Vadim Abdrashitov: filmography, biography, photo

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

Vadim Abdrashitov is a Russian director whose films piercingly and vividly tell about people, their destinies, bizarrely folded by Time and broken by it. In the talented works of Abdrashitov, the viewer recognizes himself, his life and those he knows, with its moral, serious problems occurring against the backdrop of complex dramatic processes in a country where a person becomes a grain of sand in the whirlwind of a storm that sweeps away everything in its path.

Vadim Abdrashitov, whose films are laureates of numerous film festivals and have been awarded various prizes, is constantly looking for himself. Tormented in this search, the author difficultly and boldly talks about the surrounding modernity, doing it creatively and innovatively.

Vadim Abdrashitov: biography

Abdrashitov Vadim Yusupovich was born in Kharkov on January 19, 1945 in the family of Yusup Shakirovich, a serviceman who fought in the Great Patriotic War on the Belarusian front and participated in the restorationdestroyed economy of Western Ukraine. Mother Galina Nikolaevna worked as a chemical engineer.

The son of an officer, Vadim, together with his parents, roamed all over the country: Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Vladivostok, Leningrad, Barabinsk (where Yusup Shakirovich was appointed military commandant of the railway junction). Staying in Barabinsk had a negative impact on Vadim's he alth: the boy became seriously ill, and the doctors strongly recommended climate change. Out of desperation, my father decided to write a letter to the Minister of Defense R. Ya. Malinovsky describing the difficult family situation and asking for a transfer to the south. To everyone's surprise, the request was granted, which was perceived in the Abdrashitov family as a huge miracle. In 1956, Yusup Shakirovich was transferred to Alma-Ata.

Finding my way

In the Alma-Ata school, the boy's studies were easy. In the seventh grade, he became very interested in chemistry. Vadim studied the entire school course in this subject in a year. The young man read a lot and was fond of almost everything: from physical and mathematical circles to theater studios. It is with these directions that Vadim will connect his life at a certain time stage.

1961. Physics and space, the impetus for the study of which will be the flight of Yuri Gagarin into open space, which turned the minds of many Soviet citizens, including Vadim Abdrashitov. The young man passed the exams for high school externally and moved to the capital, to look for himself in a direction that interested him closely. Becoming a student of the famous Physics and Technology Institute in Dolgoprudny, Vadim had the good fortune to studysuch great scientists as N. N. Semenov, L. B. Kudryavtsev, I. E. Tamm. The younger brother Igor also followed in the footsteps of Vadim and devoted his short life to nuclear physics; at the age of 34, he died from radiation exposure.

The world through the lens glass

The time spent at MIPT coincided with the years of the “thaw”: Vadim and his friends sang and read a lot. The period of Vysotsky's voice, the songs of Okudzhava and Vizbor, the poems of Voznesensky and Yevtushenko, the birth of KVN required a search for one's "I" and maximum self-realization. Television is something unknown and alluring, in which Abdrashitov dreamed of showing himself, whom life itself seemed to be directing into the world of the film industry. The camera "Komsomolets" presented in childhood by his cousin took the boy into the world of photography, faces, acquaintance with the outside world through the lens. In the distant years, while still very young, Vadim, together with Igor, his younger brother, sawed out figurines of fairy-tale characters with a jigsaw, built scenery, filmed filmstrips on reversible film and showed them in the evenings in the entrance - an impromptu cinema, where children ran from all over the yard. Then there was a theater studio at the Alma-Ata Youth Theater, which the future director visited for several years. It was here that Vladimir Tolokonnikov, who played the role of Sharikov in the film Heart of a Dog, and People's Artist Alexander Filippenko got their start in big cinema.

What forced a professional and successful physicist to devote his life to cinema? To this frequently asked question, Vadim Yusupovich always says that he always knew about the future of the film director. After all, everything led to this: a test of the pen, viewingnumerous films, passion for photography, work in the institute's circulation. Acquaintance with Rozovsky Mark Grigoryevich, meetings with Gerasimov S. A., Khachaturian A. I., Romm M. I. - it seemed that life itself directed Vadim to the world of the film industry. The young man began to diligently prepare for admission to VGIK.

After graduating from MIPT, Vadim Abdrashitov (photo of the Soviet period) transferred to the Moscow Chemical Technology Institute, graduated in 1967 and, as a graduate of this institution, worked out his education at a factory for the production of color kinescopes. Abdrashitov finished his career at this enterprise as a shop manager.

Studying at VGIK

In 1970, Vadim finally entered the VGIK, in the studio of M. I. Romm, a great artist, a great director, a man who had a huge store of encyclopedic knowledge. Romm Mikhail Ilyich died when Abdrashitov was in his second year; L. A. Kulidzhanov brought students to the diploma.

The first film work, highly appreciated by M. Romm, is "Report from Asph alt" - a six-minute silent documentary sketch, filmed during the first year of study, capturing the whole world with its life model and system, and awarded many student film festival awards.

In his third year, Vadim Abdrashitov, whose filmography includes more than a dozen successful films, shot a term paper based on G. Gorin's Stop Potapov! specifically to Mosfilm, to the studio led bycoryphaeus of Russian cinema Yu. Ya. Raizman. Abdrashitov had a chance to work next to him for about two decades. And over the years, Vadim Yusupovich managed to absorb all the best that was in the work of the teachers with whom life brought him together, as well as develop his own principles for seeing art and realizing it. After the death of Yu. A. Raizman, Vadim Abdrashitov became the artistic director of the ARK-film studio of the Mosfilm film concern.

Creative union with Alexander Mindadze

In 1975, while looking for a suitable script for his film, Vadim Abdrashitov met a young and at that time still unknown playwright Alexander Mindadze. This acquaintance grew into a long-term creative union full of understanding and interaction between two people who were close in their worldview and soul. With Alexander Mindadze, 11 films were shot over three decades, including “Plumbum, or a Dangerous Game”, “Magnetic Storms”, “Servant”, “Armavir”, “A Word for Protection” - the first film work, a court drama that immediately turned out to be under the scrutiny of critics and audiences. The piercing story of two women's destinies, recognizable in the realities of the time, was viewed by 35 million people, and none of them left indifferent. In the film, the creators of which were awarded the Lenin Komsomol Prize, young at that time O. Yankovsky, M. Neelova, S. Lyubshin shone.

Abdrashitov's film works

The heroes of Abdrashitov's films are ordinary people living in small provincial towns, working in mines, railway depots, factories and plants. All of them subtly feel the swiftthe flow of time, involving them in its unthinkable, often unpredictable cycle, and the director tells about the very complex life of these simple people.

In 1980, the picture "Fox Hunting" appeared on the screens, expressing complete distrust of the dominant ideology and complete trust in the present reality. The film became an event in Russian cinema: no one has ever told so truthfully and painfully about a working man as Vadim Abdrashitov.

In Abdrashitov's paintings, deep problems of the life of citizens are raised to the surface, questions that concern every person, but are often hidden deep inside, are boldly posed. The film The Train Stopped honestly and gloomily predicted a catastrophe: it was not only the train that stopped. All the depreciation of the infrastructure of the Soviet system and all its components is shown.

High points of observation of people in the frame and what is happening in general are shown in "Parade of the Planets" and "Servant", where the social turns into the infernal, which is a sign of decay and the end. “Servant” is a picture that tells about slavery: spiritual and internal, and the power that creates this slavery. The party boss and his personal chauffeur, suddenly turned into the conductor of a large choir. The material for the film was not abstract material, but extremely recognizable realities. The duet of the Servant and the Master under the direction of the director has become canonical. Actors Yu. Belyaev and O. Borisov managed to expressively vividly show the ambiguous, complex dependence of the deepest categories of human existence - slavery and freedom. Vadim Abdrashitov is the director who createda creative and civilly daring picture, which was awarded the USSR State Prize.

The film "Plumbum, or the Dangerous Game" tells about the problem of power that has come to a person who is not ready for this either mentally or spiritually. The story of a boy with a strange nickname Plumbum, who does not feel pain, who is both 15 and 40 years old, turned into a parable that became known far beyond the borders of the USSR.

Vadim Abdrashitov: family

In family life, the director also took place. A wonderful husband and caring father is Vadim Abdrashitov. His wife is the artist Natella Toidze, a representative of the famous creative dynasty, awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts. Natella's grandfather was a student of I. Repin himself.

The son of Vadim Yusupovich - Oleg has proved himself as a professional in the field of information technology and works in America. Daughter Nina followed in her mother's footsteps and works as a theater artist.