Film and theater actor: Modern cinema corrupts women

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I would like to bring to the attention of my readers an interview with Georgy Zhzhonov 15 years ago.

- Do you want to talk? Have a seat …

"I didn't become a count, but turned out to be a Muscovite"

- Georgy Stepanovich, you always emphasize that you are a Petersburg citizen …

- Yes, in the second generation.

- Do you consider the Lensovet Theater as your family?

- Not.

- Why? At the Lensovet Theater …

- I didn’t feel good there. I was in conflict with Vladimirov. (Igor Vladimirov - artistic director of the theater. V. Zh.) That is why I left the Lensovet Theater, otherwise why would I have to leave it?

- And what is the reason?

- I think the character of Vladimirov. Not mine.

- In St. Petersburg was not only the Lensovet Theater …

- Well, of course. There was a regional drama theater at Liteiny, where I worked with pleasure before being invited to the Lensovet Theater.

- I mean that it was possible and not to move to the capital.

- My move to the capital was caused by the fact that Yuri Zavadsky at the Mossovet Theater invited me to play Leo Tolstoy. And my wife, that is, not mine, but Lev Nikolaevich, was supposed to be played by Vera Maretskaya, but for some reason the Minister of Culture Furtseva forbade to stage a play about the last months of the life of the great old man. And thus, I did not become Count Tolstoy, but a Muscovite.

- The Lensovet Theater still speaks very well. Irina Balay on the days of your anniversary in our newspaper ("Smena" - V. Zh.) very fondly remembered you.

- Well, of course! I didn’t do any meanness. By the way, Vladimirov's wife Alisa Freindlich and I were once somewhere abroad and - either she was leaving, or I - in general, we had some kind of farewell gatherings, and a frank conversation took place between us. “And you know, Georgy Stepanovich, I got a slap in the face for you from Vladimirov,” Freundlich admitted then. "Yes? Alice, if I knew that, I would have changed my attitude towards you long ago."

- Did you treat Freundlich badly?

- I considered her a like-minded person of my husband. And she suddenly declares: “When you applied to leave the theater, and Vladimirov showed me this application, I said:“In no case! You can't let Zhzhonov go! And he gave her a slap in the face!

- I live on Novo-Izmailovsky Prospekt, and I have heard more than once: Zhzhenov lived here somewhere.

- Yes, yes, we could be neighbors.

- What house number did you have, do not remember?

- House 38, it seems … No, apartment - 38, and house … 12 or what? These five-story buildings, damn them, are all the same! How many times, returning home, I called someone else's apartment in someone else's house. They say to me: “Georgy Stepanovich! Well, as much as possible! Your home in two! Farther.

- How did you end up in such a not prestigious area of new buildings, and even in Khrushchev?

- The Lensovet Theater provided me with this apartment. There we settled with my wife, actress Lydia Malyukova. Probably, I am the only person who brought the keys to the apartment to the building management and said: “I'm leaving. And with the apartment, do what you want or what you like."

- Was it done in protest? Protest - what?

- Not. I just consider myself a decent person, and did not consider it possible to speculate on the living space provided to me by the theater, with which I categorically broke up! Another, in my place, would probably have taken care of its "privatization" - would have resettled someone, or would have found a way to sell it.

Repeated the path of the prisoner

- Now you have come to St. Petersburg for one day …

- For half a day!

- Okay, half a day. Have you visited any places related to your past?

“I don’t know if this is mysticism or I was just lucky, but the driver - I don’t even know his name, but how grateful I am to him! - when he drove me from the Moscow railway station to the Pribaltiyskaya hotel, without suspecting it, he took me along the way that I did after my arrest. Then I was also taken to my favorite places in the city. As if they would have given the opportunity to say goodbye to Leningrad.

In all fairness, we need to make a film

- Georgy Stepanovich, what do you have now in the theater, in the cinema?

- In the theater - nothing. No play. They send some kind of shit. I did a stupid thing - I said on TV that I was looking for a play. And the graphomaniac overwhelmed me with plays! I'm a complete fool! Such statements cannot be made. I did not take into account that graphomania is an incurable disease. And everything that is now offered to my attention, I need to look at least elementary to make sure that this is complete crap.

And in the cinema, after I starred in the three-part documentary and publicistic film “Georgy Zhzhonov. Russian cross”, there is also nothing. I refuse militants with offensive remarks! I'm just being rude on purpose. I can not only participate, but also see how Russian cinema is crumbling before my eyes!

- What is in the first place for you - cinema or theater?

- Theatre. Cinema plays a second role. Because cinema uses what the theater has created. And only the theater creates and keeps the actor in a constant creative form. But I also owe a lot to cinema. I have 8-10 works in cinema, thanks to which I have traveled all over the world.

- If I understood you correctly, you belong to modern cinema …

- Negative! Except for a few directors who still try to make films more or less creatively. And everything else is done on demand. All these gangster "poof-poof-poof!" And I have both children and grandchildren. And they have to watch all this ?! Modern cinema corrupts women. See how easy it is for young girls to overstep moral standards. This is all the disgrace that is happening for the sake of the dollar, for the sake of the ruble! When, remembering my detective films, I am offered roles in such films, I almost send them obscenely.

I hate new TV! For the fact that it does the same thing as cinema, but to a more accessible degree.

But I still have the hope that cinema will return to its primary purpose, followed by television. In the meantime, however, those on whom everything depends, it does not come to mind. All they have in their heads is a dollar, a dollar! In all conscience, we need to make a film! By conscience! And not to make more money.

We were almost neighbors with Putin

- How do you like modern Russia?

- I want to understand her! I want - and yet I do not understand. The trouble is that the entire noble gene pool of our nation has been destroyed. Until the next one grows, time will pass. Therefore, I cannot say that I am optimistic about the future. But I do not hide my opinion, I spoke about this to Putin. If everything goes into the hands of the merchants, it will be very bad.

- And what is the president's reaction? Listened, nodded - and that's it?

- It's hard for me to say. It seems that he still sympathizes with me and understands everything. Also, a funny detail! - from my window on the 1st line of Vasilievsky Island, overlooking Solovyovsky Lane (Repin Street - V. Zh.), I saw the windows of a house on the 2nd line, where Putin later lived. So that we were almost neighbors.

The entire gene pool of Russia has been destroyed

- A traditional question for an interlocutor of your age, a person who has lived a hard and long life: how do you keep fit?

- I don't support her. I live the way I want and like. I have not set and do not set any restrictions for myself. And the fact that I have been living for more or less a long time is probably my mother's genes. Mother herself did not live that long, but one of her daughters died at 92.

- Academician Mechnikov, in my opinion, said that under normal conditions a person can live for one hundred and forty years.

- Yes, there is such a theory. Probably, a person can live so much, but I am not convinced that you need to live so much.

- How much do you feel now?

- At 18. I still mark and appreciate beautiful women for myself. The appetite for life has not been lost. Even the senses of acceptance and rejection of the good and the bad were heightened.

- Has youthful maximalism awakened?

- I do not know. But you may have noticed that my judgments about modern cinema and television are extremely harsh.

- You hate cinema and television, but will you “see” something? There must be some kind of counterbalance.

- Decency! Elementary decency!

- Do you comfort yourself with the hope that it still exists in our society?

- I think that almost not. Because the best sons of the Fatherland, the flower of the nation, were destroyed in the camps of the Stalinist Gulag. The entire gene pool of Russia has been destroyed! Now we have to wait until a new generation of conscious, noble people grows up. The Russian man has always been characterized by nobility, nobility of thought, in any case.

I was raised by the Bolsheviks

- How do you think beauty, kindness - what will save the world?

- Beauty and kindness. Lord, these are biblical truths! I won't tell you anything new. Everything in the Bible said. Even under the Bolsheviks it was honored! It was honored by all these people for whom nothing seemed sacred. I mean, the Politburo and the Central Committee of the party. And the people have nothing to do with it! Not everything in the teachings of the Bolshevik Party was disgusting. In their postulates there were very useful points on which the mass of Russians was brought up. I am also a product of that upbringing. I was born in the 15th year, in the 17th the Bolsheviks came to power. My whole life was spent under their leadership. I was brought up by the Bolsheviks. But I, as a sane person, do not deny everything in their teaching, especially now, when all life has been transferred to the ruble and the dollar.

"It's good that I haven't come to my senses!"

- Your hero of all the "destinies" and "mistakes" of the resident - Tulyev - is a decent person in all respects. How would he feel if you took him from that time to today?

- I do not know. I would not call Tulyev a prosperous individual in modern conditions. Rather, he would have been a conflict figure. He's an honest man. Who is Tulyev? The son of a white emigrant, an intelligence worker, albeit French intelligence, but he is also a well-mannered person. It may seem strange to you, but half of the orders I received are from our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They are the ones who consider me their hero! They teach in their educational institutions on my work in cinema! First of all, they teach on the basis of decent views on the life of a decent person.

- Did you agree to this role because Tulyev is a decent person?

- Not. I found the plot of the "resident's story" interesting, written by Shmelev, his kingdom of heaven, and Vostokov, a KGB general. I then starred in the films “The Way to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn” with Azarov, and he says: “Where are you going - play a spy! After you play for me almost the Minister of the Interior! Come to your senses! " It's good that I haven't come to my senses!