Mysterious, charming, talented - this is how the actor Smoktunovsky remembered the audience. The filmography of Innokenty Mikhailovich includes over 110 film projects and series. All the roles played by this gifted person differed from each other, he was equally successful in the images of criminals, leaders, geniuses, intellectuals. The artist left this world in 1994, however, numerous fans continue to watch and revise the paintings with his participation.
Innokenty Smoktunovsky: first roles
Many actors begin their journey to fame with playing in the theater. It turned out that Smoktunovsky was among them. The filmography of Innocent was replenished with the first picture in 1956, when he had already managed to cross the threshold of the 30th anniversary. He got a role in the drama “Murder on Dante Street” thanks to Elena Kuzmina, who was struck by his play in the production of “How He Lied to Her Husband”. She advised her husband Mikhail Romm to take a talented actor into her new film project.
Innocent Smoktunovsky was supposed to appear in the frame for only a few seconds. His character is a young doctor, forced to help the Germans. According to the plot, he enters a tavern with information about Charles's upcoming visit to his mother Madeleine Thibault. It is interesting that Innocent could not cope with this simple at first glance task. Due to his tightness and reservations, the director was forced to take a double after a double. However, Romm did not refuse the “mediocre” performer, on the contrary, he helped him cope with the excitement by discerning talent in the debutant.
“Soldiers” is the second picture in which Smoktunovsky played. The filmography of the actor was replenished with this tape also in 1956. The role of Lieutenant Farber Innokenty coped much better. The actor, who managed to attract the attention of viewers to a secondary character, making him lively and charming, was first noticed by directors and critics.
"Nine days of one year"
"Nine days of one year" - a tape, thanks to which Innokenty Smoktunovsky gained his first fans. The director of the film, which saw the light in 1962, was Mikhail Romm. Initially, the creators of the picture planned to call it "365 days", but later settled on another option.
The central characters of the film are two nuclear physicists whose roles were originally intended for Batalov and Yakovlev. When Yakovlev suddenly landed in the hospital, having become a victim of an accident, the director and screenwriter had to urgently seek an adequate replacement. They decided that the creation of the image of Ilya would be perfectly handled by Innokenty Smoktunovsky.
The actor, when the plot of the film was retold in a few words, began to refuse to participate, as the story did not impress him. Innocent was forced to change his mind about the script, he was impressed by the character of his character, the events that happen to him. Of course, Smoktunovsky played Ilya magnificently, presenting his hero as an intellectual who does not know the art of pretense.
"Hamlet"
Hamlet is a drama in which Innocent Smoktunovsky almost accidentally got the lead role. The director of the picture, Grigory Kozintsev, was impressed by the actor playing in one of the films, and decided that he would make the perfect Danish prince. Interestingly, Hamlet didn’t even have to pass the screenings, it was approved for the role, barely reaching agreement.
Kozintsev’s choice impressed many members of the crew who wondered why the director entrusted the image of the central character to an actor with an “inappropriate” appearance. However, the success of the drama "Hamlet", presented to the audience in 1964, exceeded all expectations, and Smoktunovsky was awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize.
The Danish prince performed by Innocent turned out to be a traditional Shakespearean hero. His Hamlet showed an aversion to falsehood, a willingness to fight for justice to the last, a desire for truth and good.
In the role of leader
“On One Planet” is a film in which Smoktunovsky also won the role. The filmography of the star of Soviet cinema was replenished with this picture in 1965, in which he played the leader of the world proletariat. When the actor was offered to embody the image of Vladimir Ilyich, he tried to politely refuse. However, Innokenty still had to play Lenin, he gave his consent under pressure from representatives of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee, who openly threatened him.
Strange as it may seem, the image of Vladimir Ilyich by a talented actor did not work out. “On One Planet” is one of the few mediocre films featuring Smoktunovsky. The audience and critics did not pay much attention to the film, which greatly pleased the leading actor, who did not want the image of the leader to “stick” to him.
In the role of a thief
Did Innocent Smoktunovsky, who played Lenin, have the right to almost immediately agree to the role of a criminal? High cinematic authorities were convinced that no. However, Eldar Ryazanov, who dreamed of entrusting the role of the charming rogue Detochkin to this particular actor, managed to insist on his own. Thanks to the director, Smoktunovsky was invited to the film “Watch Out for the Car”.
“Watch out for the car” is one of the most famous paintings in which Innokenty Smoktunovsky played. The filmography of the star of domestic cinema was enriched by this tape in 1966. It was then that a talented person who previously played mostly in dramas managed to demonstrate the skill of a comedian. His hijacker Yuri Detochkin for many years fell in love with the audience, despite the fact that he was a criminal, albeit a "noble one." Interestingly, it was Ryazanov who pressed Detochkin on the “nobility”, convincing his superiors to let him assign the role to yesterday’s “Lenin”.
Late 60s
Of course, Yuri Detochkin is far from the only role that Smoktunovsky Innokenty Mikhailovich can deserve to be proud of. For example, the audience was delighted with the image of the great composer devoted to art, which he embodied in the film "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky", shot by Igor Talankin. The film was released in 1969, providing the lead actor with the opportunity to solemnly return. The fact is that several years before this Smoktunovsky practically did not act in film, forced to be treated for a serious illness.
Smoktunovsky Innokenty Mikhailovich coped brilliantly with the role of investigator Porfiry Petrovich. He played the man trying to prove Raskolnikov's guilt and put him in the murder of an old woman in the film Crime and Punishment directed by Lev Kulidzhanov. Thanks to this role, the artist again became an actor of the year according to the “Soviet Screen”.
Episode Shooting
Curiously, in the 70s Innokenty Smoktunovsky starred mainly in episodes. However, even the episodic roles played by the ingenious actor were greeted with enthusiasm by the audience and critics. Playing passing characters, Smoktunovsky often managed to overshadow the people who performed the roles of the main characters.
Of course, he had in this period and the main roles. For example, he played the central character in the film "Uncle Vanya", the plot of which was borrowed from one of Chekhov's most famous plays. Director Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky managed to convince the star of Russian cinema to embody the image of Voynitsky, with which Innocent successfully coped.
80-90s
“Heart is not a stone”, “Late Love” - the most famous films of those in which Innokenty Smoktunovsky starred in the 80s. The filmography of the actor during this period was also replenished with such films as “Original Russia”, “Black Eyes”, “Queen of Spades”, “Mysterious Heir”. In the early 90s, Leonid Pchelkin offered him the role of Pyotr Murovsky in his television project “The Case of Sukhovo-Kobylin”.
In the 90s there was little work even for the most talented actors, including Smoktunovsky Innokenty Mikhailovich. The filmography of the genius was increasingly replenished with paintings that he absolutely did not like. However, the artist was forced again and again to agree to the proposals of the directors, since he needed to support his family.
What else to see
Of course, not all the prominent roles Smoktunovsky played in his life are listed above. The full filmography of the star contains over 110 paintings, many of them I want to review again and again. For example, the actor, at a young age, perfectly succeeded in portraying the courageous geologist Sabinin, which he created in the drama Unsent Letter. He is unusually good and in the role of Mozart, noticing nothing but art, the famous musician Innocent played in Mozart and Salieri. When the actor himself was asked to name the best films with his participation, he mentioned such tapes as “Uncle Vanya”, “Daughter-mothers”, “Living Corpse”.
This is how the most famous films in which the ingenious Smoktunovsky played, the filmography, the photos of which are still of interest to fans, look like this.