Natalya Bondarchuk

Transcription

We are here now in the house of my mother, Inna Vladimirovna Makarova,... and my father, Sergei Bondarchuk,... where l first met Andrei Arsenievich Tarkovsky many years ago. To be precise, it took place nearby, across the street,... in the house of Irina Zhigalko. lrina Aleksandrovna Zhigalko was a teacher of Romm. l was 13 at the time and l had already read Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Andrei Arsenievich hadn't yet read the novel at that time. He was a student of Mikhail Romm,... and Romm's students gathered there. Somebody was trying to make a fire in the fireplace, and it was smoking. Somebody was starting a samovar. Somebody was rocking in a rocking chair, just as l am now. The person near the fireplace was Andron Konchalovsky. The one with the samovar was Vassily Makarovich Shukshin. And the one in the rocking chair, with a thin... moustache, was Andrei Tarkovsky. l gave him the book Solaris,... which belonged to Irina Alexandrovna Zhigalko. That's how we met, and later Andrei and l often recalled that time. Now many years have passed. l was 18 when l got my role in the film. Now l am a little older. And Andrei Tarkovsky is no Ionger alive. l am now making a film about Pushkin my most serious film,... and l'm wondering, what is genius? And in general, do people need geniuses? They are not very agreeable people. There are always certain problems with them. l don't know if Tarkovsky was a genius,... but he was extremely talented. When l was studying at VGl K,... l remember hearing a rumor one day,... ''The genius is coming!'' And there, walking down the corridor, was ''the genius.'' He was short, with a little moustache,... in this little hat with a pom-pom... and a scarf, which was a present from Marina Vladi. A genius... As yet unrecognized... was walking by. Nobody had seen his films yet, but everybody knew he was a genius. Everybody was whispering that he had come to cast the actors. l asked for what film and they said Solaris. , l loved the novel so much and l loved Lem. l really wanted to be in the film. At that time l had already played... young Phoebe in Catcher in the Rye,... , Gertrude in Hamlet 42 years old,... and Gogol's Korobochka, who was 82 years old. Perhaps Tarkovsky chose me because of this range. l immediately found myself in the company of Donatas Banionis,... who believed in me right away. He helped me a lot and very much wanted me to get the role. l remember acting, crying... Andrei Arsenievich came up to me after... the audition, shook my hand, and said,... ''Excellent, Natalya, you're acting very well,... just like Gerasimov taught you.'' l asked, ''And so?'' ''l'm not choosing you.'' l said, ''May l ask why?'' He said, ''Look at yourself. How old are you?'' ''Almost 18.'' ''Aha. Ask Donatas how old he is.'' Donatas was much older than me and he... was a poor match as my ''husband.'' Donatas was offended, but he kept it to himself. To avoid wasting my talents,... Tarkovsky recommended me to his fellow director Larisa Shepitko,... and she gave me a role in her film You and l without an audition,... based only on my audition with Andrei. The film was shot in Norilsk, and it was very interesting. The script was by Gennady Shpalikov. Half a year passed. l came back from the shoot... and found out that Tarkovsky had already auditioned many actresses,... including even some foreigners. He auditioned them all and still had not chosen the one. Then... l was sly... l asked Larisa Shepitko... to show her footage to Andrei. They were good friends. So she shows him her footage and he says,... ''Hmm, who is this actress of yours?'' She says, ''She's the gift you gave me... Natalya.'' ''What gift? What's her name?'' ''Natalya Bondarchuk.'' ''That's Bondarchuk? Give me back my gift!'' And that's how l was approved for his film based on her audition. We started shooting. Andrei first of all creates the atmosphere. He is a unique director. l think he was the only Soviet director besides my father... who was well known in the West. His films are addressed to a universal audience. ln our Soviet land at that time these films didn't make any sens! e. They were all about eternity,... and in our land eternity was not recognized. We were all grave diggers,... and his art was about eternity. lt was high poetry, which always rises to God. He was a religious person. Perhaps his faith was more of a cosmic nature,... and he was involved with different things,... but he was spiritual... that was very apparent. Perhaps the harder the life of a great artist is... and Andrei's life was very hard... the more interesting his art is. He had to transcend himself... and prevail over the society that did not acknowledge him. Andrei was a very nervous person. Terribly nervous. Beyond normal. Almost like a disease. l don't mean he was mad,... , but he was, like all of us obsessed with art. He was always nervous and biting his nails. He lived the life of his characters he lived their atmosphere. Everyything was important to him. The amateurs in cinema may say,... ''Well, the acting and the sets aren't great. Let's cover it over with music and it'll all be fine.'' For him everything was important,... from the sets by Misha Romadin,... to every nuance of the cinematography... by the genius Vadim Yusov... a real genius, in my opinion. Let me tell you a story about Yusov. l love Vadim very much. He is a very subtle artist. There was a scene where they were filming me. lt's the scene where Hari, the character l play, meets ''herself.'' A well known scene. We shot it in Zvenigorod, not far from Moscow. They showed me all the filmed material. l look at the screen and think,... ''How interesting these tree roots are! What a beautiful view! l've never been to that place.'' And then l see that it's actually me standing there. l suddenly realized that Andrei had directed it... and Yusov had filmed it so personally... that l didn't even understand at first... that l was a part of this scene. lt was a different place,... because it was shown through the eyes of another artist. l hadn't seen it that way. l hadn't seen those roots, that tree bark, my own face,... and suddenly it turned out l was standing there. lt was phenomenal, because each artist is very individual. He used to say, ''lf l can't make a long,... boring film, l'll shoot myself.'' He was joking, of course,... but that was the kind of thing he showed... grass swaying in the wind, etc. When we are looking at a landscape, l mean, just looking,... we look and look,... and then we start waiting for something to happen. Our attention becomes focused. lt's like meditation. He was a master of this kind of thing. lf my father could film large action scenes... like nobody else in the world,... nobody could show ''atmosphere'' like Andrei. lt's as if reality moves into a different dimension,... the dimension of art. lf we just look at a landscape, that's a documentary. But if we start seeing and hearing something else,... what the artist makes possible for us to see,... that is art, and it bewitches us. But it affects only those who have it inside themselves,... who have already accumulated so much... in their soul that they can take it in. That's why this sort of art is certainly not for everybody. How did we work together? l trusted him completely. Completely. For example, he might say, ''My heart hurts,...'' and l knew that meant l didn't act well. Most of all he disliked high pathos in art. What does that mean? For example, l'd start acting too dramatically,... and he'd exclaim, ''What are you doing? You're a woman! They won't listen to you. Why would they? You sound like a screeching door!'' That's the way he directed. Only later did l understand how right he was. Because if l rose to high pathos,... as if Hari were some kind of Soviet-era patriot,... it would be the wrong image. Hari couldn't be like that. She was nobody, just a matrix, a mold. She understands that she is not human,... that she is just some kind of likeness. lt's an incredible conflict. Later Andrei and l talked about it... we were close friends and kept in touch... and l asked him, ''Andrei, you know who l was playing? l was playing the Little Mermaid. She also had no right to love a human being. She was a mermaid, with a tail like a fish. She lived for three hundred years, but she didn't have a human soul. But she loved a man so deeply that she herself became human.'' So it was with Hari. She had no right to love, but she did. She starts understanding another person, and she herself becomes,... a person right in front of our eyes. This transformation is unique. lt's my favorite film,... even though l played in The Red and the Black,... based on the brilliant novel by Stendhal,... a film made by my teacher, Gerasimov,... and l played Maria Volkonskaya in Motyl's film... The Star of Enchanted Happiness. l played more than 42 roles,... but Solaris was the pinnacle for me. It's my favorite film. , When l became a film director l understood... There was a time l saw all his films at once, one after another. lt was at a film festival in Surgut. Yankovsky came, Margarita Terekhova, all the best actors. And we watched all Tarkovsky's films end to end. When it was over, we couldn't Ieave each other. We were all thinking about this miracle, this phenomenon,... because it felt as if we had watched just one film. One film. Because the most interesting thing in all of them is Tarkovsky himself. He's in everything. He was in my character, and in Donatas' too. But it doesn't limit the film in any way. It's almost strange. Because when it's all about the director,... it could be limiting,... but it wasn't. Perhaps because he so loved atmosphere,... sounds, unusual characters,... a movement of the eyelashes. He created atmosphere like nobody else. Once he had this strange idea... to take four different cinematographers, the best... Antonioni, Bresson, l don't know the best, the real genius directors!... and let them film one and the same story,... using the same actors. He thought it would be phenomenally interesting,... because they would make absolutely different films. His own films are extremely individual. Solaris received the Grand Prix du Jury... at the Cannes film festival. which is the second-highest official prize at Cannes,... an important prize. Something else that was suppressed during the Soviet era:. We also received the Catholic Church Prize... for the divine nature of the film. lt was kept a strict secret in the USSR,... because how could a Soviet director receive such a prize? l believe that the money he received from the Vatican... helped him to survive. Andrei's life at that time was terribly hard. Solaris had not yet been released,... and neither had Andrei Rublev. That was the situation. lt was only for three months,... but those three months could have cost him his life. The censors told us to change 42 things. We might just as well re shoot the film. Most of their criticism of course,... focused on the scene of my resurrection. lt's the most serious scene in the film,... and l did a lot of preparation for it. They covered me with a crystal solution. By the way, it was the first time this had been tried,... and nobody knew whether l would survive it or not. But nobody was concerned with that. The main thing was to shoot the scene. Whether l survived was secondary. So they covered me with this stuff, which crystallized,... and l was to keep it on for just a few seconds. l was supposed to hold my breath and appear to be dead. l have just drunk liquid oxygen and turned to ice. lt was not clear how long l could stay covered with this stuff. l could communicate with Andrei only through gestures. He asked, ''Do you think you can Iast for half a minute?'' l said yes. But l lasted for a minute and a half,... because l used to dive and could hold my breath for a long time. He was very happy that he managed to... shoot the scene and exclaimed,... ''Well done! You're my Snow Queen!'' Then something terrible happened. l couldn't resist a smile, but the crystal mask was still covering me,... and it could easily have cut my face. Fortunately, there was a bucket of water to thaw me out. l grabbed some water and splashed it on my face, and the mask thawed. Then l told him just what l thought of him. But most of the time we were great friends. Andrei took great care of me,... and it was a great pleasure to work with him. All of us actors worked in harmony with each other. Donatas simply adored me,... mostly because he and l rehearsed together in secret from Andrei. Our genius categorically refused to rehearse. He wanted everyything to be like in real life. For example, it would take me two hours to fix my hair,... and then he would come and mess it up ''like the wind did it.'' Then l had to spend another two hours fixing it,... because next time he'd say, ''What's wrong with your hair?'' The same thing happened with Donatas. Andrei exhausted him. The main thing was ''just be brilliant... That's all.'' But how can you be brilliant if you haven't even seen the script yet? Especially since Donatas came from the stage. He needed the essence of the part. Andrei wasn't interested in the essence of the part. He was interested in the actor's state. Those are two different things. The atmosphere on location was very interesting. He treated each actor individually. Most of all he tormented his favorite, Solonitsyn. Solonitsyn played in Rublev,... and Tarkovsky knew that unless he drove Anatoly crazy,... he wouldn't get the best out of him. So he would torture Anatoly... until Anatoly's eyes started jerking back and forth... only then would Andrei begin shooting. He treated me very delicately. He would read me poetry to inspire me. He was just wonderful. With Banionis, however, he was somewhat competitive. Banionis was a People's Artist, an important figure... Donatas sensed the competition,... and he felt the lack of Andrei's attention. Then there were Vlad Dvorzhetsky and Yuri Yarvet. A fabulous cast of actors, every one of them superb. My favorite scene was in the library. Misha Romadin created this incredible microcosm. They are traveling in space,... and they've brought along all the best from Earth. Pushkin's death mask, The Dragon, a Brueghel painting,... and Donatas and l are floating in the air. Working with him was very interesting and easy,... because our faith in our director was absolute. l liked it when he'd come up to me and say,... ''You know, it's not important to me how you act or what you say. What matters is that you are alive. That your eyelashes tremble,... that tears appea,, r in your eyes... Without being dogmatic,... he could explain the life of the human spirit. Spirit above all else. Once he gave me a phenomenal suggestion. ln the freezing scene there is a moment... when Hari is coming back to life. He said, ''She is being reborn through pain. She is developing internal organs. The corpse is returning to life through death.'' He suggested l should focus my attention on my hands. That proved very helpful. l came to believe that there is no death,... that we shall survive everything. There is no death. l am convinced of that. There is transformation, whatever but the spirit does not disappear. Only our body, the shell, disappears. We shared the same life philosophy. He also felt that this shell meant nothing. When through this physical shell something else emerges... ln the beginning of the film l Iook somewhat ethereal. lt wasn't Hari looking at you,... not someone from Earth. lt was Solaris looking at you through her eyes,... or Cosmos, or God, or whatever you like. l think there are very few films like this. Very few. l saw Solaris when it had just been released,... and l've seen it many times since. l traveled to 42 countries with the film:. New Zealand, Australia Bolivia, Guinea,... France many times, Italy, Canada, the USA. lt was shown at a festival in San Francisco. Each time, l saw people stagger out of the theater,... tuned by the divine atmosphere... he knew how to create. What is Solaris? For me, as l am today, it is life after life. Each of us will have an encounter like that with our conscience,... that conscience which no amount of earthly prayer... can ever expiate or extinguish. When we leave, each of us will meet his own ''guest.'' lt's something we are guilty of... and which it's too late to correct,... because these people are no longer alive. And friends will tell you, ''Hari's suicide was not your fault. You had nothing to do with it. It was an accident.'' But it wasn't an accident, and the heart knows it,... that you did not love enough, or you mortally wounded her,... and she departed... For nonexistence. But it only seems that she departed,... for in fact she draws closer and closer to you. The older you get, the heavier this sin weighs on your conscience,... and sooner or later you have to confront it. All Andrei's films were prophetic. Unfortunately, they were also prophesies about his own life. Because when he left the country... ln Solaris there is a phrase... Let me try to paraphrase it for you:. ''We love only what we can lose. Home, homeland, woman...'' And at a certain point he lost it all... and fell fatally ill. The values he held as a person,... the home he was almost never able to enjoy,... the comfort that nobody gave him,... a woman who could fully understand him,... and his homeland, which he Ioved very much... but which neither understood nor accepted him. For a long time he thought about escaping. When his mother died,... he could not return to his homeland to bury her. lt was then that the cancer cells attacked him. Some believe cancer is a kind of self-defense on the part of the body. l don't know. But in any case, Andrei was always doomed somehow. Doomed to suffer. On one occasion, in Goskino... when they told us to change 42 things in the film... we stood together looking out a window,... and he stood there and cried. He said, ''l bring unhappiness to everybody. To you too.'' l said, ''No, Andrei, you've given me great... happiness... Working with you.'' He always remembered these words. And then there was the Cannes festival. But the artist could hardly stay on his feet. Once we went to visit Romadin. Andrei was a bit of an epicure. He liked fine things. He was always impeccably dressed. At dinner, he picked up a fork and a knife,... and then a piece of food fell on the floor. He picked it up, put it back on his plate and ate it. He was hungry. He had no money. He owed 11,000 rubles... and didn't have a kopeck in his pocket. This was during Soviet times. You may remember how much 11,000 was. lt was much more than $11,000. l very much wanted to see Andrei when l learned that he had cancer. But you had no way to get in touch with him, right? l'll tell you. l got that opportunity when l went to France... for a children's film festival. l had just filmed Bambi... and had received several international awards,... and l was traveling with the film. So l asked if they could arrange a meeting with him. The KGB man who followed me everywhere said,... ''Absolutely not! l won't allow that!'' and he drove right past the cancer clinic. l will never forget that horror. l was desperate and ready to jump out the door,... like Hari when she broke through the steel door. l didn't know then that Larisa had already abandoned him... and left him to die in the cancer clinic. l didn't know that, but if l had known,... l would have slipped away at night to see him. l didn't know my way around France. They took me to the provinces soon after and that was that. That was a true horror. One time he and l had an intimate conversation. We were returning from the festival in Cannes. The authorities were concerned that the... two of us might stay in France,... because on occasion we had been seen meeting Russian immigrants. Baskakov was there. He was watching us all the time. We went to buy some perfume. Andrei bought some for his wife, and l bought some too,... and it got a little late. We got back and found Baskakov all purple in the face. l asked Andrei, ''What's the matter with him?'' ''He thought we might stay here.'' l said, ''what?'' It had never even occurred to me. Andrei said, ''You know, we could.'' l asked, ''What do you mean?'' And he said, ''Never mind. Who needs me there anyway? l can only make my long, boring films here.'' He said, ''l love my home. My son Andrushka has just been born.'' No, he wouldn't have left if it hadn't been for Larisa. Larisa wanted a different life. And then she left him,... and he never came back.