Regrettably, Ukrainian cinematography is such that only a handful of film directors are in demand.
One of these is Volodymyr Popkov, author of such ipopular productions as Merry-Go-Round, Year of the Bull, The Sinner, The Hearts of the Three, and the recent controversial TV serial The Countess of Monsoreau (made outside Ukraine).
Mr. Popkov kindly agreed to an interview with The Day.
Q.: Are there any parallels to be drawn between modern realities and events in your latest Dumas production?
A.: Joseph Brodsky once said that man's history is just a story about a suit of clothes. Mankind learns nothing, and this is perhaps the greatest curse of the human race. Our Lord bestows life upon people and they manage it so inconsiderately, they just dawdle it away. They waste it for the sake of mistaken political ideals, for money, passion, hatred, intolerance! Nothing has changed in the world since the time of Dumas. People still forget the main thing: you only live once, so you must enjoy every minute of your life which is the greatest joy conferred on you by the Creator. In the final duel scene Cellus, dying, reaches a hand to his enemy, Antrai, saying, "We could've been friends." Something important had dawned on him, but too late. Others like him will be born and plunge into the fray, and the same thing will happen again.
Q.: Did you have any special problems screening classical pieces? Making a novel into a script is not easy, is it?
A.: Of course. There have been many problems and far from all could be solved. Quite frankly, there is yet another problem which I face working on practically every production. The need to have an inner concept, an underlying idea. I must know exactly what the author had in mind - and not to convey this to the viewer, but to know it myself, to have a clear picture. We were shooting the Monsoreau series and yet I did not have that concept, but then I suddenly realized: Bussy and Monsoreau were people nobody wanted. Bussy was the last French knight and Count Monsoreau one of the first bourgeois in their mentalities, he was born before his time. So both were doomed. Diana? She was the catalyst speeding their death. An angel of death for both of them.
Once I understood this everything clicked in place and the rest was a matter of technique (the viewer may not have realized all this, for it's my own system of coordinates if you will).
Q.: How do you handle your cast?
A.: I never force them to abide my orders. Instead, I try to make them feel that we just work together, I make suggestions and leave them to their discretion. Also, any actor, even the best, may slip up in a given scene, but I shoot every scene so I can always make up for such slip when editing (I use only one camera, but my technique is best described as multicamera, so I can always patch up a hole afterward). Sergei Zhigunov joked once, "Even I can play well with you around."
Q.: What is your attitude toward films where the director has complete control?
A.: I think that some five film directors in the whole world who can do it. You can count them on your fingers. And so many claim this privilege. But most of the latter are full of hot air, for all I know, trying to conceal their creative impotence behind "elite" productions that aren't worth the price of a single ticket. My productions are meant not for the critics but for the man in the street. What I'm doing is best described as mass culture, except that I never take my viewer for a fool. It is then, I believe, that they can sense what I personally call a gust of creative wind. They sense it watching the screen, because in my every production I have tried what someone very classical called the softening of mores. And I do believe that this is the principal mission of any art form.
Q.: Your first academic training as a schoolteacher. How did the cinema step into your life?
A.: I will let you in on a very big secret: taking up the cinema was my way to escape from real life. The world we live in is anything but perfect. I hate the way we live, and I hate living like everybody else. Perhaps because I just don't know how to live. In my pictures I create a world of my own. An illusion, of course, but here I feel free to manipulate destinies, shapes, and concepts. It is a game of life, and I like it.
Photo:
"I wanted to create the illusion that the actor did everything himself"







