At the same time with "Captain Fracasse" Menshikov was shot at "Mosfilm" Studios. In the TV-serial about Lomonosov he was engaged as Dmitry Vinogradov, the great Russian scientist's youth friend, who was sent to study in Germany with him and then became the creator of Russian porcelain. The tragic life of Dmitry Vinogradov wanes beside the monumental figure of the main character. In fact, Vinogradov deserves more attention and warmness to himself and his memory from the compatriots. Even his year of birth is not known for sure - either 1720, or 1717. But we know the date of his early and terrible death, when he wasn't 40 yet…
In the film young Mitya Vinogradov is close to the few memories about him that reached us. Curious, playful, shy, passionate, observant. Boyish face. Manners of a brave youth. Lively loafer. Brawler, reveler, who often came home at dawn all black and blue after fights with German burshes. The bright gift, though not so significant as Lomonosov's, is felt in Dmitry Vinogradov performed by Menshikov. And obviously he's not an ordinary man, but talented, searching. Intractable, not willing to cringe before anyone.
The actor plays it all honestly. Jumps as a grasshopper along narrow German streets and lanes, quarrels with respectable and stiff professors, who are not able to put up with his Russian revelry, and always accompanies his friend Mikhailo Lomonosov in a certain way contrasting the earnest and thorough northerner. It's a pity the actor wasn't given the opportunity to finish the story of Vinogradov's bitter life. Then the viewers could feel how all his hopes and dreams were ruined, how the light left his soul, how cruel life treated him. The creator of Russian porcelain, he who found the secret of its production carefully protected from foreigners in its homeland China, and later - in Saxony, where it was discovered by chance - Dmitry Vinogradov finally found himself chained to the wall of his own room. He could come up to the table and write - the jailers took care of it to copy later the technologies developed by him, to improve the new production that gave huge profits to the owners and their stealthy servants.
In those his last days Dmitry Vinogradov wrote:
Now my mind is pressed with the weight of labors endured,
Youth, so short, went away and early I've grown so old …
In the pathetic, at times boring saga about Mikhailo Lomonosov there was no room for many of those who were great too. Naturally, now, so many years after the release of the film, it's useless to look back and sigh how careless scriptwriters and directors can be with a most interesting historical material and with young talented actors. Menshikov was invited in the production about Lomonosov as a nice and clear accompaniment to the collisions of the main character's life.
Three actors played Lomonosov in the film - depending on the age of the character. One of "Lomonosovs" was performed by Igor Volkov - Oleg's fellow student - and that, of course, made easier their interaction in frame. But Vinogradov, proposed as a background character, actually remained like this, though Menshikov gave him brilliance and charm at the same time not interfering with the director's conception.
But still… It's a pity that the director and the scriptwriter didn't look narrowly at the Vinogradov performed by Menshikov and didn't think what he could become. There could appear an unexpected overtone in the serial. But it never happened. As for the actor himself, Dmitry Vinogradov remains a kind of a middle link in the actor's biography: nice memories, trip to Germany for nature shooting (then it was luck for a beginning actor), pleasant contact with an intelligent director, etc.
(from the book by Elga Lyndina "Oleg Menshikov", Moscow - Panorama, 1999)
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