Childhood in Khabarovsk - this is what it looks like?
In Khabarovsk, I was born, and I lived in Primorsky Krai, on the Ussuri River, which is closer to Vladivostok. Childhood had to, in the difficult 50-ies, but it was a paradise. I was surrounded by wonderful people, there were three guns, three dogs, fishing rods, nets in the house. Hunting and fishing were not entertainment, but ways of food. At school I had friends from a family of hereditary tigers. Father, uncle, grandfather - they all caught tigers for zoos - six pieces per year under license. That's what they lived for. Grandfather did not have one hand - he tore off the tiger.
When you released the film "The Bear's Kiss" in 2002, did you tell how in the childhood not far from your house bears roamed?
Well, wandered, but the film is not about that. I saw a shaman in my childhood, who, singing his ceremonies at the fire, sang a song about his father being a bear. I was then five years old, and I believed him. I still believe that it was so. Such stories are told not only in Siberia, but throughout the world, from American Indians to Japanese monks.
Who were your parents?
Doctors. Whole family. When I was born, my mother was a student, she studied at the medical institute, I was raised by a grandmother and grandfather.
And you yourself did not want to become a doctor?
I wanted to become a jockey. Early started riding, but grew quickly, and jockeys should be small. But I still like horses, and always, when I have the opportunity, I sit in the saddle. In different countries I have many friends - riders, jockeys, coaches, cowboys. When I finish shooting the movie, I'll get myself a herd of horses.
How did you get into the Faculty of Electrical Equipment of Aircraft?
Accidentally. I wanted to become a forester, a fireman. Seriously I was thinking about journalism. But I very strongly stuttered in my childhood, and it seemed to me an obstacle to admission. Therefore, I entered the power plant on aircraft.
How long did you study there?
Few. I already became a gambler in school. It's like a disease, Dostoevsky described everything correctly.
So we shot the movie "Catala"?
"Catalu" I was offered to shoot on Mosfilm. Someone started shooting and did not manage, and I somehow knew this stuff.
Did you at least win?
Won and lose. It is clear that it ended badly. To pay off debts, I stole money from my own grandmother, virtually all of her savings. And only after that he stopped playing. Tied up. But they threw me out of the institute with shame. I was going to join the army, the paratroopers. I stuttered, the medical commission decided that I had something wrong with the jaw. Stammering has nothing to do with maxillofacial surgery, of course, but I was sent for examination to a military hospital. There, a young female doctor laughed and asked if I wanted to join the army. And I already served to disperse - it was clear that only the construction battalion shines. The doctor wrote me a certificate that my jaw was not in order, so they did not take me into the army. After that, I went to work for Mosfilm Illuminator. The lighting is a working class, but I was interested, I saw how people make films. Began to write. In the Literary Gazette was the 16th page - one of the most widely read, where the best humorists and satirists were published: Grigory Greene, Arkady Arkanov, Leonid Likhodev. Friedrich Grenshtein - in a word, the master. I came from the street and they took my stories. And then they said: what are you fooling about? Go learn. And they advised the scenario department of VGIK. I went to study and continued to write short funny stories. I was 23 years old, I had a son, so I had to earn. After VGIK began to work as a special correspondent of the magazine "Crocodile". There was a huge department of letters, in which ten people worked. The whole country complained to "Crocodile". Letters were a real storehouse of unique stories. You could choose any letter, go on a business trip and see how the country lives.
You decided to become a director because you wanted to shoot yourself or were dissatisfied with how your scripts embodied?
According to my scripts, many films were shot, including "Favorite woman of mechanic Gavrilov" and other popular comedies. I was not that unhappy, just a screenwriter - this is the second profession in cinema. Many writers want to do something themselves. I started shooting late, I was already over thirty. And I had an incredible greed for work. Probably, that's why I took more than needed. He tried for one thing and another, I wanted to try everything. You had a picture of "Non-professionals" and the film Professional after it. "
And when did you feel that you are making it, that you are professional?
Every time you start shooting a picture, there are no guarantees that you will succeed. Even those professionals who work on patterns, still not insured against failure. This is also the magic of cinema. You can be confident on the court, but you can not predict the result. I learned to take it easy. Sometimes it happens that your story is interesting to millions of viewers, and it happens that it is understandable to a very narrow audience. But this narrow audience is no less valuable - this is a special category of talented spectators. At the beginning of the 90th many Russian filmmakers went to work in America.
How did they invite you there?
- People have gone, but practically nothing has happened. I myself was not eager, but opportunities arose due to the huge number of film festivals in America. I was invited, I went, it was interesting to see the country, but I realized that I could not work there. There you have to start everything from scratch, but for me it was too late. And I returned back. But soon it became absolutely impossible to work in Russia. In 1992 nothing was removed. Cooperative cinema began. If you wanted to work, you had to make silly comedies. That's when I decided that it's worth trying to shoot something abroad. You were then married to an American Caroline Cavallero.
Did she somehow influence your decision?
No. We normally lived in Russia and did not plan to leave for the US. If we were to move somewhere, then to Europe. By then I was known in Europe. But in America everything went not so bad, because, as it turned out, I own what is called story telling - I can tell clear stories. We came to America, and one of my friends immediately asked me to write a script.
Your friend is the director, screenwriter and producer Alexander Rockwell?
Yes, it's him.
It's true that when you got to Las Vegas, you could not resist the temptation and went to play?
This is indeed so. We went to Arizona, where John Ford was filming, where Indian reservations are fantastic from the movie's point of view. But for this it was necessary to drive through Las Vegas and there to spend the night ... I did not touch the cards for about twenty years, from the same case with my grandmother, about whom I told. I woke up early in the morning, and there was a hotel and a casino in one place. I went down and lost almost everything that I had. So the desire to get a job became a necessity.
There is no thin without good?
Exactly. I wrote the script. Rockwell made a film ("He who is in love"). I got money for him and at the same time I realized that I can work in America. Later he returned to Russia, took down the "Caucasian Captive", in which my son Serezha was already filming, the picture was again understandable to the whole world, there was a nomination for an Oscar, after which many doors were opened.
How did you live in the USA? They say among your neighbors were Jacqueline Wisse, Map lon Brando and Angelica Huston.
Not certainly in that way. Jacqueline Bisset was a friend, but not a neighbor. Marlon Brando, I knew, but he lived elsewhere. The area in Los Angeles, where I lived, is called Venice Beach, it's cheap, for the creative intelligentsia. There once lived Charles Bukowski, the late Dennis Hopper. A five-minute walk from our house was fired even during the day - the relations between the black and Mexican mafia were clarified. The neighbors were ordinary people, quite pleasant. America in general is a benevolent country. Angelica Houston lived right on the beach in ten minutes walk from me. Her husband is a famous sculptor.
On a visit to each other did not go?
On a visit - no, but were familiar.
While in America, how did you communicate with your son? Did Sergei come to you?
I came. I left the family when he was six, but they do not leave the children. I returned when he was 14. When he graduated from the university, was preparing to write a diploma, he spent the summer in my America. I wanted him to continue studying.
But you dissuaded Sergei from entering VGIK?
- He wanted a script, and I thought that after school go learn to write scripts are not necessary. I'm still confident that you can teach you how to write scripts in a week. More importantly, know what you want to write about. This requires life experience. Even earlier, at the age of 14, Serega said that he wanted to become an actor. Here I was totally against it: I said that it was only through my corpse. The actor is a difficult profession where you are chosen. If to be an actor, then brilliant. You can be an average engineer, but you do not need to be an average actor. And I dissuaded him. On the other hand, if he did not obey and nevertheless went to VGIK, I would certainly support him. But he went to the historical one. And later again everything returned to normal: he became not just an actor, but a superpoker.
How did he find himself in the "Caucasian prisoner"? Did you more often agree or argue?
Serega I appeared in films, in episodic roles, but I just wanted to spend time with him, and I took him to take pictures with me, took pictures. When we started working on the "Caucasian captive", he had already graduated from the university, and - I do not remember whether he himself asked or I suggested - he became my assistant. He went to Dagestan, helped to look for actors and found this wonderful girl, the main character actress Susanna Mehralieva. In the meantime, I conducted tests and when I realized that Oleg Menshikov would star in the lead role, I could not find him a pair. Serega returned from Dagestan and said: try me. I was surprised, and then realized that I needed someone like him. I've always been against directors shooting their children. I thought: can not you find other actors, it's so simple. It turned out that he was wrong. Serega and I rehearsed for several days at home, so that no one knew. The painting had a producer, my former student Boris Giller. He was a journalist, he studied with me at VGIK, he wanted to make commercial films. It was the same new type of businessman, with a grasp and flair. He founded his newspaper, earned money and flew to me in Los Angeles with a proposal to film a Caucasian captive. He saw a commercial history here and, probably, was right. For him, the actors were very important. Menshikov was a star. And when I said that I want to try my son, Giller, despite being good to Sergei, said: we do not make films in order to shoot our children. I replied: "Borya, I will try the tests myself." The tests showed that Serega does everything perfectly. I said: you can choose. I gave the right to choose, knowing that in fact there is no choice. After a few days thinking, Boris agreed. But there is still a legend that I did not want to shoot Serega. This was our first big work. I realized that it was difficult, because I had seen Serega, whom I knew, my son. But he did everything right, hit the mark. After that, Seryozha started everything: the program "Vzglyad", other films. I was truly amazed after watching the movie "Brother". I watched a movie in Cannes, my movie was watched by my ex-American wife, and she is very good at cinema. After viewing, I turned to her and said: "He played great!" And she: "Do not you understand that your son is a star!" A few have this quality that you can not buy, you can not buy, what you can not teach - full of organicity. This is called "the camera loves you." So Serega became a living legend. Serega found real popular love and became the last hero of the country. For me it was an incredibly happy moment. Suddenly he became Sergei Bodrov, and I - Sergei Bodrov, the eldest. We were colleagues, friends, he let me read what he wrote, what he wanted to shoot, and I told him my ideas.
What is the story about the jacket that he won in your argument?
Not with me. At Menshikov's. He and Oleg played dice while filming, and Serega won this jacket. When he was going to reduce his last and unfinished project "Messenger", did you really dissuade him from going to the ill-fated expedition to the Karmadon gorge?
It's true. Did I have any premonition? I do not know ... I thought he was in a hurry. I advised to start with Moscow scenes, prepare, and go to the Caucasus later. The script was wonderful. I joked, I said: write more, then you'll shoot! I heard Serega say to someone: "My father praised me for the first time!", And thought: maybe I really do not praise him much? Then, when I arrived in Karmadon, I understood why he was so hurrying there to shoot. There was a first-class nature, absolutely accurate for his film.
Do you go there every year?
Every year I do not go, it's too hard.
Did you have stories in which you wanted to shoot it?
I knew that he was capable of many things, and, of course, he thought about stories in which he could take it off. All this ended in one day ... I was offered to download the "Connected", but there's nothing to discuss. It makes no sense.
The film "Sisters" was supposed to shoot Hook Omarov, but Sergey removed. Why?
We wrote a script for Guki, but could not find money for the film. The script lay. Serega began to write "Morphine", which was given to him with difficulty. I advised him to remove something simpler for a start. Then he came to me in America - we shot then the picture "Let's do it in a fast way." I told him: "The last time I propose a script, or I'll give it to someone!" And he agreed. This does not apply to filmmakers. The director must be able to insist on his own.
Is it true that Hooke lived in Holland for a long time?
She is now a citizen of this country. But we have such a profession that we can not be attached to one particular place. Let's say, when people ask me where I live. I answer that I live where I work.
Do you vary depending on where you live?
There is a proverb: "In Rome, act like a Roman." And it is right. To treat with disregard for other people's customs and culture is stupid. If you live in China, then learn how to work there, or nothing will come of it.
You talked about eastern humility at the beginning of the conversation. How do you manage to be a director and educate him in yourself?
It's hard, especially to the director. A monk may be humble. And I do not know the monks who would make films. I understood only that you do not need to waste your life, on unnecessary talk, minor matters, small thoughts. Therefore, I carefully choose every picture I will be making, Say, "Mongol" was an important project for me. After what happened to Serega, I wanted to put something heavy on my shoulders. I had to be busy.
You have a daughter Asya. You are communcating?
Of course. She was born in Kazakhstan, where I worked, in Alma-Ata. I graduated from the same university, worked in my last paintings, and now will study in Germany.
Do you often see your grandchildren?
I see, but I try not to talk much about them. They are wonderful, but we protect them from close attention. Until now, they are being persecuted, trying to photograph because of the fence. Our press can not leave them alone.
If you were shooting an autobiographical film, whatever it was not and on what. would, on the contrary, have an accent?
I do not plan to make an autobiographical film. But if you do it, or write a book, you have to be extremely frank. Turn yourself inside out, like Charles Bukowski, who told how he fucked all his women, how he drank and died from vomit ... The real autobiographies they write, not sparing themselves. If you are not capable of it, then do not try. To this end, as the Americans say, balls are needed. And if you are afraid to show yourself with all your weaknesses and shortcomings, then do not waste the film and paper.