Vadim Abdrashitov is a Russian director whose films shrillly and vividly tell about people, their fates, whimsically composed by Time and broken by him. In the talented works of Abdrashitov, the viewer recognizes himself, his life, and his acquaintances, with its moral, serious problems that take place against the backdrop of complex dramatic processes in the country, where a person becomes a grain of sand in the cycle of a storm sweeping everything in its path.
Vadim Abdrashitov, whose films are laureates of numerous film festivals and have been awarded various prizes, is constantly looking for himself. Tormented by these searches, the author difficultly and boldly talks about the surrounding modernity, making it creative and innovative.
Vadim Abdrashitov: biography
Abdrashitov Vadim Yusupovich was born in Kharkov on January 19, 1945 in the family of a soldier Yusup Shakirovich who fought in the Great Patriotic War on the Belorussian Front and participated in the restoration of the destroyed economy of Western Ukraine. Mom Galina Nikolaevna worked as a chemical engineer.
The son of an officer, Vadim, together with his parents, wandered throughout the country: Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Vladivostok, Leningrad, Barabinsk (where Yusup Shakirovich was appointed military commandant of the railway junction). Staying in Barabinsk negatively affected Vadim's health: the boy was seriously ill, and doctors strongly recommended a change in climate. Out of hopelessness, my father decided to write a letter to the Minister of Defense Malinovsky R. Ya. With a description of the difficult family situation and a request for a transfer to the south. The request to everyone's surprise was satisfied that the Abdrashitov family was perceived as a huge miracle. In 1956, Yusup Shakirovich was transferred to Alma-Ata.
Finding your way
In Alma-Ata school, learning the boy was easy. In the seventh grade, he was very interested in chemistry. Vadim studied the entire school course in this subject in a year. The young man read a lot and was fond of practically everything: from physics and mathematics circles to theater studios. It is with these directions that Vadim will connect his life at a certain time stage.
1961 year. Physics and space, the impetus for the study of which will be the flight of Yuri Gagarin into open space, turning the minds of many Soviet citizens, including Vadim Abdrashitov. The young man passed exams for high school as an external student and moved to the capital, looking for himself in the direction that interests him closely. Having become a student of the famous Fiztekh in Dolgoprudny, Vadim had the good fortune to study with such great scientists as N. N. Semenov, L. B. Kudryavtsev, I. E. Tamm. The younger brother Igor also followed in the footsteps of Vadim and devoted his short life to nuclear physics; at the age of 34, he died from radiation.
The world through the lens glass
The time spent at the PhysTech coincided with the years of the "thaw": Vadim and his friends sang a lot, read. The period of Vysotsky’s voice, songs of Okudzhava and Vizbor, verses of Voznesensky and Yevtushenko, the birth of KVN required the search for his “I” and maximum self-realization. Television is something unknown and alluring, in which Abdrashitov dreamed of showing himself, whom, as if by life itself, were directing him into the world of the film industry. The Komsomolets camera, presented as a cousin in childhood, carried the boy into the world of photography, people, and exploring the outside world through a lens. In the distant years, while still very young, Vadim, together with Igor, his younger brother, sawed figures of fairy-tale characters with a jigsaw, set up the scenery, shot film films on reversible film and showed them in the evenings in the porch, an impromptu movie theater where children from all over the yard ran. Then there was a theater studio at the Alma-Ata Youth Theater, which the future director visited for several years. It was here that Vladimir Tolokonnikov, who played the role of Sharikov in the movie "Dog Heart", and the national artist Alexander Filippenko got their start in a great movie.
What made a professional and successful physicist devote his life to cinema? To this frequently asked question, Vadim Yusupovich always says that he always knew about the future of the film director. After all, everything led to this: a test of the pen, watching numerous films, passion for photography, work in the institute's large circulation. Acquaintance with Rozovsky Mark Grigorievich, meetings with Gerasimov S. A., Khachaturian A. I., Romm M. I. - It seemed that life itself sent Vadim into the world of the film industry. The young man began to diligently prepare for admission to VGIK.
After graduating from Fiztekh, Vadim Abdrashitov (photo from the Soviet period) transferred to the Moscow Art Theater, graduated from it in 1967 and, as a graduate of this institution, worked out his education at a factory for the production of color picture tubes. Abdrashitov finished his career at this enterprise as the head of the workshop.
Studying at VGIK
In 1970, Vadim finally entered VGIK, in the workshop of M.I. Romm - a major artist, a great director, a man who had a huge baggage of encyclopedic knowledge. Romm Mikhail Ilyich did not die when Abdrashitov was in his second year; L.A. Kulidzhanov brought the students to the diploma.
The first film work, highly praised by M. Romm, was “Reporting from the Asphalt” - a six-minute silent documentary study filmed during his first year studies, capturing the whole world with his model of life and system, and noted with many awards from student film festivals.
In his third year, Vadim Abdrashitov, whose filmography includes more than a dozen successful films, shot a term paper on G. Gorin's work “Stop Potapov!”, Which became a sensation for VGIK, the diploma work of a talented student and a ticket to the world of television, namely, Mosfilm , in the studio under the leadership of a leading Russian cinema Y.Ya. Raizman. Abdrashitov had the opportunity to work next to him for about two decades. And over the years, Vadim Yusupovich was able to absorb all the best that was in the work of the teachers with whom he brought life, as well as to develop his own principles for the vision of art and its implementation. After the death of Yu. A. Raizman, Vadim Abdrashitov became the artistic director of the ARK-film studio of the Mosfilm film concern.
Creative union with Alexander Mindadze
In 1975, while searching for a suitable script for his movie, Vadim Abdrashitov met the young and at that time still unknown playwright Alexander Mindadze. This acquaintance has grown into a full understanding and interaction of a long creative union of two people who are close in attitude and soul. For three decades, 11 films were made with Alexander Mindadze, including “Plumbum, or The Dangerous Game”, “Magnetic Storms”, “Servant”, “Armavir”, “A Word for Defense” - the first film work, a judicial drama, which immediately turned out to be under the scrutiny of critics and spectators. The piercing story of two women's destinies, recognizable in the realities of the time, was viewed by 35 million people, and none of them left indifferent. In the film, the creators of which were awarded the Lenin Komsomol Prize, young at that time O. Yankovsky, M. Neyolova, S. Lyubshin shone.
Films Abdrashitova
The heroes of the films of Abdrashitov are ordinary people living in small provincial towns, working in mines, railway depots, factories. All of them subtly feel the rapid passage of time, involving them in their unthinkable, often unpredictable cycle, and the director talks about the very complex life of these ordinary people.
In 1980, the picture "Fox Hunt" was released, expressing a complete distrust of the prevailing ideology and full confidence in the present reality. The film became an event in the national cinema: no one has ever told anyone so truthfully and painfully about the working man as Vadim Abdrashitov.
In the paintings of Abdrashitov, the deep problems of the life of citizens are raised to the surface, boldly raised questions that concern every person, but often hidden deep inside. In the movie “The train stopped”, a catastrophe was honestly and gloomily predicted: not only the train stopped. The depreciation of the infrastructure of the Soviet system and all its components is shown.
High points of observation of people in the frame and what is happening as a whole are shown in the Parade of Planets and Servant, where the social turns into the infernal, which is a sign of decay and end. “Servant” is a picture telling about slavery: spiritual and internal, and the power that creates this slavery. The party boss and his personal chauffeur, suddenly turned into a conductor of a large choir. The material for the film was not an abstract material, but extremely recognizable realities. The duet of the Servant and the Master under the direction of the director became canonical. Actors Yu. Belyaev and O. Borisov were able to expressively vividly show the ambiguous, complex dependence of the deep categories of human existence - slavery and freedom. Vadim Abdrashitov is a director who created a creative and civilly bold picture, which was awarded the USSR State Prize.
The film “Plumbum, or Dangerous Game” tells about the problem of power that came to a person who was not ready for this either mentally or spiritually. The story of a boy with the strange nickname Plumbum, who does not feel pain, who is both 15 and 40 years old, turned into a parable that became known far beyond the borders of the USSR.
Vadim Abdrashitov: family
In family life, the director also took place. A wonderful husband and a caring father are Vadim Abdrashitov. Wife - artist Natella Toidze - representative of the famous creative dynasty, awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts. Natella's grandfather was a student of I. Repin himself.
The son of Vadim Yusupovich - Oleg has proved himself as a professional in the field of information technology and works in America. Daughter Nina followed in the footsteps of her mother and works as a theater artist.