A stuntman in Russia is a player in Russian roulette: recklessness, talent and Russian avos. Incomprehensible status of the film “Truck”: what is it – a historical drama of the Soviet era or an action movie, completely sculpted by the imagination of the screenwriters?
Despite the claims of the series to reality, unfortunately, all the characters (San-Sanych Bogatyrev, Oleg Fomin, Seva, Marina) are completely fictional, their features are not even traced in the historical personages of the era of the 70s - 80s, except for one hero: Sergey Zaborsky (Anton Khabarov), the prototype of which is Eugene Urbansky.
He died on November 5, 1965 on the set of the film “Director” directed by Alexei Saltykov.
The set was forty kilometers from Bukhara. On that fateful day, they filmed the passage of truck convoys on the sands of the Kara-Kum desert, which was performed by a group of 19 racing drivers under the leadership of the USSR master of sports Efim Blind and the organizer of tricks, the USSR master of sports in fencing Vladimir Balon. According to the scenario, an open-top passenger car was supposed to rush straight through the dunes, overtake the column and lead it. The most difficult shot in this scene is a car jump from one of the hills. There was nothing dangerous in this, but Urbansky was offered to shoot his understudy, athlete Yuri Kamentsev. Evgeny went to the camera, looked into the eye and said that it would be a great close-up, and he would not give up for anything. When performing the trick, the car turned over. Racing driver Yuri Markov, sitting behind the wheel, managed to group up, which saved him, Urbansky did not survive his injuries. The investigation of Mosfilm on the accident at the production did not find the guilty. The investigation of the theft from Yevgeny Urbansky his fee of 800 rubles for all the shooting the day before from his hotel room was not carried out at all. The police didn't report the case. After this incident, Goskino introduced the strictest order - actors in the stunts not to participate. The tragedy in the Karakum desert opened the way to the cinema of the profession of stuntman.
From the memoirs of Larisa Luzhina about Urbansky: A tall man with broad shoulders, a huge head and a beautiful face - with large lips, teeth, eyes. How strong! And he was very honest, frank, kind, open. Such big and kind men at heart remain children, they are very easy to hurt. Zhenya could knock out of balance any injustice, even if she did not personally touch him.
Reminds me of anyone? Of course, San San Sanycha. Not for nothing even his name is Bogatyrev. The personality of the talented folk actor in the script is reduced to a cameo role, and his bright character traits are “transferred” to an unknown stuntman who remains in the shadow of history.
Not found in the annals of Soviet history and the case of a burning car flying over a divorced bridge. Who was that?
Who among the real people could be the prototype of Bogatyrev?
Yuri Markov? Yuri Kamentsev? Efim Blind? Their names are not on the stunt lists after this tragedy.
Vladimir Balon? Judging by his recollections: "In the autumn of 1965, he and I (Urbansky) began to star in Alexei Saltykov's film "Director". Lived in Bukhara. I was supposed to play a French racer participating in the Moscow-Karakum-Moscow rally. Half a day was filmed, at night under the bottle cut in preference — it can rather be identified with the role of Seva.
And who was the prototype of the “best stunt director” on Mosfilm Oleg Fomin?
In the late 60s on Mosfilm consultant on stunt shooting was a retired police colonel Arkady Mikhailovich Blinkov. On Lenfilm - Sambo coach Alexander Massarsky.
Nikolai Vashchilin, from 1964 to 1996 stuntman and stunt director of Lenfilm film studio, member of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, master of sports in sambo, in his book "We died at the will of directors." Revelations of the stuntman" gives a sharp criticism of Massarsky: "He had a bad idea of injury when performing stunts, as he did not perform them, and the health of others little care. He was not responsible for anything. It was strange that he spared neither himself nor others, performing dangerous and not spectacular actions.
In turn, in his book “Behind the scene and in the frame”, Massarsky talks in detail about working in the cinema, where each shooting under his leadership is an accident with burns, fractures and strangulation of stuntmen. This is despite the fact that at each studio and in the USSR State Film Agency there were departments for safety, obliged to prevent such “organizers” as Massarsky from filming.
In 1971, Nikolai Vashchilin, a master of sports in sambo, a stuntman with seven years of experience in film, opened a stunt studio at the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography. The training was conducted on the principle of training pentathletes and included classes in cross-country running, jumping, swimming, shooting, acrobatics, judo, karate, boxing, fencing, horseback riding and volty fat, working with fire, working with vehicles, altitude falls. For students, this program of four-year and two-time weekly training allowed to develop physical qualities and especially agility and ability to improvise. So was organized the profession of stuntman in the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s.
Nikolai Vashchilin was invited for an internship at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris. But in 1980 Andron Konchalovsky, a close friend of Vashchilin, remains in America, and the shadow of this event, as well as the conflict with Alexander Massarsky and others, put an end to a trip to France and forced him to stop working at LGITMIK, since such a course has not existed.
So maybe Nikolai Vashchilin was the prototype of Oleg Fomin?
The profession of stuntman never found its legal status in the country of developed socialism and great cinema. A new era began in 1992 with the organization of the Association of Stuntmen of Russia under the presidential leadership of Alexander Inshakov, a friend of Vyacheslav Ivankov (Japanchik), Nikita Mikhalkov, Otar Kvantrishvili and other authoritative people of New Russia. But in the last 4 episodes, which narrate this period of Russia, these events also did not find reflection.
This is not a review, but a small historical investigation, not crowned with success.
So the script is not a historical drama, but a pseudo-historical one? Sorry. A film about the actor Eugene Urbansky would be more lifelike.
Art - shooting trick,
That stunt, fatal,
where the full gas is squeezed.
From us - poets and actors -
It is like Moloch, waiting for repetitions.
Everything is better every time!
And it's more deadly every time!
So you fell in the desert, Zhenka.
As a winner, not a victim.
And the same way far-out
Hands drawn to perfection -
to unattainable bliss,
With your fingers on the sand...
(Evgeny Yevtushenko)
5 out of 10