People and events:

• THE WORLD'S FIRST STATE CINEMA SCHOOL CELEBRATES ITS 80TH ANNIVERSARY
• THE MANY GIFTS OF ALEXANDER CHAIKOVSKY
• "LOVE NOVELLAS" BY RUSLAN KIREEV

THE WORLD'S FIRST STATE CINEMA SCHOOL CELEBRATES ITS 80TH ANNIVERSARY

The All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, VGIK (the first state cinema school in the world), has celebrated its 85th anniversary.
Set up in 1919 during the era of "silent cinema", it first trained movie actors only. Despite enormous difficulties, the absence of shooting grounds and photo laboratories, and lack of film and equipment, the school managed to keep afloat and before long was standing firmly on its feet. A directing, camera and script departments were opened.
In the 1920s the school gained international recognition after films made by its students and graduates caused a sensation in Berlin. "How can it be that a devastated and hungry country risked opening a higher state cinema school, something even Hollywood couldn't afford to do?" wondered astounded critics in on both sides of the Atlantic.
VGIK trains specialists in virtually all fields of cinematography, including managers and distributors. Throughout its long history it has released more than 10 thousand professionals working in Russia and abroad (in about 90 countries), and a whole galaxy of "movie stars". Teaching there at various times were nearly all coryphees of domestic cinema - Sergey Eisenstein, Grigory Kozintsev, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko to name but a few. VGIK prides itself on its former graduates and now world-famous directors such as Nikita Mikhalkov, Andron Konchalovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky, Vlaidmir Menshov, Alexander Sokurov and Eldar Ryazanov and other celebrities.
The first Russian Oscar winners, Varlamov and Kopalin ("The Defeat of Nazi Troops near Moscow"), and all Russian filmmakers who won Oscars ever after were VGIK graduates.
VGIK now bears the name of Sergey Gerasimov, an outstanding director and a patriarch of domestic cinema, whose films enter the "golden fund" of world movie masterpieces. For more than 40 years he was the head of VGIK's directing and acting departments, and now his students and their students are teaching there.
Guests from more than 20 cinema schools across the world gathered in Moscow for VGIK's anniversary celebrations that included a retrospective show of student and diploma films by VGIK former graduates, now eminent masters.
It's interesting to see early works by someone who now ranks among geniuses. On the other hand, it's hard to judge a young director's talent and his subsequent career by his student work.
Another anniversary retrospective features movie classics by foreign directors, among them Conrad Wolf, Marta Messarosh, Georgy Dulgerov and others, all of them VGIK graduates.
Two exhibitions were launched: one by VGIK's scenography department, the other put up by the school's camera department presented photo glimpses of famous films in the process of shooting.
Other events included a party of VGIK graduates of all generations with a special program devoted to VGIK's history and contemporary movie masters.

THE MANY GIFTS OF ALEXANDER CHAIKOVSKY

Who is the current head of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, head of the composition department at the Moscow Conservatory, long-standing music consultant for St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre, and, finally, acting rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory? You wouldn't believe it, but all the above posts are held by one person, pianist and composer Alexander Chaikovsky, the namesake of the great Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
How can he manage to combine so many jobs? Apparently, due to his infinite urge to "grasp the unbounded". Chaikovsky wrote oratorios "On Behalf of the Globe" to lyrics by Ilya Selvinsky, and "To the Sun", as well as the comic operas "The Grandfather Laughs" based on fables by Ivan Krylov, "Czar Nikita and His Forty Daughters", and the ballet "Inspector General" based on Nikolai Gogol's satirical play of the same name. He is also the author of several symphonic works and instrumental concertos often performed in Russia and abroad, and the organizer of the "Russia's Youth Academies" music festival. The latter deserves special attention.
"The first festival was conducted in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but now it is also held in Kazan, Yekaterinbourg and some other cities," Alexander Chaikovsky explains. "The main aim of the festival is to support young composers to whom no one has paid attention during the past decade. It was not until before recently that the music public came to understand that unless we begin supporting young composers, the much-lauded Russian music school will eventually become uninteresting."
After graduating from Moscow's central music school for gifted children, Chaikovsky continued education at the Moscow Conservatory where he studied composition under Tikhon Khrennikov. At the age of 30 he was elected one of the leaders of the national Composers' Union.
Some advised him to take another name. "I decided not to do it, because it stimulates me. Suppose, my name was, say, Tutkin and I wrote something bad, no one would pay attention, while the name Chaikovsky imposes responsibility…"
Despite criticism from "radicals" and "traditionalists", Alexander Chaikovsky prefers having his own way. After taking over as director of the Moscow Philharmonic, he effected radical reforms designed to bring that "museum of dusty Soviet-era traditions" in line with international standards. Soon it became clear that the new director has equal respect for renowned soloists and unknown but very professional musicians the majority of orchestras consist of. It looks like the St. Petersburg Conservatory, with Chaikovsky as its acting rector, should also get ready for changes. A conservatory should be approached not as a merely educational institution but a creative complex with colossal opportunities, he says.
Not long ago Chaikovsky finished a chamber symphony called "The Late 20th-Century Presentiment", sort of a music illustration to a painting by Victor Krotov, premiered at his Moscow exhibition. He is also engaged in a very interesting project, "The Anthology of Russian Cinema", a 10-part documentary about the Russian cinematograph. "This project interests me from the point of view of self-education in questions concerning cinema," Chaikovsky says. He is planning to write an opera about Prince Grigory Potemkin, a favorite of the Empress Catherine II. In 1986 he composed a historical ballet about the sailors' mutiny aboard the "Potemkin" battleship.
Alexander Chaikovsky is Muscovite but it now pleases him more to live in St. Petersburg. His wife is a violinist at the Mariinsky Theater's orchestra and his family is there. One of his pieces, the autobiographical symphonic poem "Nocturnes of the Northern Palmyra", is devoted to St. Petersburg.

"LOVE NOVELLAS" BY RUSLAN KIREEV

Ruslan Kireev, a well-known Russian prosaic and critic, the author of about 50 literary works, among them "The Victor", "Apology", "The Year of Swans", has published a new book, a two-volume edition of "Love Novellas". Volume 1 is devoted to famous Russian classics from Alexander Pushkin to Sergey Yesenin, and Volume 2 focuses on foreign celebrities - Friedrich Schiller, Charles Baudelaire, George Byron, Victor Hugo and many others.
In "Love Novellas", which may be defined as documentary fiction or historical novella, Kireev cites passages from books written by authors in love, fragments of their letters and diaries.
"I did thorough research, studying archives, diaries, memoirs by contemporaries, and, of course, fiction, that document of a writer's soul," Kireev says. "This work resulted in 100 novellas, 52 about Russian classics, and 48 about foreign authors - of France, Germany, America, Scandinavian countries, and Britain. The most difficult thing was to combine documents with fiction. Each novella contains excerpts from a diary, or a letter, and fragments of the book whose characters had real prototypes. The whole work took nearly a decade."
"Some very good writers were not included, because I didn't find, or had no access to archive materials. For example, I included Thomas Wolf, Ernest Hemingway, but in my book you won't find William Faulkner or Theodore Dreiser. I'd love to write about Faulkner, but haven't found enough materials."
From "Love Novellas" you will learn about the tragic love of the famous American writer Edgar Po and his wife Virginia, who died very early, becoming the prototype of all death-doomed heroines of Po's stories. Also you will learn about a romance between the British dramatist Bernard Shaw and actress Patrick Campbell who shone in most of his plays, including the famous "Pygmalion".
"I hope that having read my novellas about Thomas Wolf or Rene Chateaubriand, or Heinrich von Kleist, people will want to read their books and go to the library. Or take Shelly, for example - few read Shelly now. And his love story is so wonderfully romantic. One of the aims of my book is to popularize classics."
Each of the 100 novellas is an accomplished piece of prose with an intriguing plot-line unfolded in strict compliance with the genre, written in a very good language and pierced with subtle humor.
11/05/2004