A beginning director Alexandr Khvan invited Oleg Menshikov for the leading part in the film "Dyuba-Dyuba" after he had seen him in "Caligula". Film test went on then and Khvan couldn't make up his mind about any of the candidates. Like most of the native directors, Khvan knew actors' workshop not very well and searched for performers almost blindly trusting the recommendations of different people. Fortunately, someone named Menshikov, unknown to the director before. Having seen "Caligula" Khvan sent the screenplay to Menshikov and invited him to a meeting.
The names of Petr Lutsyk and Aleksey Samoryadov (the scriptwriters) in 1990 (the beginning of the work on "Dyuba-Dyuba") were very famous. The VGIK students of the famous scriptwriter Odelsha Aguishev's workshop even during their institute years wrote several interesting screenplays. I must say, none of them, in my opinion, was screened at the level of their literary base in the hands of the directors who couldn't find screen decisions equal to the authors' writing manner. Now, many years later, the life of Lutsyk and Samoryadov looks like a bright comet that flashed by, almost disappeared, but its shining tail is still seen in the sky. In 1995 Aleksey Samoryadov died during the Forum of Young Cinematographers in Yalta - almost in front of us fell down from the balcony of the 10th floor. Petr Lutsyk made his directing debut in 1998 with the film "Suburb" - very interesting, but far from being an event as his and Samoryadov's screenplays used to be.
Working on this book, I read again the screenplay "Dyuba-Dyuba" and couldn't stop being amazed as I noted the vivid contradiction between what is written and what is screened by Alexandr Khvan. Lutsyk and Samoryadov wrote the love story. Strange, beyond the usual conceptions and canonic standards for the works dedicated to the high feeling.
Lutsyk and Samoryadov write as if remaining aloof from their heroes: here's the objective description of the events, and you comment them yourselves! But this impression is false, because the authors actually are very partial to the people they depict. They go with them their way to death, penetrated by their drama. And awkward treating of such material deeply hurts the scriptwriters' conception, and that's exactly what happened in Khvan's version.
First of all, the invitation of Oleg Menshikov for the part of Andrey itself brought serious and deep corrections in the screenplay. Interesting detail: having read the screenplay, Menshikov didn't come to the meeting with Khvan at the appointed time. He appeared at the studio only three days later.
...So, Menshikov joined the "Dyuba-Dyuba" crew only three days later. Once I asked him what was the reason for that pause? Oleg answered shortly: "I was thinking…" And then added that he decided to come after all, even being late, because he liked the screenplay.
The latter is natural. In the character of Andrey there was a lot of things close to the actor. The same antithesis of the "uncommon man" (and Menshikov played Pletnev in that manner) to all the others, common. I think he took close Andrey's determination to do something extraordinary - Tatiana's escape from jail. By the way, starting to act in "Dyuba-Dyuba" Menshikov kept playing Caligula and it was impossible to break the connections between the stage and the real character at all the difference of the material.
And Khvan himself isn't good in working with actors and it is clearly proved by the unimpressive interpretation of all the other characters, though many of them were portrayed in the screenplay very vividly. In particular, the leading female character Tatiana Vorobiyeva. The creature a little strange, impulsive, and obviously no less extravagant in her deeds, decisions and emotions than Andrey. The woman who longs to live and is actually living in accordance with herself, no matter how dramatic her life is.
Khvan, who looked for the performer for that role for a long time, probably didn't have a clear idea about Tatiana, just like he didn't have a clear concept of the relations between the characters. But he had little time till the beginning of the shooting. Crew member Olga Sukhorukova brought to film test her friend, the Art Theater Higher School graduate Angela Balyanskaya, who was an inexperienced, rigid actress initially lacking emotional origin. All this immediately influenced the work (Khvan approved Belyanskaya, and later he explained that as if Tanya should be colorless near such bright Andrey). Anyway, instead of a living woman with her pain, sufferings, fright, desire to love and inability to love - instead of such Tanya in the film there was a kind of a shadow, moving, saying her lines, sometimes smiling, sometimes crying, often keeping silent and most of all looking like a lifeless props item.
And thus in "Dyuba-Dyuba" Menshikov actually found himself in his usual actor's solitude. Or rather in absence of partners. If in "Caligula" his solitude was organic in accordance with the director's concept, in "Dyuba-Dyuba" it was caused by Khvan's obvious inability to create a true actors' ensemble. I'm sure, if there were another actor instead of Oleg Menshikov, the film would be a complete failure with such a director. And would've disappeared right after the work was ended rather ingloriously. Fortunately, the participation of the strong personality able to unite with his creative will his own vision of the character with the script concept, i.g. Oleg Menshikov's presence in the shooting area, at that time made "Dyuba-Dyuba" a very notable fact of cinema process. But frankly, three or four years later the film was nearly forgotten. It vanished almost without success in distribution (people went only "to Menshikov"). Just as many others it is remembered only due to the performance of the actor who said his word being guided only by himself.
With his own determined effort Menshikov turned the film to that very direction which allowed him to unite himself with the character as fully as possible. Fortunately, the director lacked power to oppose the actor, though he made such attempts at the start. Once he told me he was ready to replace Menshikov with another actor, because Oleg acted on his own not listening to Khvan's directions. Later he said he had had it out with Menshikov and the latter as if accepted his directing concept and promised to take it into consideration and fulfill it during the work.
But judging by the result, Menshikov played as he thought his Andrey Pletnev should live.
...The huge amount of the shot material went into the waste-basket in the very true meaning of the word. Moreover, the director was shooting without thinking of the terms, the expenses, the normal, commonly accepted time-keeping of the film - obviously believing there were no laws for him… And nevertheless it's a pity that in the final version there was no place for short happy moments contrasting the true sense of the events. It's a pity that they've cut the scene of the grenade explosion in the mountains wonderfully depicted by Lutsyk and Samoryadov and so important for the ending when there will be another explosion, but lethal for Andrey this time.
...Khvan shot Andrey's death in details - when the latter after all managed to take out the hidden grenade and explode himself, Nikolay and his friend. Bloody foam on the character's lips ("We put raspberries with cream into Menshikov's mouth, and that's why he was so industrious in all the takes", told the director later about shooting the scene of death), then slowly subsiding body. Whisper… Death…
But... after all that Andrey Pletnev, safe and sound, cheerfully walked about empty for some reason New-York airport. Ordered vodka and thoughtfully swung a wedding-ring over a smooth and slippery plastic of the bar. By the way, Khvan says this detail was invented by Menshikov who borrowed from the director his ring…
The spectators were at a loss - Andrey seemed to have died?!
A few years later the film was released I will try do disclose it. Not once Khvan announced that his goal as director was to break the script he was working on. But then it was natural to ask: why then take up the screening? Is it possible that all the scriptwriters in Khvan's opinion are only suppliers of raw stuff to his kitchen were he cooks his bloody cakes? Accordingly squabbling occurred with Lutsyk and Samoryadov during the work. The arguments were very serious, but as it is known in such a situation the director was the chief. It was no use to resist. The writers had to be satisfied with the royalties and their names in the film credits. And sometimes with broken relations with the director…
In the story of creating "Dyuba-Dyuba" there appeared additional difficulties.
The part of Andrey's friend Viktor was performed by Grigory Konstantinopolsky. He graduated from the Saratov Theatre Higher School, and then became a student of Higher Directing Courses in Moscow. He shot rather successful commercials and clips. According to the script, "Dyuba-Dyuba" ended with Viktor's dialogue - when he came to New-York and intentionally fell behind the group. He wants to remember his friend who must've been there but he is gone… In the bar he asked to turn on the music and, rocking, hummed: "Dyuba-dyuba… Dyuba-dyuba". Requiem for the gone Andrey.
At first Khvan seemed quite satisfied with such an ending. But in winter of 1991 Konstantinopolsky left for Germany. He called Khvan from there and told him he decided to stay. The director rushed about…
Right at this time he demanded a business-trip to America from "ASK" to shoot Kostantinopolsky as Viktor in New-York. Besides there remained some scenes with Viktor. Khvan was about to change the script, when Konstantinopolsky suddenly returned to Moscow. Something was shot. But Grigory went to Germany again and again said over the phone he was not coming back. Khvan became more anxious: to give up the trip to New-York? May be we shall shoot Menshikov there, he decided…
Having heard of this I was surprised naturally: "Shoot him as whom? Revived Pletnev? But he's not Jackyl and Hide, is he?.."
After all Khvan and Menshikov went to New-York and shot there a few Pletnev's passages about the city which were included in the film later and the scene in the airport.
I mentioned that after 18 months of work on the film Khvan was still not going to finish shooting and wanted to go to the Crimea. But… Sitting by the director's side in the plain flying from New-York to Moscow Oleg said that in the middle of June, on the 16th exactly, he was going to London to rehearse "When She Danced". And he will stay in England for 6 months.
Khvan had to give up and start to cut the film. The cutting lasted from June to February of 1992. Reading these lines, I think, cinematographers clutch their heads: were such terms possible?!
The director referred to Menshikov's contract in which one of the terms read: the actor was to dub his part himself. But on Menshikov's arrival, December 24, 1991, the dubbing hadn't started yet.
I can't but tell how once I happened to be in the studio during the "Dyuba-Dyuba" dubbing. On one hand, I could do nothing but be surprised with the complete absence of self-discipline with the director who was always leaving the studio and stopping the work. On the other hand - be even more surprised with Menshikov's patience not only regarding these pauses, but purely professional as well. His partner in the episode being dubbed, the actor of one of Moscow theatres and a person obviously inexperienced in cinema, couldn't say his lines synchronously - just a few short lines. They started over and over again, but something circuited and Oleg's partner couldn't get hold of himself. It lasted more than an hour. Menshikov was absolutely relaxed, friendly, and never complained or reproached him…
...When one of the first "Dyuba-Dyuba" assembling was over, the film duration was more than 3 hours. Khvan showed this variant to me and my colleague, the famous American cinema critic Anna Lowton, the author of number of articles about Soviet cinema, the professor of Georgetown University in Washington. Mrs. Lowton knows Russian perfectly well. I write about it because neither I, nor she could understand anything from what we saw - and we had read the screenplay. Obviously, the director couldn't make something out of the huge amount of the shot material, and then was rying to get out of it for a long time, and after all, in my opinion, not having got the better of it. The middle becomes the end, and then the end becomes the middle… Khvan couldn't explain why alive Pletnev appears in the end.
"Dyuba-Dyuba" release was rather sensational. After successful debut with the short film, the director was expected to say a new word. At this moment the attention was drawn to the new directors' generation, and Khvan was called one of its leaders. And everybody was preparing for revelations… But the triumph didn't take place, and even the dedicated defender of the film, critic Andrey Shemyakin in his review on "Dyuba-Dyuba" wrote: "It was bewilderment that dominated at the film press-night in the House of Cinematographers…"
To the questions of the critics and spectators concerning the revived character: "Does this whole story mean it was a screenplay written by Andrey Pletnev and brought to screen by his imagination?" or "Where's the borderline between the real and the unreal in the film?", Khvan thoughtfully repeated: "Everybody will see in my film what he wants to see…" The phrase is rather smooth and certainly not giving any answer. Or rather driving away from it…
I'm surprised with quite different. The critics who wrote about "Dyuba-Dyuba" (the responses were mostly negative) left aside Oleg Menshikov's work, only sometimes mentioning what was done by the actor in particular. Meanwhile he gave the film significance, seriousness, brought some contemporary note into it starting to speak about the tragic destiny of those who try to reveal themselves in a ghostly haze of the end of the century.
In 1993 "Dyuba-Dyuba" represented Russia at the International Film Festival in Cannes, France and took the last place in the rating of the competing films. Naturally, the film received no awards. The French press wrote that the sense of the production remained beyond understanding and audibility. If the directing was at the level of Menshikov's acting, the Russian actor might've competed the western performers… But what's the use to indulge in the suppositions of what can be never returned?
(from the book by Elga Lyndina "Oleg Menshikov", Moscow - Panorama, 1999)
Video file from Cannes Film Festival.
Source - www.ina.fr
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