causes a storm of negative emotions…

It should be said that all the films of Karen Georgievich are not like the tapes of colleagues in the shop. Filmed as mystical manifestations in a fictional space (such as the mystical City of Zero, for example), they are endowed with unimagined characters and facts. And this is connected, first of all, with Shakhnazarov's opinion that any director brings his point of view and vision of something to the masses, so he must confirm all his words and messages with real knowledge, real life.

Films released during the perestroika period include:

• Regicide (1991);
• "Dreams" (1993);
• "American Daughter" (1995);
• Full Moon Day (1998).

Early 2000s was also marked by the presentation of several paintings by Shakhnazarov, including: "Poisons, or the World History of Poisoning" (2001), "The Horseman Called Death" (2003), "The Disappeared Empire" (2008).

They make the viewer think

Love, dreams, hopes and expectations are feelings familiar to everyone. In the life of any person, sooner or later there comes a moment when you have to make a choice, to sacrifice something in the name of someone or something. In Karen Shakhnazarov's painting "The Disappeared Empire" the destinies of several people are intertwined into one knot. The characters are two friends who have feelings for the same girl - a classic love triangle. Their friendship and personal relationships are developing against the backdrop of political events in a country that will disappear from the face of the Earth in the near future, it will not be on the maps, and descendants will soon forget about it.

What's left? How will the fate of the guys after many years? The film causes conflicting feelings among moviegoers who leave reviews on various Internet resources. Someone scolds Shakhnazarov for the implausibility of the created images, scenery and, in general, the atmosphere of the Soviet Union. Others, on the contrary, express interest, sympathy for the film and words of gratitude to the director for those forgotten nostalgic memories, dear to the heart, about a country that has long been gone, about childhood, about a bygone youth … In fact, it is not so important who is more right, who is less. The main thing is that the film makes you think, argue, which means that it evokes real human emotions, not allowing people to stayindifferent. By the way, in 2012 Shakhnazarov shot a remake of his film, albeit under a different name - "Love in the USSR".

According to the story of the same name by A. P. Chekhov in 2009, the film "Ward No. 6" was shot. The film, like a story in classical literature, tells about a doctor in a psychiatric hospital in a county town who, while talking with a mentally ill patient, soon loses his mind himself. Everything is the same as in prose, but the events take place in our days. And again, a certain isolated space (hospital ward No. 6), in which non-invented events take place with non-invented heroes. Feelings, experiences, thoughts - everything is real. The director interweaves the realities of life and ephemeral fiction in the film.

Karen Shakhnazarov's films about the war

For a long time Karen Georgievich did not work on military films (only as a producer in the film "Star" in 2002). According to Shakhnazarov, making films about the war is too responsible, difficult and "expensive" from the standpoint of moral return. In 2012, a film was released on the screens, the theme of which Karen Shakhnazarov avoided for years. "White Tiger" is a military picture that stands apart from other works of the master, because the decision to shoot the film was made at the moment when Shakhnazarov, as he himself admits, realized that there was nowhere to delay further. The film can be safely called the director's firstborn, a kind of tribute to his father, a front-line soldier. An interesting fact during the filming of the picture was that the people participating in the crowd scenes were carefully selected at the casting.

The director was looking for faces, types, characteristic of the military era, out of date. In the film, the viewer can see a huge number of tanks, and all of them are the property of the material and technical base of Mosfilm, a source of pride for Shakhnazarov. The main idea of the director, reflected in the film, is reflections on what war is and whether it can be called a natural human phenomenon. Does the war, in principle, have a logical conclusion or will it periodically arise in the history of mankind? A rhetorical question with no answer…

In addition to working in films as a director, Karen Georgievich himself has repeatedly starred in documentaries dedicated to Russian film actors - Natalya Gundareva, Leonid Kuravlev, Oleg Yankovsky and others.

About the man Shakhnazarov

Karen Shakhnazarov is a man with a rod. And he has an absolutely unexpected point of view on many things. For example, speaking about cinema, he notes that he always keeps his finger on the pulse - if necessary, he is ready to leave the profession at any moment (once this almost happened), because cinema is the business of the young.

The director believes that he has been afloat for too long. Comparing himself with colleagues in the shop, who try to calculate everything logically, he says that he always acts at the behest of his heart, the way he feels, by virtue of his character.

Shakhnazarov is an outstanding personality. In addition to directing, he runs the huge film studio Mosfilm and believes that it has no equal in the world, because only here you can complete a full production shoot.cycle. Managing is not an easy task, and, looking back, Karen Georgievich frankly admits that today he would not undertake it. There were people who supported him in difficult moments, but there were also those who turned their backs on Shakhnazarov, indifferently watching his successes.

The main thing in life for a master is movement, he believes that if you constantly do something, strive for something, then it will definitely result in something.

Thinking about the future

Speaking about the future, director Karen Shakhnazarov notes that the fate of cinema is rather ambiguous, in connection with the development of "digital" many professions will go down in history, and the "kitchen" of the filming process itself will change beyond recognition. After all, today technology allows you to do things that even before seemed incredible fiction. At the same time, the master emphasizes that it is difficult to make films that future generations will watch, and it is impossible to guess which picture will resonate in the heart of the viewer. In addition, a movie is not the creation of one person with whom descendants can associate you, but a whole industry in which a huge number of specialists from various fields are involved.

Shakhnazarov is a doubting person. He always thinks a lot, weighs, and this is normal, this should be inherent in a sane person. It can be unequivocally said that Karen Shakhnazarov's films are for everyone, he tries to make films without dividing people on moral, religious or political grounds. Likes to read - a lot and everything, likes to swim anddrive a car, hates swearing, dreams of making a fairy tale movie.

Prizes and awards

Karen Georgievich Shakhnazarov is a People's Artist and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, he was awarded the Order of Honor and the Order of Merit for the Fatherland for his contribution to the development of art. In his biography there is a place for numerous regalia, including the Lenin Komsomol Prize, repeated Golden Eagle awards, diplomas from international film festivals in London and Chicago, and the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art. But Shakhnazarov considers the most important for himself the award of the Moscow Film Festival, which was awarded to the film "Courier" in 1987. At the film festival, the director had a chance to talk with his idol - Fellini. The Italian took part in the event.

Shakhnazarov is an amazing person. I would like to wish him creative and physical longevity, inexhaustible inspiration, an indefatigable thirst to learn, create, amaze and surprise himself, to stay afloat in the raging world of cinema for a long time. And the films of Karen Shakhnazarov, let many more summers leave a mark not only in the history of world cinema, but also in the hearts of numerous fans.