Shpalikov Gennady Fedorovich - Soviet screenwriter, film director, poet: biography, personal life, creativity

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

Gennady Fedorovich Shpalikov - Soviet screenwriter, director, poet. According to the scripts written by him, beloved by many "I'm walking around Moscow", "Zastava Ilyich", "I come from childhood", "You and I" were filmed. He is the very embodiment of the sixties, in his work there are the very lightness, light and hope that were inherent in that era. There is also a lot of lightness and freedom in the biography of Gennady Shpalikov, but it is more like a fairy tale with a sad ending.

Childhood

Gennady Shpalikov was born on September 6, 1937 in the Karelian region, in the city (then still a village) of Senezh. He appeared in a family of military personnel: his father was a military engineer and built a paper and pulp mill in Karelia, and his maternal grandfather was a general, a hero of the Soviet Union. After graduationconstruction in 1939, the family returned to Moscow. In 1941, the war began and my father went to the front, and the family was evacuated to the village of Alarga, located near the city of Frunze. From the war, my father never returned alive - he died in Poland in the winter of 1944. Perhaps the military childhood and the early death of his father played a big role in the formation of Shpalikov's personality: both his work and his fate are filled with a sense of youth and carelessness - he seems to refuse to grow up.

School

In 1945, Gena Shpalikov went to school, and in 1947, as the son of a deceased officer, he was assigned to study at the Kiev Suvorov Military School. There, for the first time, his talent manifested itself: he began to write stories, keep a diary, became interested in poetry (moreover, the early poems of Gennady Shpalikov were already popular among his peers at that time - girls from a neighboring school composed and sang a song to his poem “Forbidden Love”, which he subsequently very proud, and other poems - "official" - were even published in the newspaper). After graduating from the Kyiv School in 1955, he went to the Moscow Higher Military Command School, but a year later he injured his leg and was discharged for he alth reasons.

VGIK

In 1956, Gennady Shpalikov, despite a huge competition, with almost no preparation, entered the screenwriting department of VGIK the first time. There he met his first wife, Natalya Ryazantseva, a scriptwriting student (they got married in 1959), as well as his future friends and colleagues in the craft, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andron Konchalovsky, Pavel Finn, JuliusVeit, Alexander Knyazhinsky, Mikhail Romadin, Bella Akhmadulina. From the moment Shpalikov enters, a new life begins: creativity, interesting communication, a bohemian environment, fun feasts. He was the soul of the company - witty, sociable, charming, open, always ready to participate in fun and parties. Perhaps it was from that time that his addiction to drinking began, which would accompany him all his life and eventually lead to death. This perniciousness was not immediately discovered by him: Shpalikov's feature was that he could easily work while intoxicated, so at first he believed that alcohol did not bring him any serious harm, and when this harm was discovered, it was already too late.

“Zastava Ilyich”

While still in his last year at VGIK, Shpalikov began collaborating with director Marlen Khutsiev on the script for Ilyich's Outpost. The film was completed by the end of 1962 and was warmly received by critics, but the further fate of the picture turned out to be difficult: Nikita Khrushchev himself criticized it, so the script had to be heavily rewritten, and as a result, after many years of reworking, the film turned from Ilyich's Outpost into I'm 20 years old” (Audience was not able to see the original director's cut until nearly thirty years later.)

At Khrushchev's meeting with artists in 1963, Marlen Khutsiev admitted his mistakes and confirmed his willingness to change the picture, but the young and inexperienced Gennady Shpalikov behaved more boldly: he said that one day the cinematographers in the USSR would be the sameglorified, like the astronaut heroes, and that he asks those present not to judge the film too harshly, because they should have the right to make a mistake in order to discover something new in cinema art. His statement caused outrage among those present, but there were no negative consequences for Shpalikov; moreover, he was given an apartment.

Family

At this time, great changes took place in the personal life of Gennady Shpalikov. Shortly before that, he broke up with his first wife and in 1962, out of great and mutual love, married Inna Gula, a young actress who recently starred in the film “When the Trees Were Big” and became a real star.

March 19, 1963 their daughter Dasha was born; it seemed that Shpalikov gave up drinking and an idyll reigned in his personal life. However, the happiness did not last long - addiction to alcohol took over and subsequently led to discord between the spouses. Two bright personalities could not get along together, quarrels and scandals began, and as a result, relations between them deteriorated so much that Shpalikov almost did not live at home, but wandered around the houses of friends and acquaintances, and their daughter, due to the difficult situation in the family, periodically lived in boarding school.

Glory

But this will happen later, and now Shpalikov is enjoying mutual love, creativity and fame. According to his scripts, the films “Tram to Other Cities”, “Star on the Beach” are shot. In the early sixties, he is the most famous screenwriter; despite his youth, articles are written about him, directors appreciate him. He is sincere and poetic, bright and fullhopes. He believes in his talent and refuses to compromise, defending his right to free creative expression. Shpalikov draws inspiration from the street: like his heroes, most of all he loves to walk - just wander the streets, watching different life stories and human characters. His poetry is made up of everyday circumstances, but a special melody, a certain rhythm is felt in it. The stories he tells are simple, but in this simplicity there is a soaring lightness, optimism inherent in youth, a sense of celebration, an elusive tenderness. More accurately than many others, he is able to convey the inner state of the people of that era, their thirst for freedom and openness, their hope for a brighter future. The films of Gennady Shpalikov are loved by the public, he is respected by colleagues and friends - and it seems that a long and happy life opens up before him.

“I walk around Moscow”

In 1963 there was a film that brought the greatest fame to Gennady Shpalikov - “I'm walking around Moscow”. Film director Georgy Danelia in his memoirs says that the text of the famous song of the same name was written by Shpalikov impromptu right on the set in a matter of minutes after the director rejected his previous version. Initially, they also did not want to accept this film due to the lack of a clear ideology, and then a scene appeared in the film with a writer and a floor polisher, whose role was played by Vladimir Basov. After the release, “I Walk Through Moscow” becomes one of the most beloved films of Soviet viewers, and Gennady Shpalikov is experiencing the highest peak of his creative biography.

“Long happy life”

In 1966, the first (and, as it turned out, the last) film by Gennady Shpalikov as a director appeared - “A Long Happy Life”. Kirill Lavrov and Shpalikov's wife, Inna Gulaya, for whom this role was written, starred.

The film took first place at the Bergamo International Film Festival of Artistic Cinema, but in the USSR it was not appreciated by either ordinary viewers or critics. In the same year, according to the script by Shpalikov, the film “I Come from Childhood” was shot, which is considered the best in the history of the creation of Belarusian cinema. However, from that moment on, Shpalikov's career and personal life begin to roll down. As in his film of the same name, the promise of a “long happy life” turned out to be a mirage that sooner or later will melt away.

Decay

We have come to the saddest part of the biography of Gennady Shpalikov. In the years leading up to his suicide in 1974, only two films and one cartoon were shot from his scripts. For some time, the family lives on what Inna Gulaya earns in the theater, but Shpalikov's addiction to alcohol leads to conflict between the spouses. In the end, he leaves home, thus losing his livelihood and housing, wandering around the apartments of acquaintances and living on what his friends still lend him.

Despite the fact that now the last two films based on Shpalikov’s scripts are considered classics of Soviet cinema, then they did not bring him either money or recognition: in 1971, the film “You and I” was released, directed by LarisaShepitko - the picture received an award at the Venice Film Festival, but the audience did not appreciate it; and in 1973 a film about Sergei Yesenin “Sing a song, a poet” was released - Shpalikov hoped that he would be able to repay debts from the fee for this picture and improve his financial situation, but the film also turned out to be unsuccessful, it was released in only sixteen copies, and the fees turned out to be quite small. Shpalikov is in a depressed state of mind, drinks a lot, but continues to write scripts. However, having remained a sixties spirit, he cannot fit into the new reality and speak a new language, combine his creative gift with the surrounding reality. He has a huge number of ideas, but none of this he manages to bring to life. His scripts are not accepted, his poems and prose things are not needed by anyone.

Shortly before his death, Shpalikov tried to drastically change his life: he gave up alcohol, tried to make peace with his wife and friends. However, this attempt failed.

Death

November 1, 1974 Gennady Shpalikov came to the opening of a memorial plaque on the grave of director Mikhail Romm, at the Novodevichy cemetery. After the end of the event, Shpalikov, together with the writer Grigory Gorin, went to the House of Creativity in Peredelkino. There, Shpalikov drank cheap wine for the first time in several months, and then hanged himself in his room, making a loop from a scarf. Before his death, he left a suicide note in which he wrote: “This is not cowardice at all - I can’t live with you anymore. Do not be sad. I'm tired of you. Dasha, remember. Shpalikov . It's hard to say thatserved as the true cause of the death of Gennady Shpalikov. Probably, there were several reasons: this is a creative lack of demand, and a break with the family, and the lack of housing and money, and loneliness, and the inability to fit into the changed reality. According to his relatives, Shpalikov from his youth believed that a poet in Russia should not live more than 37 years. He was just 37 when he died…

The fate of relatives

After the death of Shpalikov, the life of his family members was rather tragic. Inna Guluya was accused by many of the fact that their breakup caused his suicide, which probably put pressure on her psychologically and led to depression, alcoholism and, subsequently, to death. She completely stopped appearing on the screens, and in 1990, when she was 50 years old, she died of an overdose of sleeping pills. The most common version of her death is suicide. The daughters of Gennady Shpalikov and Inna Gula Dasha were then 27 years old. Her acting career, which began with a leading role in Svetlana Proskurina's film "Playground", gradually faded away, and a clinic for the mentally ill became her home.

Legacy

Despite the fact that in his last dying verses Gennady Shpalikov writes “I bequeath you only a daughter, there is nothing more to bequeath”, now it is clear that this is not so. He left us the fruits of his creativity, perfectly retaining the air of the sixties. Shpalikov was the flesh of the flesh of that era, his very life was concentrated in this time period. It is difficult to imagine him as solid and prudent, he is foreverremained a “singer of joy” - young, carefree, talented.

To honor the memory of Gennady Shpalikov, in 2009 he, along with two other famous Soviet directors - Andrei Tarkovsky and Vasily Shukshin - was erected a monument in front of the VGIK building.