Kira Muratova: «Harmony is breaking all the rules»

Kira Muratova belongs to the few world-renowned Ukrainian cinematographers. However, loathing all generalizations and classifications she exists quite quietly beyond various trends and remains quite quiet during what she calls «the distribution of orders and prizes.»

She cannot be called «a child of her time» because all her films, from «The Long Good-bye» to «Three Histories,» have always been marked by her individual outlook, that of a person who looks into space with the alienation of a philosopher, or even of an extraterrestrial.

The Day: Journalists created the image of «a strange lady» of difficult nature and unpredictable destiny. To what extent is this image truthful for you?

K.M.: Frankly speaking, I don’t care. Only recently I found out even my city-dwellers don’t know that I live in Odesa; they think I live in Moscow. As a rule, I am with people only at work, and I rarely attend gatherings of any kind. Maybe that’s why.

I like to be alone, but I lack the time for solitude, to be one-on-one with myself.

The Day: When «Three Histories» was rewarded the Arsenal Prize as the best Ukrainian film of 1996-1997, it seemed to me that you didn’t feel too compelled to advertise the sponsor’s cigarette brand.

K.M: In such cases I always ask myself: what will I get out of it? And I want only one thing, the chance to make films. I feel the same about journalists. When I read criticism I don’t care whether I’m panned or praised. But when I see a person, when an author proposes an interesting ‘construction,’ I think, «how funny his eulogizing... or scolding...

The Day: It is said that when casting the lead for «Brief Encounters» you said about Vysotsky, «I can’t shoot that man with a mug like a brick,» but you filmed him all the same.

K.M.: I liked Liubshin at that time. At the rehearsals, at least. But Liubshin was tied up with another film, and tried to hide my hopes, I suppose, that we could wait for him to finished his role. I was terribly angry because I had already turned down Vysotsky. I had to ask him a second time although he might have been offended.

The Day: You didn’t regret that later, did you?

K.M.: What difference would it have made! The screen, like history, doesn’t know the subjunctive case. Talk now about who would have been better in that role is just like a woman who already has a child thinks she might have had a brighter one by another man.

Every film lives its own life. When I was shooting the film «Getting to Know the White World» I hated the title the playwright, Hryhory Baklanov, had given it. It sounded to me like the title of some kind of dissertation. But title captions take a lot of time. So, while we were arguing looking for a better version, the trial captions were made for us. And when I saw them at the screen I realized that it was a good name. The screen changed my mind. It has its own rules and a different influence on the psyche.

The Day: Why did you decide to switch from contemporary subjects to filming the classics? I have in mind «Among Gray Stones» and your unsuccessful try at «Princess Mary.»

K.M.: Actually, «Mary» was halted at the trial stage. Natalia Leble who later playing in «Change of Destiny» was supposed to play Mary. And the people who had rejected her as Mary then cried out, «what a beauty!» despite her being ten years older.

And I had written the scenario for Korolenko’s story for another director much earlier. After long disgrace in Odesa I again started going from office to office trying to convince people that it really was the same literary classic we all studied in school. After a great many obstacles I was allowed to shoot the film, but later, as usual, I was accused of defaming not only the heroic present but the classics as well.

The Day: You like to shoot nonprofessionals. For instance, there is anepisode in «Passions» inserted just to show off Litvinova.

K.M.: In reality, I made Litvinova an actress. In fact, she reads only her own texts. Renata is a stunning person. She does everything in her own unique way.

The Day: Do you consider her to be an actress of our particular time?

K.M.: For all times. And I’m certain that she wants to be an actress. I think that she doesn’t need to act; she is a writer. You know how it usually happens: the shooting is not yet wrapped up, and the actor is already peering into the director’s eyes hoping for the next contract. Renata is not like that. Incidentally, she’s eccentric. You rarely meet a beauty of that kind. Eccentrics are usually ugly and miserable. To some extent, Renata is crazy, unbalanced. Such an acrimonious beauty.

The Day: But beauty includes harmony, balance...

K.M.: Harmony excludes balance. There has to be something to break the symmetry, to break the rules. Only then can it touch you. Academism is dull.

The Day: You have now some complications connected with financing your next film. Aren’t there people willing to fight the right to produce Muratova’s films?

K.M: It seems like there aren’t. I had a wonderful producer, Nadiya Popova, who worked with me on many pictures and «spoiled me» by solving almost all the financial problems which I have never understood. Unfortunately, she traveled to America and died. I have nobody like that now. But something else amazes me. I shoot cheap films with few stars, computer graphics, crowd scenes, etc.

The Day: Didn’t your films sell at festivals?

K.M.: Very poorly. Maybe we are bad salesmen. Even when producers gave us money they did so to arrange their own careers or improve their connections at festivals.

The Day: You used to shoot narrative films, but now you seem less interested in the reality of life than the reality of consciousness.

K.M.: Nothing of the kind! I used to shoot chronicles, and now I am going to shoot a narrative film with murder and intrigue.

The Day: There is a reality of the plot and a reality of consciousness. I have in mind a line by Chekhov: «The people have lunch, they only have their lunch, and meanwhile their lives are ruined.»

K.M.: Well, I don’t know... Chekhov said that. Ask him.

The Day: Do you care that epigones could appear after «Three Histories» who would arm themselves with veneer of your latest works and start shooting nightmares about our woeful life?

K.M.: I shoot films not about our society but about the person on the whole. It only seems that there is some other kind of life. Human beings are identically perfect and imperfect at all times and on all continents.

There may be different levels of satiety due to better or worse food, or different clothes. But, if you strip away the flesh you’ll see that the bones are the same. That’s how things have always been and always will be.

The Day: If we see human development in two parallel veins, optimistic and apocalyptic, you seem to prefer the latter.

K.M.: There is no such thing as progress. There is only a movement around a circle. That is the whole mystery and tragedy of civilization.