Muratova: Interviewing a living legend of Ukrainian cinema

Kira Muratova made her previous film, Eternal Homecoming, in 2012.

A lot of changes have occurred since then. What remains unchanged is Muratova’s prominent place in Ukrainian and international cinema.

I am standing in front of an old Odesa building, a gray stone structure in the early 20th century modernistic style, with several commemorative plaques on the facade. I can see a sun-drenched yard through the arch.

I should take a few simple actions: enter the door lock code, come into the entrance doorway lit from above through a glass canopy, climb onto the last floor, come to a brown door with a horseshoe, ring the doorbell, say hello, walk into the drawing room hung with pictures and collages up to the ceiling, sit down at the table, and switch on the voice recorder.

CONFUSION

Ms. Muratova, I feel somewhat confused, for I’m trying to form a question that nobody has ever asked you.

“It’s just an interview. The only way out is death.”

OK, let me start in banal terms. There is something vital in banality. When did you understand that you would be a film director?

“I wanted something of the kind back in my childhood, when I took part in amateur performances at a Romanian school. But I grew in a family that was very far from art. An acquaintance of ours, who studied at Moscow’s All-Union State Institute of Cinema (VGIK), once came to visit us – he talked rapturously about classes given by Gerasimov. This really struck me. My mum, a high-placed official, could and did help me. I had a ‘pull.’ I passed some general-culture exams in Romania. There was no admission to VGIK that year, but I was still eager to do something. I studied at Moscow University’s Philology Department for a year. The professors – pre-Revolutionary old men, authors of ancient textbooks – looked outlandish. They would come wearing galoshes and leave their umbrellas on the stage. They could speak Latin and Greek. I liked it there but still wanted to be in cinema. So the next year, 1951, I found myself at VGIK’s Gerasimov class.”

Do you remember well the years you spent in Romania?

“I can remember something – smells, feelings… After all, I finished school there. I attended, up to the 7th grade, a school for the children of Soviet employees. Then this kind of families returned to the USSR, this school was closed, and I transferred to a local one. I don’t know Romanian literature well – it seemed too pompous to me when I studied it at school. I spoke to my classmates in Romanian. Frankly, I always wanted to leave that place, for I had come there when I was already 12.”

THROWING DICE

How do you hit upon the idea of films?

“It’s the most difficult question for directors… I think they concoct answers. Ideas come to me by chance, through the back door – except for Change of Fate. Maugham’s short story The Letter, in fact a piece of pulp fiction, made a deep physiological impression on me. Hackneyed phrases, such as ‘her eyes flashed with diabolical fire,’ would just send shivers down my spine. I wanted something from this novella. Then I myself suddenly began to write and deviated so much that only the general plot remained. That was a premeditated thing, while the rest were occasional flashes of inspiration.”

It must be typical of you to improvise.

“I seem to invent everything beforehand, but, at the same time, I never stop improvising. Somebody adds something – the window opens, the wind begins to blow, and so on. Rene Clair used to say that the film has already been written, and you only have to shoot it. In my case, it is just the reverse. I always lay myself open, so to speak. There are such characters in any films of mine. Suppose he stands next to you, smoking slowly and watching the filming. But you liked him, and you call out: ‘Come here, the camera is on. Can you do this and that?’ And he says: ‘Of course I can!’ This is why I make modern-day, not fancy-dress, films, and characters are dressed in today’s fashion – so I can invite a stranger into the picture. Suppose an actor has been chosen for the leading role, but then someone else comes in and I suddenly see that I can take him or her, even though all the roles have already been assigned, – in this case the character may split. The Asthenic Syndrome was originally going to star Natalka Buzko, but then an amazing girl, Galina Zakhurdayeva, emerged from somewhere, and I liked her so much that I decided: let there be two heroines. In Passions, I wanted to film Renata Litvinova, but she was totally unfit for the planned role of circus girl, so Yevhen Holubenko [Muratova’s husband, script-writer, and artist. – Author] advised: ‘Let her be the girl friend.’ This happens very often. Something suddenly turns over in the text, image, character, or editing. Many things may intrude.”

Do dreams play any role in this?

“It’s rather the moment of transition from sleeping to awakening, when you can have some thoughts or visions – I don’t know what it is called. If you fail to note down or remember them, they will slip out. Dreams play a certain, but not the most important, role. It’s also pure chance.”

Do you often have dreams?

“There are periods when you have and don’t have dreams. It is real fun if they are shown to me again.”

SPLINTER

Is it possible to do without any violence in films?

“I never focus on this kind of moments. They simply come up in the process. I don’t like too much gunfire. But violence is part of life. Sometimes I can’t possibly escape it. Among my films, The Asthenic Syndrome is particularly about human cruelty and violence.”

Yes, it is impossible to forget the scene in a stray dog elimination facility.

“I did not care about animals. I loved them, but in a banal and commonplace way. When we were making Brief Encounters, we needed a dog. Somebody advised us to go to the knackery. I came to this facility. Can you imagine what I saw there? I thought for three days that I would not be doing anything at all. Then, when I came to, I decided that if I filmed this, I would feel better. I did it. But it didn’t help – a splinter remains stuck in me. From then on, I’ve been trying to put some animals – cats, dogs – into the picture.”

DISRUPTION

You also used such thing as division of the film into self-contained parts for the first time in The Asthenic Syndrome. What is the benefit of this technique?

“Disruption. There is a film, we are used to it, it is our history. Then we suddenly tear it apart. And what is beyond it? There is something else there! This kind of reflections used to be purely conceptual, but they’ve been practical since 1990.

REUTERS photo

“The Asthenic Syndrome began as a short-length film written by Serhii Popov about a woman whose husband has died. As I was pondering on how to film it, I came across Oleksandr Chernykh’s script The Asthenic Syndrome, the story of a neurotic man who tended to fall asleep whenever he had troubles. I liked this situation and combined the two stories. Besides, I was eager to tear the curtain open and see what was there.”

You made still more bits like this in Eternal Homecoming.

“It is mockery in this case. Everybody will be saying the same. Are you bored? So stay bored. There is certain indifference there, but there’s also an attempt to ensure that each bit, even with all the reruns, is something new and actors must show diversity on the screen, as people do in real life. Besides, this film is a sarcastic answer to the eternal question: ‘Why are the same phrases repeated in your film?’ I answer that it is like in real life – your also keep asking me the same question. People are constantly babbling something: they think they haven’t been understood and are harping on the same tune. This stung me, so I’ve been doing so. Oh, you are not satisfied with the answer? Then everybody will be repeating!”

Are they still asking?

“Not any more. They decided there’s no use speaking to this woman – it’s better to leave her alone.

“Incidentally, Eternal Homecoming also emerged by chance. I had a lot of novellas by various authors. I wanted to make a number of short films. I was short of money. I have always been amazed by the character of a person (I like characters very much) who turns for advice, transposing his situation on someone else. He will in fact never make use of this advice if it does not coincide with the decision he has made before. Among those novellas was the story of a man who loves both his wife and his mistress. He comes to his lady friend for advice, but nothing of what she suggests suits him, and he accuses her of heartlessness. And I decided, perhaps due to shortage of money, to make one novella in similar settings but with different actors – it was both cheap and good. But if I had had money in the beginning, we wouldn’t have made this film. That’s the beauty of it.”

PLAYING

Eternal Homecoming is a true parade of your favorite actresses and actors. What should an actor be able to do to get into your picture?

“It doesn’t matter whether or not he is an actor. What matters is to be able to astonish with your originality. Mastery impresses me deeply, but I go further, I want something more. I don’t like preliminary talk about the kernel of the role. An actor must try to improvise at rehearsals on his own, without my instructions. For actors, of course, like to be instructed and to play up. But I want the actor not to think about what I want but to keep on trying to reveal his own self. I want to rouse just a human being, not an actor, in the actor and male an actor out of the human being. I think Bunuel said he did not let actors read the script so that they didn’t know what would be next. It’s wonderful but impossible, for it’s a dream (also close to me) and wishful thinking. Actors will find and read the script one way or another. For this reason, for example, there are displaced scenes in The Long Farewell. For example, the heroine is at first in an excellent mood during the party, then she quarrels with her son, and her mood changes. We shot this sequence, but when we were editing the material, we (a very frequent case) placed the second scene at the beginning and the first one afterwards, which produced the result that I wanted: a strange, at first glance, but psychologically understandable, heroine who is always in this nervous condition. The second scene was caused not by a specific conflict with her son but, maybe, by previous reminiscences of such scenes. Likewise, as if mindlessly, owing to courtship from another hero at the table, she abruptly switches to an excellent mood. This is an editing-based organization of the material. Editing is the basic conscious method in my direction.”

Jean-Luc Godard [French film classic, “New Wave” founder. – Author] even compared editing with a continent.

“Why even? It is so. I like editing best of all. Filming is dangerous: the weather may change, actors may die, there’s no money. But now everybody is on a strip of film, you sit in the room, everything is quiet, and nothing but tiredness can interrupt it. All I want to do is reach the editing room and say: ‘Goodbye, group, goodbye, actors, go to hell or any other place you like, while I will stay here with my editor and my dear film, and nobody will stand in my way now.’ And even if something went wrong, that’s all right – it will go right in a few days. You look at the same thing very long and minutely, as if through the microscope, and suddenly notice a spot of light in the frame’s right-hand corner – but you did not notice yesterday. It’s a very reassuring, peaceful, and intellectual pastime. You play with what you have, as if you were a writer who sits, writes, and owes nothing to anybody.”

DEPENDENCE

You are speaking passionately about cinema…

“It is a drug. A wonderful, gripping, and vital piece of work… I was oblivious to everything whenever I was filming. But I must confess that this has come to an end.”

Why?

“Firstly, for health reasons, and, secondly, something has broken down in me. First of all, it is health. Cinema is a very hard, nervous, and physically difficult occupation. I could not film if I was sick. Once I broke a leg when I was making Three Stories and brought everything to a standstill until I had the plaster cast removed. But everybody was saying: ‘Don’t worry, we will be carrying you cast in plaster,’ No, I can’t. I must be in good health. The point is I have been a fantastically healthy person in all my lifetime – it is my splendid defect. But now I feel unhealthy, and this distresses me greatly. That’s why I don’t want to do any filming.”

And what did you draw strength from?

“I am this very strength. It’s the strength of a drug addict who craves for dope. Have you ever known any druggies?”

I have some.

“They may suffer a lot, but, nevertheless, this guides and brings bliss to them. So cinema used to bring me bliss. It’s an obligatory condition in my life. If you want to sow the good, leave this immediately.”

This means you are keeping yourself at bay from cinema now.

“I even feel disgust, if you can imagine.”

It is hard to imagine.

“I say again that something broke down in me. When I recall the way it was, when I watch someone else’s films… Knowing that these things occur so much impairs me… But I like the process of watching all kinds of contradictory things very much. Yes, I am a film buff.”

As far as I know, you were asked very little about your favorite films, although it is an obvious question.

“Out of modern-day films, Amour by Michael Haneke. I also like Sokurov.”

Why they?

“Because they are very profound. They have nothing in common with each other except one thing: a pin of sorts is thrust into the depths of human psyche and relationships. It doesn’t matter that Sokurov films Hitler or Lenin and Haneke does elderly husband and wife. I would say their films are about not only the life of people, but also life as such.”

And if we take classics, is Godard’s Breathless profound?

“I like Godard very much.”

So do I.

“So do I. I’m competing with you in this (smiles). Which of us likes Godard more? You may not have seen his films for years, and then suddenly you watch one. Here it is! So well done! What a lovely thing, damn it! Breathless is perhaps the first of his films that I saw, studying at VGIK. I like everything in it. It is a film of many faces that has something final. Whenever you watch it, you think: ‘No more movies, please. I’ve had them all.’ A very happy sensation. But it is always wrong to consider something as final. OK, I will watch Godard today, but then I’ll want to watch something else: Flaherty, Haneke, or My Friend Ivan Lapshin. You can stop, think that it is eternal, and then wish again… People used to write jocularly on gift books: ‘I present you with this book forever and a day.’ ‘And a day’ is something you’d like to feel keenly. And even a film was made about this – Hiroshima Mon Amour by Alain Resnais. It is about the horror of a man who is aware of forgetting something indispensable in his life. In this case it is a defunct love – the heroine loves someone else and is terrified that she is still able to have some feelings. But continuation of life is the main theme of art, after all.”

Godard is also good because he never makes a compromise with the spectator.

“Many people do so. What’s good about compromises? You must enjoy yourself! I in general don’t believe it when somebody is said to be filming for money. I think he or she is doing what they consider to be the best – ‘if I like it, everybody will like it too.’ Otherwise he will just think up nothing. But it is also right to want to earn money.”

Francois Truffaut [French film director who also represents the “New Wave.” – Author] used to say something of the kind – that it is wrong to distinguish between art for money’s sake and art for art’s sake.

“For some reason, I don’t like Truffaut, although he is a superb director. I like his comments on Hitchcock. He is a master, but his films are too French for me to like. I prefer American movies, even although Godard is French.”

But he grew on American films.

“The Americans are sportsmanlike in cinema. They have eternal youth of sorts. Maybe, because different ethnicities mix there and everything is being updated endlessly, while the French are a stagnant and decadent civilization. They value everything: look how nicely we have drawn this flower. Do have a look at this flower! Where are you looking at? They get angry if they are not appreciated. The Americans take a different attitude: you don’t like it? OK, we’ll do something else for you. It’s a younger, more cheerful view. I call it sportsmanlike.”

ETERNAL HOMECOMING

What else are you busy with today, in addition to watching?

“I like reading again – a teenager’s passion of sorts.”

What authors are you reading, if it’s no secret?

“Ancient historians – Plutarch, Tacitus, Sallust. How beautifully they write, what a language, what moral and philosophical ideas! And what is going on around? Never-ending briberies, murders, wars. The same things as now – differences are on the surface only. This saps optimism very much. Still there are people – I envy and sympathize with them greatly – who believe in progress.”

I am one of them.

“Nice. I like it when one believes in progress. This arouses warm feelings in me, but I do not believe in progress. I would like to see it, but I see none. Therefore, I feel so much…”

Despair?

“I wouldn’t call it despair – rather, it is depression and hopelessness. As centuries go by, things remain absolutely the same, terribly the same.”

But Europe has learned to live without wars.

“It had a little. But then concentration camps suddenly came up. It was part of Germany ‘refined’ culture. Then gas chambers. Do you believe in progress? Go on. It’s a marvelous state of the soul and life. And if you managed to change the reality in some way, it would be still better. But things repeat themselves. All human deeds, bad and good, tend to come back eternally. How can a highest culture and this horror come together? It must be part of man’s animal-like nature. There’s something that does not allow changing the situation radically. Changes are only superficial and temporary. But I am not imposing my disbelief on anybody. It is better to believe than to disbelieve.”

But humankind exists.

“So what?”

If humankind were so much steeped in evil, it would cease to exist.

“This is all at the same time. A tiger has eaten a good man. It is the tiger’s essence: it needs to eat flesh. So what? Should we think about good people only? It boils down to communism – we’ll remake some and shoot dead the bad ones. A different malice begins now, the malice of the righteous. Why are you so fair? Because you’ve been allowed to do so now. And when you were not allowed, were you unfair? In general, I don’t think you should continue this dispute with me because it will be unpleasant for you.”

I see.

“Why should I argue with you? There’s no need. You feel the way you want to. That’s all. And I sympathize with you. But I don’t believe in the triumph of your cause, if you like. I would like to, but I can’t. Would you like some tea or coffee?”

P.S. SUPERFICIALITY

“There are some remarkable superficial films. There are some more profound ones, but they are rare. My Passions is about superficiality: the race course, good-looking horses, pretty girls, and superb races. Whenever I am asked what kind of film it is, I answer: ‘It is a salon movie.’ This means superficial. This can also look nice (laughs). I can also say: a very profound film about superficiality. You see, if I say ‘profound,’ the conversation will go on. But I said ‘about superficiality,’ so that’s all, leave me alone.

“Profound films are thin on the ground, while there are many superficial ones. Superficiality is easy to see, for it is decent. Profound films usually harbor indecency, obscenity, something that scares you. Any seamy side, especially that of a human, scares, whereas the surface is sleek, cultured, and processed. It is done and perceived easily. It can be esthetically beautiful and even wise. For superficiality is our life as such. People don’t like to think about death. If you begin to think, you’ll never stop. Or you will stop, but you’ll feel ill at ease.

“Sometimes you look at people on the street and think: ‘They live as if they were immortal.’ And can they live otherwise? It is like in a parable: a man is hanging by a blade of grass over the precipice and is chewing with relish a berry from another blade of grass. This is life. And once he stops eating this berry, he will see the abyss. He will see that the blade of grass is running out. For a human being knows that he will die in any case, no matter how good he feels today. This depth is sad and terrible, and man tries not to think of it. This is why there is so much superficial art. And this is right. It is a living and trembling surface of everything.

“In general, this is the way we should live. We should live superficially. It is, of course, nice to do a thing that will draw you into depth. But then you must look up and go on living, as if you were immortal.”