Alexander Sokurov: "We must understand that we are creating a hard-hearted state step by step." Alexander Sokurov: "We must understand that we are creating a hard-hearted state step by step" "What our parliament is doing is something shameful"
“The task of the state is to develop enlightenment and determine the civilized framework of existence. Enlightenment, not mysticism. A thousand times enlightenment ... And the army, political parties, diplomacy and even economics are all just instruments of civilization. It is important to establish the "framework" of civilization. But modern society jumps beyond these limits with great ease. And it does this today with more desire than ever before. It itself. Without coercion… People want it that way.” August 31, 2016
“It is high time for the leadership of Russia, as well as the people of Chechnya, to answer the question about the war with Chechnya: what was it? A banal rebellion against Russia or a national liberation struggle?” August 31, 2016
Alexander Sokurov was born on June 14, 1951. At the age of 19, he began working on television. In 1975, he entered VGIK, where he received an Eisenstein scholarship for excellent studies. Finished my studies ahead of schedule due to a conflict with the administration of the institute and the leadership of the State Film Agency, who accused him of anti-Soviet sentiments. He began working at Lenfilm, but his films were not allowed to be shown. Most of them came out after perestroika, and at the same time they received many awards - in particular, he is the winner of the State Prize of Russia, Honored Artist of Russia, People's Artist of Russia, and also the owner of the Tarkovsky Prize. Sokurov has also been repeatedly awarded with international awards: he is the owner of the Golden Lion, the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, and has been repeatedly nominated for the Palme d'Or. The director's filmography includes dozens of films, including "The Lonely Voice of a Man", "Mother and Son", "Russian Ark", "Faust" and others.
“In addition to the general economic problems that I spoke about at the meeting of the councils, there are also political ones, and they are very serious. These political problems do not allow the creation of modern fiction and documentary films at a high content level. Step left, step right - threats, censorship, the film is not released ... " December 7, 2016
“Where are these politicians with a humanitarian consciousness when they appear? There are no such people in Russia. At least I don't see them. If someone asked me who needs to be awakened, I would say Tolstoy, Thomas Mann. Wake up Goethe at least for a short time, so that he looks at all this, in order to hear at least one phrase from him, and then let him sleep on. There are not enough people of this magnitude who could look into the future!” September 11, 2015
“We understand very well that, firstly, we are not defending the cinematographer Sentsov, but a young man who committed political actions. As a director, he has not yet taken place. Now his name in the political sense is much higher than his professional and other skills. We are well aware that this is an absolutely political conflict and a one-call problem.” September 11, 2015
“I have been outside of Russia for a long time and in general now, watching myself, I understand that I listen to Echo of Moscow less and less, I practically don’t watch Rain, although I subscribe to it, and practically don’t read Novaya newspaper." And when I tried to understand why this is happening to me, I realized that ... That these amazing respected fellow citizens of mine fell behind the train - they do not know how to shape their political tactics and strategy. September 22, 2015
“Every day I realize how dirty this policy is. And from all sides - there is not a single clean table at which these hygienic people sit with clean napkins and talk about some high things. September 22, 2015
“The best of us are our great humanists, the resisters are dissidents. They marked the beginning of the struggle against political cunning. They fought for human rights when millions were silent. And they were young people. It was these people who brought to power our modern politicians and our billionaires. Thanks to them, religious cults were given freedom. Suicide - do not appreciate, do not take care of young compatriots. February 10, 2014, open letter to Vladimir Putin
“In our country there is no work on the development of the idea of federalism. The country is developing, the people are changing, the world is changing irreversibly... And our federation is like a distant rock. National ambitions will inevitably change. You'll have to deal with it somehow. People have not yet learned how to solve national problems in a peaceful way.” June 2, 2014
Political statements of cultural figures
“The unwhacked generation has woken up. Woke up, woke up and realized what was happening. History has run out of patience, patience has run out in the air. The youth, who are obliged to take to the streets, they did come out.”
“Art has enough filters from directors, art directors, critics, the soul of the artist himself. They are the bearers of morality. There is no need to pretend that power is the only carrier of morality and morality. This is not true".
“There are millions of people in our country, each of whom chooses a profession for himself, studies for a long time, improves himself in order to become a master of his craft. Teachers know how to teach, doctors know how to heal, artists know how to create. And suddenly there are statesmen who begin to teach them all and "treat" again. Who rewarded them with impeccable qualifications in all types of human activity at once? When will officials finally understand that their job is to organize and support the work of people, and not to give them their “orders”?
“Over these 15 years, of course, the level of morality in society has fallen dramatically, and all restrictions have been removed, because the state has no right to interfere. But we do not interfere, and this is also very bad.”
“Starting from 2000 and throughout all subsequent years, from election to election, I vote and express my support for a specific person - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. And I seriously believe that if there were no Putin, there would be no country.”
“I said in 2008 that a war with Ukraine is inevitable. But I said in the same interview that this war would happen if today - that is, in 2008 - work is not started to prevent it. There is nothing phenomenal here. You just need to know the history." June 2, 2014
“I have no doubt – I spoke about this both to the president and at various public meetings – that the country needs a serious reform of the system and reform of the criminal law, which would concern the forms and methods of restricting freedom for young people. I am sure of this, and no one can convince me otherwise. June 3, 2014
“There is no divinity in this very concept - “power”, but there are living people who act on the basis of their human instincts and characters. And Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin acted on the basis of his character. And Putin acts on the basis of his character. It is character that determines political action, not imaginary laws. historical development. Power is always in the hands of people who are seized by the elements of their own character. Moral, conscientious people hardly live in power, because morality puts certain restrictions on them. And no matter how the future tsar was brought up, still the problems with the people and the state did not disappear anywhere.” November 2013
Film director Alexander Sokurov, after being awarded the Platonov Prize in Voronezh, met with the audience and answered their questions on June 11 at the Spartak cinema. RIA Voronezh correspondent attended the meeting and recorded the most striking statements of Alexander Sokurov.
photo - Mikhail Kiryanov
"Platonov is a treasure that defies any analysis"
Andrey Platonov was the brightest stylist in our literature. The essence of the Platonic substance is the infinite, independent, original, unique personality of man, which has roots with life. Literature has only one tense - present continuous - present continuous. Literature does not age, and it is still the queen of everything. Andrei Platonov was given the courage, talent and determination to express himself in his own language. Platonov's language is absolutely revolutionary in the good sense of the word, because this revolutionary spirit has its own epistemology, that is, its origin. And we know what kind of origin this is, where it came from - from the amazing way of life of a small Russian city. The concept of "small Russian city" should not embarrass or humiliate anyone. This is the basis of the life of the Russian people and the basis of the life of Russian culture. Platonov's literature gathers the Russian people, gathers us together and declares that we are infinitely original, that we are not a hardened construction, that we are not monotonous and boring. Platonov is an absolute treasure of our literature. By the way, fortunately, not amenable to any analysis. As soon as you analyze Platonov's phrase, you will kill the essence - like any image. No image can be deciphered. The image exists in integrity, and it cannot be disassembled or analyzed.
"Cinema is arrogant in relation to other culture"
Only the literary structure, only the literary nature and breed forms in a person an enlightened, free, independent and very deep essence. Only he who has laid down his nature on the love of literature, great lengthy works, great novels, has a margin of safety and a reserve of ideas. If this is not the case, then all ideas are quickly exhausted, all art ends. This can be seen in modern painting, especially in young Russian artists who read little. This can be seen in the works of modern Russian filmmakers. All cinema is associated with a collection of people - not very literate and not very educated, but quite energetic and arrogant in relation to other culture. Cinema is arrogant towards other culture.
“Russians are not seen as predictable interlocutors”
I travel a lot around the world, including the Arab countries. I want to say that everyone is now for some reason going down this path. All! And our country, one might say, is not at the forefront. The budget of the American state is many times higher than ours. The growth of militarism in the country is a dead end. The idea of neutrality, neutrality does not belong to modern politicians and modern diplomats. I have had many occasions to speak with Polish diplomats, presidents, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland with persuasion to accept the principles of neutrality. But - it didn't work out. The idea of neutrality is not popular. Maybe because dehumanized people come to power in the world, who have forgotten what armed forces lead to. The accumulation of strength in an industry that goes over to the war footing never leads to positive results. Why is this happening to us? It seems to me that in the minds of many politicians there is no clear, simple understanding that we are a country with large quantity neighbors. We have no other alternative than to find compromise, quiet solutions. We will not get away from the border with the Baltic States, Finland, from the border with a very disturbing neighbor - China. And where can we go from the borders with Ukraine and Kazakhstan? The army element should only be a deterrent - and in no case an active offensive. When a country has an active, offensive potential, small neighbors, mindful of difficult actions Soviet Union are beginning to fear us. I travel the world - they really are afraid of us. We are not seen as predictable interlocutors.
"The currency we pay for politics is human life"
Remember, when the issue of withdrawing our troops beyond our borders was being decided, a demonstration was organized in Moscow. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets with posters supporting the military activities of the country. Do you know who was mostly there? Women. Russian girls and women are ready to send their sons, loved ones and husbands to war. In my film La Francophonie, I raised the question of what politics is worth, how we get politics, how politics is imposed on us, and what currency we pay for it. This currency is human life. Politicians pay the people with their own lives. Did you vote for this? They took it under the hood. Did you want to have a "great state"? You received it. Well, we got a war. Well, they killed your brother, your husband. After all, the status of a widow is quite noble. You need to understand that the Russian people have no greater enemies than themselves. We never understood what we had during Stalinism. We had a whole people on the side of Stalin. It is very difficult for us, we are very confused, I think. We have a lot of unraveled moral problems, first of all - before ourselves.
"Cinema is dangerous for society"
- "Sifting" in the cinema is great. Of the 20 people of the cinematography course in the cinema, one remains to work, and sometimes not a single one. In the cinema, everything depends on the appearance of personalities, on the appearance of new young people. Our task now is to make sure that the greatest number of young people pass the professional test. There is no easy money anymore (money is expensive), and more often than not, finding money is more expensive than making a film. I believe that new young people will appear who will accumulate our energy and our best qualities. This will only happen if they are enlightened people. The wild, muscular, aggressive teen director is dangerous. Cinema is generally dangerous for society, as is television. It accustoms people to death, to blood, to indifference to death. War in cinema is beautiful, death is beautiful, soldiers die beautifully and they say before they die beautiful words- girl, wife, mother. I have never seen this, although I was in combat conditions. We must help these young people. The appearance of a talented person is inevitable, and there are such talented people. We must help them.
“Do you want to erect a monument to Stalin? Put it on and we'll see"
If they want to put up a monument to Stalin near Voronezh, let them put it up. God will deal with these people. People who commit such acts should always understand the degree of punishment and the inevitability of punishment. Do you want the governor to come in there and ban this case? He has no moral right to do so. Put it on and we'll see. On the other hand, the state must have a clear and precise understanding of what the real historical assessment of that period is. What is the criterion of political evaluation? For me, these are victims, the cruelty of the management system. But, unfortunately, we are very far from this discussion, because all the time on the agenda there are all kinds of other discussions and substitute topics that distract us from our inner life. We have a lot of brilliant results and at the same time internal problems that require the earliest possible public discussion.
“Where life is politicized, people go deaf”
What is happening now in Ukraine and Syria should not excite us to the same extent as it does now. We have a lot of social and moral problems that we, the Russian people, should start talking about. We have sentences that end with an ellipsis. When people have a lot of such proposals, it becomes already dangerous. There will be destruction, disintegration of the state, people will be disappointed in unity. A country as huge as ours is quite capable of starting to die from regional separatism, which will have every reason. Because there is no single, meaningful evolutionary policy in the life of such a state.
Our politicians do not think about the fate of the state in advance. They do not think about what federalism is and how to understand it. There are fewer people, and the ideology has become more aggressive. The church takes on a huge political role. We need to create a state for young people in which a young person feels dedicated to the future of his country and understands his future destiny well. No need to instill patriotic dogma in your head. You will build a reasonable state where there is a reasonable system of political relations, where crazy people do not get power in party structures and do not get into parliament, where there is no political investigation in relation to young people. The politicization of life is very dangerous. Where there is a politicized life, people become deaf - they have monophonic hearing. They only hear one range.
“We must encourage the emergence of difficult people in society”
We must do everything to be a people and a country where education is our national idea. If we achieve an enlightened culture, then we will understand who to vote for. Vote for someone for whom moral values are higher than political ones, and this is very easy to check. We must encourage the emergence of complex people in our society. And there are a lot of them among young people. At one time I was close to the family of President Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin. At that time, many were in favor of strengthening the punishment for the processes taking place in the country. On this occasion, he said: "One has only to start ... It will be difficult to stop later." Until 1917, our people first broke their foreheads on devotion to Orthodoxy, and as soon as a group of people gave them freedom, the people began to destroy their priests. In Petersburg, priests were buried alive: five people were thrown into a pit and covered with earth. For several days the ground moved there. Now it is not customary to remember this. And how many monasteries were destroyed physically! How many people in cassocks, whose only fault was that they prayed and had a different worldview ...
“What our parliament is doing is something shameful”
There is no doubt that there is a lack of political will in the ruling party. There must also be a struggle in the ruling party. There is no need to chase after people who want to adopt children and get into people's beds - in this sense, it is not clear to us what the parliament is doing. This is absolutely shameful. Strong, powerful figures should appear in the ruling party itself, who are not afraid, even within the framework of party discipline, to make comments to the president, prime minister and ruling structures - as was sometimes the case in the "damned" Communist Party. At any plenum of the district committee, you could stand up and say what you think. We must understand that we are building a hard-hearted state step by step.
Anastasia Sarma
On the Kremlin TV channel "Russia 24" there was a program in which the famous film director Alexander Sokurov was criticized.
So, on February 14, on the air of the 60 Minutes program, his resonant statement about Russian propagandist journalists was discussed.
"Sokurov considers it necessary to send Russian journalists to The Hague for trial because we (Russian journalists. - Ed.)" scatter matches during a fire. "Provocateurs are all political observers," host Olga Skabeeva said at the beginning of the program.
After that, footage of the tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014 was shown on the screen in the hall, and Skabeeva continued her speech.
“If we again understood correctly, according to the director, it would be right not to notice the 48 burned alive in Odessa. Or not to notice the air strike on Luhansk. Again, if we understand correctly, shelling on Donetsk should not be noticed either. So will the world return to the Donbass, if the operation of Kyiv in the south-east of the country the Ukrainian authorities are already officially calling the punitive operation and even presenting awards for it.Why are journalists called to be silent? dollars," the propagandist reported.
Sokurov himself was not on the air.
Note that the pro-Kremlin journalists' trick was criticized by representatives of the Russian public.
“The humiliation of human dignity is the strong point of modern state media and the militant detachments of motherland lovers who joined them on orders. It was they who happily threw a net on Nemtsov’s head, they wrote Shevchuk’s name in the toilet on Kievskaya, they splashed street green in the face. mocking the people of their country and joyfully grinning at their deeds. Now they were told "face" on Sokurov, a man who not only loves his country, but also laid down his life to make it better, more worthy, stronger, "she wrote on her Facebook page Russian journalist Ekaterina Gordeeva.
“What rubbish, eh. Of course, I don’t count on any Hague. But I believe in the High Court. And I sincerely wish that the child of these two suddenly suddenly grows up an honest and free person. -Dad, you should not be ashamed. It was you who did not save me from hunger and death. Why then?” she added.
Gordeeva's opinion was supported by her husband, deputy director of the Mayakovsky St. Petersburg Library, Nikolai Solodnikov.
"February 14. TV channel Russia 1. Prime time. An hour-long discussion of the statement (and, in general, the moral character) of Alexander Sokurov. Statements that "journalists who incite hatred and glorify war should be tried in The Hague." They discussed passionately. "His films certainly played their role in the collapse great country"; "something I didn't see him in the trenches of Donbass"; "idle talker"; "He calls for censorship and wants to forbid us to tell the truth", "in Russia they don't know him, but his films are loved only in Europe", etc. he noted on his Facebook page.
"Sir, Dobrodeev. You and your employees cannot be forbidden to tell the truth. However, in your case, these are only the words that you use, begging for state money to maintain your brothel. Look at yourself in the mirror, look at your colleagues. Great artists That's what geniuses are for, to see the future through the centuries. Bosch saw you. In your "face", Mr. Dobrodeev, the world did not find new heights of journalism, but saw the Hell of this once revered profession in Russia, "Solodnikov added.
Nothing develops a person like another person.
Alexander Nikolaevich Sokurov
Everything bad in me is from the visual influence. All the best in me is created by literature.
Alexander Nikolaevich Sokurov
Education says: I can do anything! And enlightenment says: oh no, you can't do everything, because you don't have the right to everything.
Alexander Nikolaevich Sokurov
“A young man should be proud of his country” - I often hear this demand. But in what case will he be proud of his country?
When there will be a fair trial in the country.
When there will be beautiful cities in the country, if not luxurious, but tidied up.
When the country will have good roads.
When there are no poor people in the country.
When in the country people will honestly talk at school, at the institute, at work, on TV, with each other.
When people in the country behave honestly...
That's when the young man will be proud ... However, why is it necessary to have his own country? Maybe just your time?
Alexander Nikolaevich Sokurov
A person rules over something everywhere: over a family, an enterprise, a district, a city, a country ... You ask yourself the question: why does he make such a decision, and not another? Always and everywhere I see that the reasons for this are in his character. Not in the peculiarities of his profession, not in his specialty. The motivation of all actions - it is connected with the character of a person.
Russian historian (by education), film director.
Until the late 1980s, none of his motion pictures not was approved by the Authorities for rental ...
While working at the Lenfilm film studio, “... it finally became clear that only a working person survives, and this is the first thing. Secondly, it has been practically proven that you need only what you need, and objectively this is important. Third, there is never anything to be afraid of; fourth - one must love and be devoted to the circle of one's friends and never leave them; Fifth, we must seriously engage in technology, fully master it. Sixth - you need to take care of your education. And the last thing - you can’t change your lifestyle, and for a man, in my opinion, this is very important - you can’t share yourself with anything when you have some kind of hit of your own in your own life, into your own destiny, unfortunately, you cannot share yourself with anything. Maybe this is my personal delusion.
Moskvina T.V. , “In silence - a storm” (Conversation with Alexander Sokurov) / Everyone stand! (articles), St. Petersburg "Amphora", 2006, p. 294.
“A fiery idea often blinds the eye. Conceived Sokurov"tetralogy about people in power" is interesting in concept, but historically unconvincing: real figures - Hitler, Lenin, japanese emperor Hirohito- here they serve as functions, arguments in the philosophical game.
And cease to be alive. The rejection of these paintings at the festivals in Cannes and Berlin is the rejection of the very idea of using real historical figures as evidence of the thesis.
“How can you find human traits in such a monster as Hitler!”, “How can you reduce Lenin to a pitiful half-mad creature!” - Foreign colleagues pestered me with questions. They had their own reasons: neither Lenin nor Hitler, as they appeared in Sokurov's films, not could become the key persons of the century.
We were shown the disintegration of the personality, but the secret of the corrupting power of power was not revealed, the nature of evil of such global dimensions did not become clearer. Human trifles flickered on the screen, which some force somewhere behind the scenes inexplicably inflated to the scale of the main tyrants of the 20th century.
But the irritation of the artist, his bitterness can be understood. The fact that for a film festival and even more so for commercial distribution is a business, for Sokurov- a mission and an act, the fruit of many years of reflection. […]
Alexander Sokurov: After all, we always, in all circumstances, try to look for some kind of support - this is natural. For example, in European history. In the history of Nazism, I am worried that it was born and received such a grandiose development precisely within the framework of European civilization. This is a very serious signal. It means that European civilization In fact, no guarantees can be given. The path followed by European societies is by no means a guarantee against falls. And if we are trying to try on some criteria of European life, then we must remember that the Europeans, despite their strong traditions, despite the numerous cultural and historical inoculations that they were given, could not protect themselves from Nazism.
I understand Nazism as the moral fall of a huge number of people. The point is not Hitler.
Hitler- a sick, unhappy person. Unhappy globally, from birth to death.
The fact is that millions of evil, cruel people were infected with Nazism.
Kichin V.S., We are a tired nation / Where Gloria Mundi wanders: meeting tape, M., Vremya, 2011, p. 326 and 329.
“They called their young genius brilliantly in Leningrad - Sokurov:Kafka Korchagin! This is also precisely because innovators in the field of form, as a rule, are conformists in essence. So there are many examples. These people seem to be buying in this way the right to be experimenters.
Grebnev A.B. , Diary of the last screenwriter, 1942-2002, M., Russian Impulse, 2006, p. 397.
