The feature film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" is the golden "Oscar-winning" classic of Russian cinema. Fans of this film are well aware of the wonderful actresses, actors and director who worked on this masterpiece, but hardly anyone will remember the name of the playwright and screenwriter who invented this romantic story. And this is Valentin Konstantinovich Chernykh, a talented writer who created five dozen scripts for films during his creative life, also wrote short stories, novels, short stories, a teacher and a public figure.
Biography facts. Military childhood
Valentin Konstantinovich Chernykh was born in the city of Pskov on March 12, 1935. His father was a military commissar of the 213rd Pskov Regiment, and in 1941, when the Great Patriotic War began, he and his wife and two sons were in the Belarusian city of Grodno, near the border with Poland. The Nazis began to bomb the city; Valentine’s father said: “This is war!”, got up and left forever. Only after 60 years, relatives learned about how heroically he died surrounded, not surrendering to enemies. Mother with six-year-old Valentine and his two-year-old younger brother went to the Pskov region. They walked only in the dark to protect themselves from shelling from the air. Horror, fear, suspense - all these emotions forever engraved in the memory of the boy. The case when an enemy car caught up with refugees on the road, and several Germans nearly took away with him his mother, a very beautiful woman, was miraculously able to fight back.
Already in his school years, Valentin Chernykh showed literary talent and a penchant for creative writing. An interesting fact: his first works were inspired by the stories of a relative who was at the front and was captured in France. And Chernykh - a boy who grew up in a village and does not know anything about other countries - showed imagination and composed a story about a prisoner of war and his adventures in France. Moreover, he sent this story not to anyone, but to Konstantin Simonov himself, an outstanding writer and war correspondent. And Simonov answered, or rather, advised the beginning writer to always write only about what he knew and saw. And Chernykh tried all his life to be guided by this principle.
Years of study
After leaving school, Valentin was called up to serve in the army as a mechanic in a fighter regiment stationed in the Primorsky Territory. Demobilized, he went to Kamchatka, then to Chukotka, then to Magadan, where he lived for three years. Here, in 1958, he began working in the newspaper Magadan Komsomolets.
In the late 1950s, Chernykh left for Moscow. Here he received a secondary special education at the School of Factory Apprenticeship (FZU), got a job as a collector at a shipyard. In parallel with the development of a working specialty, the young man continued to engage in literary work, was a freelance author of various newspapers.
In 1961, Chernykh entered the VGIK named after Lunacharsky at the scenario faculty. He considered himself a “great-age student”, since he was already 26 years old, he had a wife Margarita and a son George (Gosha). At VGIK Chernykh met his future second wife, graduate student Lyudmila Kozhinova; relations with her brought him at that time many problems - for "immoral behavior" he was not accepted into the CPSU, he had to transfer to the correspondence department and even leave Moscow for some time.
Beginning of a creative career
While still a student, Chernykh wrote the script for the documentary film "Earth without God" (1963), which was filmed. In 1967, Valentin Chernykh graduated from VGIK and received a screenwriting diploma. The following year, 1968, he graduated from television directors' courses, and for some time worked in the Vremya program. And in 1973 he made his debut as a screenwriter in art cinema: director Alexei Sakharov made the film "A Man in His Place" starring Vladimir Menshov, the future director of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. At the Mosfilm film studio, a competition was announced for the best scenario dedicated to village life, and Chernykh, as an expert on this life, took part in the competition. His script was approved, the film was successful - about a young ambitious collective farm chairman, enthusiast and innovator. The picture was shown at the film festival in Alma-Ata in 1973, and Menshov was even awarded as a performer of the best male role.
The creative activity of Valentin Chernykh was extremely intense. Over 40 years of his work - from 1972 to 2012 - he wrote 50 screenplays, that is, for each year there were more than one script! According to the directors with whom he worked, Chernykh was a unique screenwriter and a very responsible person: he was on the set until the film was released - he was present on the set, on the artistic councils, sat with cameramen and directors in the editing room.
"Moscow does not believe in tears" and other films
In 1976, Valentin Chernykh again met on the set with Vladimir Menshov while working on the film "Own Opinion", which was shot by Julius Karasik. Menshov was also in the lead role, but by then he had already managed to work as a director, having shot the picture "Raffle". Chernykh, obviously, was appreciated by the directorial work of Menshov, because he offered him a new script, or rather, the story of three girls from the province who came to Moscow and trying to build their personal life and career here. Menshov liked the plot as a whole, especially the moment when the main character sets an alarm and goes to bed, and wakes up under his ring after 20 years. However, I wanted to modify or redo much of the script - for example, instead of one series, it was decided to do two, and this required the writing of many new scenes and the creation of new storylines. There were plenty of disputes and even quarrels between the scriptwriter and the director during the work. But, despite this, they both retained a sense of gratitude to each other and mutual respect. Later Chernykh and Menshov even planned to make a continuation of “Moscow”, discussed some options, but these plans were not destined to come true. Meanwhile, the film “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” was released in 1980 and became a cinematic bestseller, not only in the USSR, but also abroad - to the surprise of the filmmakers themselves, he was awarded the Academy Award of the United States Academy Award as the best foreign movie. According to rumors, President Ronald Reagan in 1985, before visiting the USSR, watched this film eight times to understand the characteristics of the Russian soul.
Among the fifty films shot based on the scripts of Valentin Konstantinovich, one should mention Taste of Bread (1979, on the development of Tselina, the USSR State Prize was awarded to the script writer), Marry the Captain (1985, Lenfilm film studio), Satisfy My Sorrows "(1989, Valentin Chernykh starred as an actor in the role of driver, Luba’s lover), films by the director and actor Evgeny Matveev" Love in Russian "1, 2 and 3 (1995, 1996, 1999), " Children of the Arbat "(2004, TV series based on the trilogy of Anatoly Rybakov), "Own" (2004, the film received "Nick" and "Golden Eagle" in the nomination "Best Screenplay"), "Brezhnev" (2005), "Four Days in May" (2011, the last film by Chernykh, devoted to the events of World War II).
Pedagogical and social activities
In 1981, Valentin Konstantinovich came to work in his alma mater - he became a teacher, professor at VGIK. Under his leadership, a student script workshop worked.
As a public figure, he was a member of such organizations as the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, the Union of Journalists of Russia, the Union of Writers of Russia. In order to develop domestic cinema, as well as to support young screenwriters, Valentin Chernykh, together with his fellow film-playwrights Valery Fried and Eduard Volodarsky, created and headed the Slovo studio in Mosfilm in 1987. And in 2014 - on the anniversary of the death of Valentin Konstantinovich - the V. Cherny Prize "Word" was established in such nominations as "best literary script", "best debut on television", "best full-length debut". The chairman and co-founder of the Expert Council of this award was the widow of Valentin Chernykh Lyudmila Kozhinova.
Screenwriter Valentin Chernykh made a significant contribution to Soviet and Russian cinema. His merits were evaluated by the state: in 1980 he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR with the State Prize, in 1985 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and in 2010 - the Order of Friendship.
Valentin Konstantinovich Chernykh died on August 6, 2012 at the Botkin Moscow hospital - his heart could not stand it. He was 77 years old. The writer's grave is located at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.
