The Stairs
"Mosfilm" Studios. 1989
Directed by A. Sakharov
Screenplay by A. Zhitinsky
Director of photography: N. Nemolayev
Music by V. Komarov
Art-director: B. Blank, V. Murzin
Sound director: E. Pozdnyakov
Cast:
Vladimir Piroshnikov - O. Menshikov
Alevtina - E. Yakovleva
Georgiy - C. Artsybashev
Uncle Misha - L. Kuravlev
Larissa - C. Amanova
Serezha - Sasha Sherbakov
…So, Vladimir Piroshnikov, who lives in the northern capital, seems to have decided to commit a suicide. An Alya, who
was accidentally passing him by, a kind of an angel in a white fur coat and a white cap, took him to her place to prevent
him from fulfilling the fatal decision. In the morning guests from the province came to visit Alya - uncle Misha and his
friend. The latter was pestering Piroshnikov with absolutely indistinct monologues on the political life of the state,
lack of food, etc. Just the right time to escape the caring Alya… But he can't get out into the street.
During all this Piroshnikov doesn't show his face - wanders and listens, plays complete absorption in his own thoughts.
But what are they? It's not a reproach to the actor: with the true thoughts of the character the authors seem to have
taken the side way.
Menshikov rather monotonously plays spiritual finish and incomplete physical ending. He is monotonous because there are
almost no real pretexts in the dramaturgy, and the directing goes the same way enjoying the opportunity to create something
endlessly slow, bringing down. Actually, the material is against the actor's nature, his energy, his usual rushing to
dramatic climax.
Inviting Oleg Menshikov for the part of Piroshnikov, Sakharov, probably, considered him an actor able to play touchingly a
lost modern intelligent, a noble man, who once realized that "he feels really bad", that "everything has been there already -
thoughts, talks, faces"… that "fifty years - and everything's over..." - with these lines the film "The Stairs" starts suddenly.
Piroshnikov is sad: "Was it really destined for me?" And now he has "nowhere to go". Pathos then was still an alien space for
Menshikov.
This primarily inexact director's choice - unwilling opposition of the actor's nature against the conception - was not only
continued, but at times so shrewd, that everything in the film falls apart. Menshikov's character will never be complaining,
moreover pitifully seek for sympathy. Such effusions, if they are serious, are equal to deep revelations. And such moments
were absolutely unacceptable for the actor's characters, at least of that period.
(from the book by Elga Lyndina "Oleg Menshikov", Moscow - Panorama, 1999)
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