Cinema and literature are art forms inextricably linked with each other. One of them originated in ancient times. The other is at the end of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, literature and cinema have a close connection, not weakening even in the age of computer technology. What is the strength of this alliance?
Literature and Modernity
A man of the 21st century is in a hurry to live. He does not have time for long thoughts. He needs to have time to make a career, get a new specialty, acquire another new technology. In other words, to build life in a modern way.
Read the three-volume work of the classic? For what? Watching a movie adaptation takes no more than two hours. This lesson, unlike reading, will fit into the fast pace of life. However, the work of prominent directors and actors show otherwise. Literature and cinema have not lost touch. A relatively new kind of art is able to revive interest in the one that appeared in antiquity.
Movies Encourage Reading a Book
Filmmakers today turn to the works of classical literature. In recent decades, more than one film adaptation has been created. According to Dostoevsky’s novel, for example, one rather famous director directed a television series. Surprisingly, publishers had to release the novel "Idiot" in huge editions. After watching the series, a modern man, despite the lack of free time, began to read Dostoevsky.
There are many examples of film adaptation that stimulate sales in the book market. But in order to understand what the connection between literature and cinema is, it is worth remembering how it all began. Who and when first used the work of art as material for making the film?
The emergence of cinema
Cinema was created in the 19th century. But the first sound film came out much later, in 1927. Cinema became, as Bulgakov's reflective dog put it, the only consolation for women. But not only for them. Cinema gained mass popularity.
The adaptation of a work of art, connecting such art forms as literature and cinema, has become an indispensable genre. Directors and screenwriters turned to the works of classics. In 1902, a short film based on the work of Zola was shot.
Even before the advent of sound cinema, the directors began to film the famous works of Russian writers. In 1909, Peter Chardynin presented to the audience his interpretation of the poem Dead Souls. However, if we talk about the topic “Russian literature in the cinema”, it’s worth saying a few words about the adaptation of Pushkin’s novels.
Cinema promotion
Until 1917, films were created on almost all the works of the great Russian writer. It is, of course, about prose. Screen versions of the beginning of the twentieth century have little in common with modern ones. Rather, they were some illustrations for famous stories.
In the era of silent cinema, filmmakers turned to Pushkin's texts, which may have been associated with the promotion of a new art form. Cinema needed a name known throughout Russia. Before the revolution, private film companies operated in the country. After the seventeenth year, their activities were discontinued. However, films based on Pushkin's prose continued to be created in difficult times for Russia.
There have been periods of lull in the history of Soviet film adaptations. For example, the era of the Khrushchev thaw refers to only one film created based on the work of Pushkin - “The Captain's Daughter”.
Lev Tolstoy
For the first time, domestic filmmakers tried to translate War and Peace onto screens in 2015. Then foreign directors were inspired by the work of Tolstoy. In one of the adaptations, the role of Natasha Rostova was played by Audrey Hepburn. But what can American filmmakers, even the most gifted ones, know about the mysterious Russian soul? The Hollywood director is unable to convey the spirit of the national features of Leo Tolstoy’s novel. So believed Soviet cultural workers. And so they decided to make a film based on the book of the great writer. And this film adaptation is not equal to many criteria of world cinema.
Guinness World Records
Sergey Bondarchuk was chosen as the director of the picture. Thirty thousand rubles were allocated from the fund (a significant amount at that time). Artists began work on sketches of costumes and scenery. The screenwriter studied literary studies, Tolstoy's correspondence, military and documentary sources. Several months were spent on acting samples. Filming was accompanied by many difficulties. The cast at the beginning of the work has changed more than once.
Russian literature in Russian cinema has a long and interesting history. But never, before or after, filming on a work of art has never been so massive. By the number of film statisticians, the film “War and Peace” has no equal in history.
Fedor Dostoevsky
The first film based on the prose of the writer was shot in 1910. A quarter of a century later, the Petersburg Story was released, which is a mixture of Netochka Nezvanova and White Nights. Then, according to Dostoevsky, paintings were created in France, Japan, Italy. As for the domestic cinema, no prose caused so much controversy and discussion regarding interpretation methods on the screen, as created by the author of the great "five books".
Fiction in the cinema of the Soviet period is primarily a film adaptation of Dostoevsky’s short stories, novels and novels. His heroes are so complex that playing them in an acting environment is considered a great honor. For directors, the film adaptation of "The Idiot" or any other work of Dostoevsky is not just a transfer of the plot to the movie screen. This is an opportunity to convey to the audience a special vision of the idea of ​​a prose writer.
Mystical book
The union of literature and cinema was destroyed more than once when trying to film “Masters and Margarita”.
Bulgakov is the most mysterious Russian writer. Much has been said about the evil rock that haunts the actors who played the heroes of the novel. Filming on Bulgakov’s book, as a rule, was interrupted. Only two directors managed to complete what they started.
Perhaps the whole thing lies in the mysticism surrounding the writer. Or maybe there are areas of human consciousness in which literature and cinema do not intersect? Bulgakov’s work today does not have a film adaptation that would correspond to the original. Not a single director was able to recreate the atmosphere of Moscow society, the emptiness of the Master, the suffering of Margarita, the antics of Koroviev and the Hippo so that the impressions of the film were comparable in strength with the feelings that the reader experiences. But to say that Bulgakov’s prose is not subject to film adaptation is impossible.
"A human heart, not a canine ..."
In 1987, in one of the literary magazines, the novel “The Heart of a Dog” was published. And a year later, Vladimir Bortko began shooting a film based on Bulgakov’s work. The result of the work of the director, outstanding actors and the famous composer was the best film adaptation of this writer’s prose in the history of cinema.
The director did not transfer the plot to tape. He created a system of images based on Bulgakov's prose. Sharikov would not have become such an interesting and colorful movie character if the scriptwriter and director used only the original text to create his character.
Scenes were added. The director involved Julia Kim in creating the film. The poet wrote lyrics for songs performed by the participants of the meeting, so unloved by Preobrazhensky. Kim is also the author of obscene ditties, which, in combination with Sharikov's dances, brought the professor into a swoon. "Is he still dancing?" The professor asks in a weak voice. There is no comic remark in Bulgakov's novel. The screenwriter put into these words the awareness, bitterness that the luminaries of world science are experiencing when they see the result of their own experiment.
Who is Sharikov? This is not a man with a dog’s heart, as Dr. Bormental said. Sharikov - a scoundrel with a human heart. And this, according to Preobrazhensky, is the reason for the terrible consequences of the operation.
Sharikov creates his new world on hatred of the old. He is uneducated, stubborn and categorical. He expresses an opinion on the necessary economic reform very briefly, succinctly: “Take and divide”. In the film, the Bulgakov character would not be so bright if not for the talented acting, additional, seemingly insignificant scenes. The director conveyed the spirit of the time, the so-called devastation, the atmosphere of catastrophic. The tragedy of the post-revolutionary era is also conveyed by music that creates the background in the picture.
Sholokhov
A talented writer has a small, insignificant character rises to the level of a full-fledged hero. In the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" there are only such actors. Sholokhov was a representative of a realistic trend in literature. But he did not "photograph" what he saw. The way the writer transferred experience and impressions to paper can be compared with the skill of the painter. And the more talented the author, the more difficult it is for the director to translate his ideas on the screen.
Sergei Gerasimov managed to create a decent adaptation of the novel Sholokhov. Subsequently, the attempts of other directors to shoot a film on The Pacific Don caused fair anger of film critics and the disappointment of the audience. Cinema is associated with literature. But only if the skill of the director is not inferior to the writer's gift of the author of the book, for the adaptation of which he undertakes.
Vasily Shukshin
The prose of this author was easy and close to the simple reader. Shukshin was not only a writer, but also a screenwriter, director, actor. And therefore, he knew better than other filmmakers about how strong the connection was between concepts such as literature and cinema.
It is difficult for modern children to understand why to read a book if there is a film. Such representations of literature will lead to the fact that soon the book will become a rarity. An impractical and useless souvenir thing. Shukshin believed that no film adaptation can replace the reading of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol. The means of cinema and literature, in his opinion, are not equal. Cinema is an art. But only the reading person is capable of evaluating the skill of the director.
Domestic literature in cinema is a topic to which a lot of research is devoted. These areas are interconnected. But literature can exist without a film adaptation. Cinema without classical prose would be a primitive form of entertainment. Even films based on original plots receive positive criticism only if they are created according to the laws of classical prose.