Original subtitles

MOSFILM

LARISSA

The film director Larissa Shepitko

died at the 187th kilometer of the Leningradsky Highway

in a car accident.

She died together with her colleagues:

the cinematographer Volodya Chukhnov,

the production designer Yura Fomenko

and three more members of the filming crew.

They just began shooting a film

based on Valentin Rasputin's book, "Farewell to Matyora".

Larissa had been dreaming of this work,

as though preparing herself for it all her life.

And that film was going to become the climax

of her creative career.

Larissa Yefimovna had chosen me to play the part of Darya

in her last film, "Matyora".

To me, meeting her was like a miracle.

And I'm certainly happy

to have been so close to that miracle.

Camera!

Darya, what's the matter?

What will happen to us? What?

Where am I going from you? Why?

I pity Yegor so much.

Rolling. Panorama.

Stop! Action!

Stop!

Guilt without guilt is guilt, too.

That's why it's hard for me to speak about Larissa.

Work on my novella "Farewell to Matyora"

proved, as you know, for Larissa and her friends to be their last work.

I remember the first time Larissa called me

during one of my visits to Moscow,

and tentatively told me that she would like to film "Matyora".

I went to meet her, having two goals in mind.

First, to have a look at the film director Larissa Shepitko,

who had just amazed me with her film "Ascent".

And, second, to try not to give "Matyora" to be filmed.

I wanted to keep my novella

in its generic genre of prose.

But Larissa managed to convince me pretty soon.

She began telling me how she saw her future film.

She spoke so enthusiastically, she seemed so interested

that I forgot about not wanting to give "Matyora" away.

It was her ardor, enthusiasm and selflessness,

even at the starting stage of work on the film,

that amazed me then.

I was persuaded by our spiritual affinity,

which I had never doubted since.

I was persuaded by her creative, not formal,

artistic reading of the book.

That's how we reached our agreement.

And then the work on the film began.

That's how the spirit of the flooded Matyora had been raised,

if we use the language of mysticism,

the spirit of Matyora, which, not understanding

why, for what purpose it had been disturbed,

then took from us a too great

and irreplaceable sacrifice.

Mitya, are you all right?

Mitya!

Mitya!

"Wings" is a film about people scorched by the war,

about the never-to-be-healed wounds of memory,

about the insufferableness of wingless existence.

I want to make a declaration of love.

Love is the only thing that never dies.

As there is no death.

Perhaps for the first time in my life I realized that...

that if a person is talented, that person is immortal.

And to my last day I'll be proud of the fact

that I acted in Larissa Shepitko's films.

Remember how it was in "The Great Waltz"?

I'm giving you my word

that there's nothing, there's no frame in my film,

not a single one, that doesn't come from me as a woman.

I've never engaged in copycatting,

never tried to imitate men,

because I know very well that all the efforts of my girlfriends,

both older and younger than me, to imitate men's cinema

were just nonsensical, because all this is secondary.

But I make a distinction between ladies, and men's cinema.

There's no women's and men's cinema.

There's ladies, cinema and there's men's cinema.

Men, too, can do perfectly well

the ladies, sentimental needlework.

But a woman, as one half of the humankind origin,

can tell the world, reveal to the world

some amazing things.

No man can so intuitively discern

some phenomena in human psyche, in nature

as a woman can.

After "Wings" Larissa made

"You and I" to a script by Gennady Shpalikov.

Katya!

In that film

Larissa came close to the central theme of her creative work,

the theme of merciless judgment of yourself,

the high responsibility each of us has

for everything we've done in life.

I was 16 when we held a family counsel.

I was finishing school.

It turned out that Larissa could write a little,

compose poems, draw and sing.

Could do a bit of everything.

And none of those abilities was so definite

for me to have the nerve to apply

to an art school or a literature institute.

And a friend of ours said that there's a profession

in which all those little bits might be very useful.

What's this profession? Film directing.

I was a typical embryo.

It seems that Dovzhenko, our master, decided

to trace by me the evolution of mankind.

Unfortunately, my universities

under his guidance were very short-lived.

He died 18 months later.

In his person, we came across the greatest humanist.

I guess such people lived in the age of Renaissance.

But most important, he was

an absolutely uncompromising person.

You know, to have lived all his 60 years

in accord with his conscience, not to waive in anything,

never to go against any of his moral postulates,

always to tell people the truth straight to the face,

it was extremely difficult.

It goes without saying that there was no place for any falsity,

compromise, mercenariness or hackwork.

I don't know how I could look him in the eye now.

When I myself became an independent person,

I came to know how difficult it is to follow his behests in life.

To declare them is one thing. But how can one live so each day?

Every day, every second prompts us

to a practical necessity to make a compromise,

to maneuver, keep silent sometimes, make a concession,

in the hope of making up for it later.

It seems to be what's called life flexibility.

It demands, it forces us.

It's not only us who do it, actually.

But it turns out that if we think

we can be cunning just for 5 seconds but make up for it later,

in art, it brings punishment,

a most cruel and irreversible punishment.

You can't make a film today just for money.

Well, I'll make this passing movie,

I'll give in here, I'll say what they want there,

I'll try to please them here and avoid saying it there,

here I'll tell only a half-truth, there I'll hush it up altogether,

but in my next film I'll make up for it,

I'll tell everything I want,

in full measure, as a creative person should,

as an artist, as a citizen, I'll tell it all.

It's a lie. It's impossible.

It's hopeless to deceive yourself by this illusion.

If you stumbled once,

you'll never get back on the path of truth,

you'll forget the way there.

You can't step twice into the same river.

Larissa was born just before the war

and, with her family, had gone through all the hardships of the time -

air raids, hunger,

work unfit for a child.

Those impressions can never be forgotten, they're burning you

and remain with you forever.

I think it was then that an invisible bud sprouted,

the bud of the future work that came many years later,

the ultimate achievement of the director Larissa Shepitko,

her film "Ascent".

If your life had been enriched with care for another person,

then you have already justified your existence.

This is evidence of the spiritual life of a person.

These riches belong not to you personally, but to the public,

if you live by the life of other people.

There're things that are sacred to all of us.

There're well-defined notions of good and evil,

of our morals.

There're such everlasting qualities

as love for your homeland.

What is this?

What are we born into this world for?

What will we contribute to this world? How can we make life better?

In the final analysis, my possibilities as a person.

Your possibilities.

You're watching the very last shot made by Larissa.

An eternal tree,

the symbol of indestructibility and dignity,

the symbol of faith in the endless continuation

of what we call "life".

Working on the film:

E. Klimov Yu. Skhirtladze

A. Rodionov V. Petrov

A. Schnittke E. Klass

B. Vengerovsky et al.

Commenting on Larissa Shepitko:

film director E. Klimov

author V. Rasputin