Vitaly Melnikov - screenwriter and director, winner of the "Nika" award for his contribution to the development of cinematography

He knows very little in person, but there is not among the older generation those who would not watch and love his films, and even more actors, whom he opened the way to the big screen. They are Mikhail Kononov and Mikhail Boyarsky, Natalia Gundareva and Nikolai Karachentsev who left early. His authority in the cinematographic circles is so great that the artists in his last film "The Adorable" (2012), in the absence of money, worked in debt, showing creative heroism.

Noting the 88th anniversary on May 1, screenwriter and director Vitaly Melnikov this year received the Nika Award for his contribution to the development of cinematography, which is the exception rather than the rule. For the director does not have a novel with film festivals, he does not strive for PR and glorification of his own role in the success of the picture, but he definitely has people's love and recognition of the audience.

Son of the enemy of the people

It is difficult to imagine how the fate of Vitaly Melnikov would have formed, if not for Eisenstein, who formed the theory that it is necessary to grow young directors from scratch. And then a guy from Siberia came to Moscow from the Siberian State Institute of Cinematography, all the experience in the cinema was only in the fact that he was spinning films in the kinopradvizhke. And by this he was so ideally suited to the theory that he was on the course of Mikhail Romm and Sergei Yutkevich.

But the life experience of the guy was more than enough. Born in the village of Mazanovo on the Irtysh River (Amur Region) in the family of a teacher and a forester, he traveled with his parents all over Siberia, listening to free conversations of exiles and immigrants who were not there voluntarily. The profession of the father required living in remote places and small settlements. After Vyacheslav Vladimirovich's promotion, the family found themselves in hungry Blagoveshchensk, from where they were "taken" forever.

Vitaly Melnikov remembers how Augusta Danilovna's mother wrote to Stalin. I hoped and waited, leaving the city only after the received news from my husband with a demand to leave, so that the wife of the enemy of the people was not separated from her son. Difficult pre-war time was spent in hardships, among relatives and friends who tried to somehow help a woman with a child. "They took" and grandfather, and then the war broke out. Many years later, Melnikov VV, father of Vitaly, was rehabilitated. But, alas, posthumously. Before the eyes of the director will pass the whole life of the mother, boundlessly devoted to her husband and kept the love in her heart until her last hour.

Way to the action movie

Vitaly Melnikov studied together with former front-line soldiers Sergei Bondarchuk, Pavel Chukhrai and Vladimir Basov, not only studying the profession, but also learning the school of life. After receiving the diploma, he was distributed to Lenfilm, a young specialist worked in documentary films. With St. Petersburg will be linked to his entire future life. Here he will find his fate, having lived his whole life with a single woman, a former Leningrad blockade-maker.

Documentary is another life school for the director. It is traveling around the country, communicating with hundreds of people, developing their own handwriting and acquiring universality, which later forced to take up pen and own scripts. Films he shot about everything: from scientific and educational professionals and meliorators to biographical films - portraits ("Kibalchich", "Lomonosov"). Realizing that all this had in those years a certain ideological component, Vitaly Vyacheslavovich comes to understand what is really necessary for the viewer in an art cinema. Ten years later, he begins to work in the game cinema.

The first films by Vitaly Melnikov

Today, Vitaly Vyacheslavovich's filmography consists of 22 works in the field of feature films. If you do not take into account his participation in the film as the second director of the short film in 1964, then the debut can be considered a historical tape in the style of the ironic passage "The Chief of Chukotka" (1966). A magnificent improvisator, a brilliant narrator and a good-natured scoffer, Vitaly Melnikov, the director of the heroic comedy, managed to give the historical and revolutionary material parodic notes, including thanks to the brilliantly selected actor duet of the recognized master Alexei Gribov and the budding Michael Kononov, who became one of the director's favorite directors.

Among the first works, the unforgettable "Mom got married" (1969) according to the scenario of Y. Klepikov, who fell into disgrace with the cinematographic authorities. A well-proven debut film director is given the right to screen the script, but the audience will not see a brilliant picture at the box office. It will appear on the blue screens only in the seventies. Here for the first time Oleg Efremov appears in the role of a former alcoholic, and Lucien Ovchinnikova plays a woman who dreams of simple human happiness. There is a tendency to Vitaly Veaceslavovich not striving to become a fashionable director, focusing on the lyric canvas and giving the person a better understanding of himself.

Writer's debut

Melnikov had a lot in common with Alexander Vampilov, which allowed him to penetrate deeper into his dramaturgy, imbued with sad irony. Realizing that the author's main thing is not a plot, but unexpected observations of changes in the human personality, Vitaly Vyacheslavovich himself writes scenarios for his two paintings based on the works of A. Vampilov, although he always collaborated with the best screenwriters of his time: A. Zhitinsky, V. Merezhko , V. Valutsky. This is the "Elder Son" (1975) and "Holidays in September" ("Duck Hunting", 1979), which have become real masterpieces of masterpieces.

Both pictures are the undoubted success of the inimitable Evgeny Leonov, which made the viewer sympathize with his touching and internally unprotected heroes. This is the talent of the director who creates on the set of the scene an actor's looseness, mobilizing like-minded people to solve a common problem, and not giving the team convinced only in the person's own rightness. In his scenarios, sadness adjoins fun, mockery is mixed with sensitivity, and observation is permeated with exaggeration. All together - this is a unique manner of the film-story, the author of which is Vitaly Melnikov, the scriptwriter of seven of his films. In addition to the works of A. Vampilov, the most famous are "The Marriage" by N. Gogol (1997) and "Poor, Poor Pavel" about Paul I (2003).

Historical films

In the 90s, when history was created in Russia right before our eyes, the master wanted to shoot a whole series of historical films that would allow him to better understand his time through comparison. These are not epic paintings. Vitaly Melnikov does not betray himself, gazing intently at the characters of the characters, their formation and development. Paul I for him is not a trivial tyrant with the habits of the martinet, but a great visionary who dreams of making the people happy by sitting in Gatchina for thirty years. Reality, dependence on certain circles and awareness of which country he rules, makes him what he has become.

Vitaly Vyacheslavovich has a special gift to select actors. Talking with the applicant before the film, he after a while clearly understands whether the one is suitable for the image of the movie hero or not. So Victor Sukhorukov got the main role, for which no screen test was required. For this role, the talented actor received the Nick award. Among the historical films of the director are the films "The Tsar's Hunt" (1990) and "Tsarevich Alexey" (1997).

Vitaly Melnikov: filmography, creative failures

The author himself among the unfortunate pictures calls two: "Unicum" (1983) and "Two lines in small print" (1981). This does not mean that he did not invest his talent and work in them. Unfortunately, this is the case when the second won the fight of creativity and censorship. The 1981 film is a collaborative effort with the GDR, which also has a hand in editing the film.

Vitaly Vyacheslavovich believes that for today his filmography is closed, too heavy for the process of respectable age - the shooting of a full-length feature film. But he is fascinated by the work on the scenarios, which means that a lot of interesting things can be expected by film fans. In addition to the aforementioned works of the master, the following films are in the piggy bank of the People's Artist of the RSFSR: "Seven brides of the corporal Zbruev" (1970), "Hello and Farewell" (1972), "Xenia, Fyodor's Favorite Wife" (1974), "Another's wife and husband under the bed "(1984)," To marry the captain "(1985)," The first meeting, the last meeting "(1987)," Chicha "(1991)," The last business of Varyona "(1994)," The moon was full of garden "(2000) ), "Agit Brigade" Beat the enemy! "(2007).