Acquaintance with Chekhov for Fere began with the theater: fifteen-year-old he played in amateur productions of Chekhov’s vaudevilles “The Bear” and “The Proposal”. The film, like all others (Histoire de Paul, Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart, Le prochain film), according to film critics, is primarily associated with the biography of the director himself, and lastly with the hero of the film. Personal interest, what "hooked" the director and writer of the script in the biography of the writer, is very well seen in the plot canvas of the picture: the death of Chekhov's brother Nikolai - the early death of his older brother Fere, also René, who died at 4 years old, as well as the death of his father, after which Rene spent many weeks in a psychiatric hospital, deciding then to abandon the acting path and become a film director.
The work of the whole family in the name of Anton (which is not true) is correlated with the established film production of the Feret family (wife - producer and director of the editing, daughter - actress). And even Chekhov’s early death connects Fera with his own reflections on the inevitable.
The chronological framework of the presented action is very blurred. This is not only the most dramatic in Chekhov’s biography in 1890, when he went to the island of Sakhalin to study the life of convicts, but 12 years: from 1884 to 1896. Almost everything presented on the screen is only a distorted reflection of the facts of the biography of A. P. Chekhov, and sometimes even a fiction.
There is a remarkable episode in the film: Nikolai Chekhov shows his brother his portrait, which depicts a short-haired young man. The pictured in the portrait has little in common with Nicolas Giraud (the performer of the role of Chekhov), even less similar to the one depicted on the canvas to Chekhov. In fact, Fere’s film is such a strange portrait: not Chekhov, not himself, but someone else.
A significant place in the film is given to Chekhov’s medical classes, but his medical practice is some kind of “crown” element in the plot, a case that prevents him from earning pennies. The only connection between medicine and creativity in the film is supposedly a real conversation with a boy-patient about the dangers of smoking, which became the basis of the story “Home” (1886).
This principle of “life-writing” unfortunately runs through the film. According to Fere, he was struck by the amazing ease with which Chekhov wrote. However, this ease is imaginary. And even if a purely physical story could be recorded in a few hours, who knows how long the preliminary work took, when all its elements were formed from the mass of what was seen, heard and felt?
The fact is that in the second half of the 1880s, realizing that “everything around the plot”, Chekhov does not write off life, but depicts it. Repeatedly, the principles of artistic creativity he will expound in letters to his brother Alexander: "...who is interested in knowing my and your life, my and your thoughts?" Give men, not yourself (P. 3:210).
The scenes covering the trip to Sakhalin, which were supposed to be the culmination, did not become such. And it is not even scary that the Sakhalin scenes were filmed in Norway, but that the impulse to the trip becomes the allegedly unrealized dream of Nicholas about such a trip. Not a word, not a frame about the hardest way to the "convict island" - three or four scenes with prisoners. That's it.
There is a wonderful fictional episode in this film. He is probably the most reliable in terms of acting. We are talking about the meeting of Chekhov with the teacher Anna (her role is played by the daughter Fere – Marie). This is an episodic, but quite finished acting work.
The film is a curious fixation of modern knowledge, or rather, ignorance of the real facts of Chekhov’s biography, peculiar not only to Russians, but also to Europeans. And the Russian life of the late XIX century is not familiar to the director.
We can only hope that Russian directors will be able to see in the true events of Chekhov’s biography the drama and show us not the powdery history of his own family, but the complex and contradictory character of Chekhov, his entourage and creative process in order to debunk the stereotypes that have developed over the centuries.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. This name is familiar not only in our country, it is loved by readers around the world, and theaters in different parts of the world continue to stage his plays. One should expect that sooner or later someone will decide to transfer the biography of the great playwright to the screen. In 2015, the French did it.
Honestly, I didn’t expect anything great, I didn’t have huge expectations. But still, I was hoping to see spot hits. Let there be errors, but at least something will remain of Anton Pavlovich. It is clear that these are French, but since we have not done a biography of the famous Russian playwright, we can hope that the essence of his work and life will be transferred. No wonder they love him all over the world.
Unfortunately, even my modest expectations were shattered by reality. Alas, the film is like a set of clips that change very quickly, and do not understand what is what. If a person has not studied a biography, then most of the persons he does not recognize at all. I think it was worth taking a shorter passage of time from the life of the writer to avoid such a ragged canvas on the screen. In addition, not all facts are described correctly by chronology.
Actors. This is a total failure. Yes, we all know the famous portrait of Chekhov in pinsne, but look at the photos of the young author - he is tall, stately, beautiful. Here is a tentacle boy, there is no charm, and, alas, no humor. He was not always kind, but he was always kind.
From Lika Mizinova made a lady of easy behavior, but she was primarily easy soul. She was never married during her friendship with Chekhov. And yes, besides being lovers, they were primarily friends. In the film, Lika repeats only one phrase: ' I want you'.
In a special ' delight ' I'm from Tolstoy. It's just some gypsy baron. If it were not for the text, you would never have realized that it was Lev Nikolayevich.
In general, I am not a supporter of the theory ' only Russians can make about Russian' but here in fact everything is alien, do not believe that these are faces of the Russian intelligentsia of the XIX century. Do not believe their words, because it is not how they communicated, it is worth reading their letters and comparing them with the film. And the essence of Chekhov is not. Just a drop of Chekhov in French wine.
For music, costumes and popularization of the name of Chekhov in the world I put 3.
3 out of 10
A friend of mine, a film lover, hates Soviet dubbing of foreign films. According to him, Western aristocrats acquire a “kolkhoz” accent. My mom doesn't like watching "our actors play foreign lives." She never liked domestic adaptations of Agatha Christie's books, adaptations of French novels. Many people don’t like our classics.
Probably, the spirit of the country can be fully conveyed only by its resident, and here everything is relative. No matter how hard Soviet and modern Russian actors try to play nobles, for the lack of samples before their eyes, such a game loses all credibility, and sometimes even credibility.
French director Rene Fere conceived to make a film about one of the most "Russian" of our classics, "Pushkin in prose", - A. P. Chekhov. The task itself is extremely difficult even for a director living in a kindred mentality, for a foreigner it becomes almost impossible. Perhaps that is why the director deliberately does not even try to be similar and authentic. The film "Anton Chekhov 1890" (in Russian translation - "Anton Chekhov") is rather a bad caricature of Russian life of the late 19th century. Paphosque conversations about the genius of Chekhov, exaggerated images of famous personalities (Chekhov himself, Tolstoy, Levitan, etc.), vodka and empty arguments about the meaning of life are examples of the hanging cranberries of this film. Particularly amusing are the moments in which the author “forgets” and under the makeup of “Russianness” in the picture the French way of life manifests itself: “I have just left the masquerade from the castle !”, “for lunch we have Cornishons” (this is on Sakhalin).
Simply put, the domestic audience, so reverently protecting the features of the Russian world, its classics, ideals and gods, will remain extremely dissatisfied with this film.
Honestly, I tried to look at all these inevitable directorial blunders through my fingers, trying to see some idea of the director. But neither the depth of the idea, nor the thoughtfulness of the plot - nothing for which it would be possible to forgive all this "cranberry" I did not see. Anton Chekhov 1890 is just a set of strokes about the life of the real Chekhov, it is an illustrated list of people who met him; it is a film without a brilliant idea, without a talented acting.
Anton Chekhov 1890 is a French film for the French, the aim of which was most likely to acquaint the residents of the fifth republic with the biography of the playwright, whose plays they sometimes see in their theaters.
4 out of 10
Outside Russia, the world, reading many Russian writers, most distinguishes three: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov.
And in France, the director René Fehr directed a film about Anton Chekhov. It is difficult to pick up an actor for the role of Anton Chekhov: it is necessary that he resembles a writer externally. But perhaps even more difficult to convey the inner world of the writer, the creator. How much did you get in the picture?
The time of the film specifically: 1890. Chekov is thirty years old. But still the film with thin threads, lace covers the entire life of the writer.
At the beginning of the film in front of the audience is a writer who recently signed his humorous stories as “Antosha Chehonte”. At that time he had a bright, warm, optimistic attitude, perception of life. However, this will not always be the case.
The author says that a young man fell ill with a serious illness that had a decisive impact on his life. You can understand that here Chekhov talks about himself, his serious illness.
Love theme. The complex, difficult feeling of love of Chekhov himself is shown, when on the one hand it was difficult for the writer to reveal this feeling for himself, which externally looked like there was no great love in Chekhov’s life. But the duality, the contradiction of Chekhov’s nature was that behind the external dryness, irony in him was the ability for a much more subtle, vulnerable feeling, which was reflected in his work: “On Love”, “Lady with a Dog”. In the film about the contradiction of the duality of love Chekhov is mentioned in conversation.
The subject of friendship. The film about Chekhov shows Isaac Levitan - the greatest landscape painter, with very calm harmonious, static canvases. One of them is "Autumn Day." Falconers are also shown in the film. And even the appearance in the film of the artist Levitan only for a while gives him spirituality, harmony, peace - those feelings that come from his beautiful paintings.
Sakhalin Island. The film also shows Chekhov’s visit to Sakhalin Island, which was at that time a place of exile. There were prisoners. The film shows how the writer talks to prisoners about their fate, a hard part. And work on the island.
And as it was in fact, the film shows that after returning from a trip to the island, Chekhov changed: the works became the most gloomy, pessimistic. And the mention in the film of one of these works “Gusev” only confirms this.
Chekhov in the film is also shown at work: his medical practice.
The film also reveals Chekhov’s inner personal drama: his complex relationship with his father. In the film, the writer himself says that he still had many brothers: four and a sister. And Chekhov's father, being a merchant who kept a grocery store in Taganrog. But by nature he was a cruel man who suppressed the personality of Chekhov. And this internal confrontation with the despotic father, the harshness of life, in which he from an early age was forced to earn a living, formed his moral principle: “I squeezed a slave all my life.” So I did not break under all the hardships of life, I was a strong spirit, morally and morally. And at the same time he saw this weakness in other people, ridiculing it in his stories: “The Death of an Official”, “Chameleon”, “Fat and Thin”.
And at the same time in this film Chekhov, played by Nicholas Giraud, appears as a soft, kind, humane, intelligent person.
The film also shows the nature of Russia. As if through the years, the viewer is transported there, imbued with that spirituality of Russia of the late nineteenth century, hidden both in the central part of Russia and on the island of Sakhalin, in the harsh conditions of hard labor, pain, agony, but also redemption. And most importantly, the viewer is imbued with the spirituality of Anton Chekhov himself.
Today there are not so many films, as someone might be and would like, where the main characters would be a writer, an artist. As well as scientist, composer, philosopher.
Films, where the main characters would be Isaac Levitan, Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Bunin. The list goes on. Something's missing. Perhaps there is a lack of spirituality, the reflection and symbol of which are these names.
And in this film, an attempt is made to get in touch with this spirituality, culture, intelligence, the symbol of which is Anton Chekhov and his works. And this attempt is great because it's all communicated.
The people who knew Chekhov said enough. Of course, what kind of man he was, his friends knew. He was an interesting, original person. I think that I dressed without any special delights – just, was not pretentious, tried not to complicate life. A calm and balanced person, not a rag. A good manager with a sense of humor, who loved to communicate. A little bit of an inventor. He believed in the goodness and decency of people and possessed these qualities in abundance. And his heart was burning, fraught with more than simple connections with women. My mind was fresh. He had interesting views on relationships and for his time very advanced. Life may not be easy, but one of the creative people, it is easier.
It’s not even about where the film was shot. There is a lot of time devoted to the entourage, but the main thing is missed and this gap cannot be hidden. The essence is a grain, it is not only a picture, not that, but characters and a competent script. Chekhov’s role should be focused, but it should absorb bits of different qualities. And these qualities must be carefully strung in order to merge the narrative with the hero. I think many will agree with this, who not only read Chekhov himself, but also read about him in abundance.
Maybe it’s a movie for fun, but it’s not. To make the film turned out to be an impossible task, almost physically painful. Protracted and boring, unsuccessful. Actors play other people's characters, I did not recognize anyone from the writer's environment.
And where without vodka? Be sure to drink in the frame, still sick, write and laugh at the fact that not at all funny. In addition, the bed scene flashes.
The monotony and spinelessness of the characters are tiresome – they are not that they are not Russian, they are not at all. There is just the moment when reading is much more interesting.
"It's boring in our God-saved city!" A. Chekhov "Three Years"
Many people in this world dream of the perfect person. A homeless dog must see him with pockets full of bones, but without a stick. A crocodile dreams of well-fed, with a stick. The ideal that the filmmakers brought to the screen has no stick or bones. Ba! It turns out his name is Anton Palich!
A few years (1886-1891) from the life of Chekhov. From the first wide recognition to returning from a trip to Sakhalin. The film is chewed like a Christmas card. An actor with the face and habits of a beaten spaniel exudes humanism for an hour and a half. In all its forms.
Whatever critics like me write, the movie will be watched. Because he's a niche. Shot for the sect "Antonovka" - so in Yalta called Chekhov's fan club at the time when Palych irrigated the surrounding areas with bacilli. Nisha will stare at the screen idol, while he feels that there is a piety in the film. And he's there.
However, it seems to me that this is a pale. It is too comical to combine with carelessness in detail. After all, it is difficult to tune in to a lean-pious manner, if you see the royal overseer in a Soviet overcoat with loops and epaulettes of a pilot-cadet. He has an air force cockade cap on his head. After all, it will be another 13 years before the Wright brothers’ plane comes off the ground.
It was not the newspaper magnate Suvorin who came to Chekhov in Moscow from St. Petersburg - there would be a lot of honor, and Chekhov was brought to Suvorin and presented by the publisher Leikin. The venerable Grigorovich did not appear uninvited, but wrote an inspired letter.
Young Lida Mizinova could not, having first appeared in the house of Chekhov, playfully introduce herself as Lyka, because that was how she began to be called by the Chekhovs, obviously with the filing of A. P., who changed the names of many women in his own way: Natasheva, Sashenkeh, etc. And so on.
All this olive could be looked at condescendingly, if the character resembled Palich a little more than a sickle-hammer star on the uniform of the royal convoy - a two-headed eagle.
But no! Chekhov's nanny is meek, like St. Francis, and presen, like an ulcer's diet. Wait a minute! Who do you mean? This mocking brothel frequenter, who could hardly imagine his life without wine, was a big rogue. Some of his pranks were drawn to full hooliganism. And he was first known for writing sparkling and mischievous stories.
The memory of the deceased brother first began to clean up sister Masha. With blue ink, the old maid washed out words in her brother’s letters that she considered indecent. The torch was taken by Soviet "Czekhovists" - with a screen of sanctimonious decency, they for a long time shielded the real Chekhov from the masses. And now there are more foreigners.
Hands and feet off! Leave us our Palych, a man ironic and subtle, sublime and difficult. "Misanthrope" with a naive belief in progress. He considered himself a Darwinist, but was sometimes ashamed of his dog. He loved women, but he was always wary of them. He avoided solitude but stewed in front of an audience. I was a doctor, but I hated treatment. And how many people angrily broke off relations with the “delicate” Chekhov! In short, don't be profane. The torch is not a pound of raisins. The life of saints is not a genre that helps us understand it better.
What can I say? I do not want to use terms like “flung cranberries” (although cranberries are really hanging). Let's go in from the other side. Theoretically, one can imagine a film about Chekhov, in which Grigorovich and Suvorin are asked by such intercessors to the house of young Chekhov, in which a naked Anton Pavlovich runs after no more dressed Lydia Stakhievna Mizinova, etc. Everything can be imagined and everything can be forgiven, but on one condition: the film must be talented. And a film about a very talented man — about a genius — super talented. If the director and actors undertake to make a film about a great writer, this film should at least to some extent correspond to the scale of the writer’s work. It seems obvious, but as the film shows, it is not obvious to everyone. How would you explain it? Well, for example, if a first-rate chess player sits down to play with a world champion, it will be strange for a first-rate player and uninteresting for the audience. Russian directors to a certain extent succeeded in films about Chekhov (a Yutkevich film with Grinko, Yakovlev and Marina Vladi), and about Tolstoy (a Gerasimov film), but these were films staged by talented directors who understood the work of writers, and played by ensembles of talented actors. Directors even sometimes (but not always) managed to film the works of Chekhov: films by the Mikhalkov brothers, Heifitz.
Moreover, foreign directors also managed to make films on the Russian theme (remember the Italian film “Sunday”, “First Love” by Maximilian Shell...). In the case of the French film about Chekhov, we can say in the words of one letter of the writer (to paraphrase somewhat): “not clever, not talented, not noble.” Perhaps the film will be to some extent useful to those foreign viewers who have never heard the name of Chekhov and have not read it: who knows, maybe they will be interested and read something. But nothing more.
"I don't like Shakespeare," he said.
But your play is even worse.
From the letter of L. Tolstoy A. Chekhov.
Recently, the film of the French director Rene Fere “Anton Chekhov” was released in the Russian rental.
The paradoxical trouble of this picture is that there is no Chekhov in the film about Chekhov, but there is an actor Nicholas Giraud, who is trying to convince us that Anton Palich is in front of us. And as you probably guessed, he's not doing it. And not because he's a bad actor. On the contrary, he is a good actor, and René Feré seems to be a good director. And it does not even matter that the film was shot in France, and to depict the Sakhalin period of Chekhov’s life, the creators decided to do with the views of Norway. The thing is different: in a film about a Russian writer, we are shown false details of Russian life and surrogate images, therefore Chekhov and his “mysterious Russian soul” have nowhere to take it here.
The film about Chekhov turned out without Chekhov. The whole film is a cold-blooded French bourgeois.
For the European audience, which is probably designed for the film Feret, all this is not important, but the Russian will tingle the eyes of the whole film, causing persistent frustration.
"Anton Chekhov" begins with the fact that in the house of the Chekhovs suddenly appear important guests - prominent writers Dmitry Grigorovich and Alexey Suvorin. They arrive in Moscow, wanting to find a certain Antosha Chekhonte, whose original stories blew up literary Petersburg. Spending praise to the young author, they make Anton a profitable offer - the publication of his subsequent works at the rate of "15 kopecks per line". Having to take care of a large family, Chekhov agrees, and from this moment begins the rise of his writing talent. Soon Chekhov realizes that sitting on two chairs will not work, and leaves his medical practice.
From the uninteresting in the film: the colorless love line - the whole road of Chekhov is presented to us as a cold chubby, who counters the persistent passionate attention of Lika Mizinova with the words that love devastates a person, so he does not need feelings.
From interesting: Chekhov's friendship with Isaac Levitan.
However, the name of the artist never sounded in the film, so an outside viewer can easily mistake a certain Isaac for one of the writer’s many brothers and never learn about the presence of the Russian landscape master in the life of Chekhov. The film includes an episode that marred Chekhov’s relationship with Levitan, when he notices that the story “Jumping” is based on his private relationship with a student. Having offended a friend and accusing him of “stealing [the plots] from life”, the artist interrupts communication with Chekhov for several years.
From the funny in the film: a scene where Chekhov and his brother Nikolai sit down and drink vodka from glasses. The director apparently wasn't told that Russians usually eat. In the place where his brother suggested that Antoshe should make peace with Levitan, saying, “Drink and make peace!”, I jumped up in my chair in terror: who makes peace after drinking?! Judging by criminal reports in Russia, this almost always ends in stabbing, not reconciliation.
The creators paid attention to Leo Tolstoy, whose image looks very mundane, although he is played very similar to him externally Brontis Khodorovsky. Moreover, the scene of Chekhov’s meeting with Lev Nikolaevich in Yasnaya Polyana looks like a fifth paw sewn to the dog, and those sentences that Tolstoy expresses at all sound like a parody of the classic’s ascetic life views. In the last third of the film, we are shown the period of Chekhov’s life on Sakhalin, where he observes the life of aborigines and convicts, and here I could hardly remember the fact that I am watching a film about Chekhov. Fortunately, his timekeeping turned out to be standard -1 hour 36 minutes, so it was not too long to languish.
If you want a movie about Anton Pavlovich, then it is better to watch Mikhail Ugarov’s Brothers Ch, where the writer and his family are shown in more detail and colorful, with their tragedies and joys, albeit fit in one summer day at the country house. This movie does not claim to be a biopic, but at least draws into its plot and attracts characters. Or Vitaly Melnikov’s film “A Fan”, which describes the history of Chekhov’s relationship with Lidia Avilova, and actor Kirill Pirogov got used to the image of the writer.
And the film by René Feré, sorry, not for us.
6 out of 10