`You know, there`s something in the Russian head that doesn`t work like the American head,” Moscow-born film director Andrei Konchalovsky is explaining as he sips herbal tea in a Near North hotel suite and attempts to fight off a flu bug.
”Americans are a very dynamic, practical, individualistic people. And they respect, most of all, a winner. I`ve felt it myself. If you`re a winner in Hollywood, everyone is your friend. If you have a flop, no one calls you. In Russia, if you`re a winner, no one calls you, because they think you`re a bastard. If you`re a loser, everyone calls you because they like losers. People prefer to be losers, and stay low-but they don`t want you to be rich!
That`s a strong, strong point, and that`s what Americans should understand.” At the moment, Konchalovsky would prefer to be a winner, thank you very much, on the basis of his latest film, ”The Inner Circle,” a drama that had its origin 25 years ago when he was employed at Mosfilm and met a man named Alexander Ganshin, then working in film censorship.
”He told me that he had worked as Stalin`s personal projectionist from 1935 until his death in 1953. It was an extraordinary thing for me to hear that he had seen Stalin every day. But at the time I couldn`t imagine I would do a film about it because I couldn`t believe that this structure could be destroyed. Then, five years ago, I realized there was an opening.”
Now playing at McClurg Court, ”The Inner Circle”-the first major motion picture to be filmed inside the Kremlin-stars Tom Hulce as Ivan Sanshin, the character based on the Stalin-worshipping projectionist; Lolita Davidovitch as his (largely fictional) inquiring wife; and Bob Hoskins as KGB head Lavrenty Beria.
”There have been several films made about Stalin, but they all show his cruelty, his bloodthirstiness, and the dehumanizing conditions in prison,”
Konchalovsky says. ”None of them tried to ask the question of why he was popular, where the roots of admiration came from. That`s why I wanted to present it through the eyes of a simple man, Ivan, and try to understand his fears.
”Ganshin is still alive. He`s in his late 80s, and has remained a Stalinist. See, his generation mostly has trouble parting with its illusions. First, there is a subjective reason: They invested their lives in someone, and they don`t want to accept the fact that that someone had done something wrong. The second reason is external. People say, `Yes, we didn`t have freedom, but we had food. Now, there`s freedom, but no food. Yes, Stalin was severe, but every year he lowered the prices.` Of course it was an artificial lowering of the prices because of state subsidies.
”I`m not showing Stalin as an out-and-out demon. It`s more metaphysical. Dr. Faustus knew exactly who Mephistopheles was. Evil can wrap itself in very seductive clothes. If Stalin had had two horns and sharp teeth sticking out, no one would have loved him. The secret of evil is that it uses innocence or ignorance as a fertile soil to seduce people into the most evil ideas.
”Stalin was the creator of the state of terror, but he wasn`t associated with it, which is one of the reasons he was so popular. That was the reason that many thousands of prisoners wrote him letters from the gulag. They actually were dying as Stalinists. Of course, in the higher ecehlons of Soviet society, people knew. But the lower echelons didn`t. Millions of people were sure that Stalin was a great, just man. Certainly, he was very wise. Every five years he had the head of the KGB taken out and executed.
”That`s why I think Gorbachev is the man of the century, because he dismantled the system that, in my opinion, was completely undestructible. I mean, the Party was the Mafia. You didn`t know what was going on inside. And Gorbachev did it without having blood on his hands. Before him, everyone who tried to do it either vanished or was dismissed.”
The director says that both Hulce, best known for playing the composer/
genius in ”Amadeus,” and Davidovitch, best known for playing the stripper in ”Blaze,” were actors who had the quality he was looking for: naivete and childhood innocence. ”Tom was perfect for the Charlie Chaplinesque part. To me, that would have been the perfect part for Chaplin: the projectionist. In real life, Lolita is a clown; she`s like Lucille Ball. I wanted to have some funny characters, and I needed this innocence, otherwise it would have been too dark.
”For Alexandre Zbruev, who plays Stalin, it was very strange. His father had been executed by Stalin. You can imagine his feelings. I asked him to play the other side of this man, the Machiavellian side. It bothered him for a while. But when he realized what I was doing, he was at ease.
”One reason I made the film was to show the Russian people how they were seduced by this man, and try to get them to acknowledge it,” continues Konchalovsky, who, with Russian author Alexander Lipkov, has written ”The Inner Circle: An Inside View of Soviet Life Under Stalin” (Newmarket Press, $16.95), a companion piece to the film. ”What is important is that they realize their own responsibility. Stalinism really hasn`t had its Nuremberg. That`s the reason they were able to maintain their view of Stalinism, because the leaders were never brought to trial. They don`t want to judge.”
Konchalovsky, who has dual Soviet-French citizenship, now lives in Paris, London and Los Angeles. Born in the Soviet Union in 1937, he comes from a family of creative types. His great-grandfather and grandfather were prominent painters, his father was a poet who wrote the national anthem and his brother, Nikita, is an actor-director. Originally intending to be a concert pianist, Konchalovsky himself segued to the Moscow Film School, and eventually began creating such works as ”The First Teacher” and ”Asya`s Happiness,” which was banned for 11 years. That same year he was given permission to leave the Soviet Union for Paris after marrying a French woman. In the early `80s he arrived in Hollywood, and has since turned out an interesting mix, from
”Runaway Train” to ”Shy People” to ”Tango & Cash.”
”I had been brainwashed, of course, as a young Stalinist. It was very natural in a totalitarian state. Americans don`t know terror. The only terror Americans know is the serial killer. So they don`t understand the Russian or totalitarian society-the behavior-because your system of moral values is very straightforward. If you see injustice, you should stand up and fight. That`s great! But over there, if you stand up, you disappear. The ordinary Soviet citizen knew exactly what not to do. There was a kind of Pandora`s box that you shouldn`t open: Questions about power, the Communist party and injustice. If you didn`t touch that, you were safe. You had your own small room and cheap sausages and Comrade Stalin would take care of the rest.
”That`s what my film is about: Don`t ask. It`s the story of a human soul that was frozen. By the end of the film, Ivan begins to feel, because when you unfrost your frozen limb it`s very painful. It`s also basically a love triangle. At one point, Ivan tells his wife he loves Stalin more than her.”
He says the film is scheduled to be shown in the former Soviet Union this summer, and already has been seen by onetime projectionist Ganshin. ”He was upset about my interpretation of Stalin. But he couldn`t object whenever I showed Stalin with him because it was exactly as it happened.”
In making ”The Inner Circle”-a four-month shoot starting in August of 1990-it was the first time he had filmed in his native country since
”Siberiade,” his 1979 cross-generational epic that was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. Despite perestroika, lingering Russian bureaucracy still made things difficult. ”It took us seven months to get permission to shoot in certain places. The Kremlin was a little easier, but getting into KGB headquarters was very difficult.”
Konchalovsky smiles. ”The Russian crews haven`t speeded up at all since then. Russians don`t know the equation that time is money. I was prepared for it, but it drove the Americans crazy. Absolutely. The poor Americans. They`d say, `Nothing works! Nothing works!` I`d say, `No. Nothing works as you want.` ”You know, one thing Americans should realize is that Russians would rather have their daily sausage-and order-than democracy. The Cold War created a certain formula: the Russian people are good, communism is bad. Let`s destroy the Soviet socialistic state, and everyone will be safe now, neat and clean. It didn`t happen. The Party is destroyed but there`s no grass roots movement to build capitalism.
”Also, the need for a totalitarian father figure is very strong. I wouldn`t write off a military coup over there with an authoritarian figure. Which, by the way, I don`t see as an ultimate danger to Russian society. I see the danger as being a reversal of attempts to establish free market economics- back to planned economics and communism. This enormous black hole that is Russia now, that sucks enormous funds from the different western countries, is not a good idea. In order to maintain some political freedom, I think it`s more important to create a healthy economy and then think about social education. Because I don`t think we can take a short cut to democracy.”
