Back in 1967, the creative union of Vladimir Motyl and Bulat Okudzhava presented the audience with a real work of cinema, a heroic and lyrical comedy picture about the Great Patriotic War, “Eugene, Zhenechka and Katyusha.” Cinema, non-standard for the Soviet era in the genre, did not leave anyone indifferent. for its creators and filmmakers, the film was truly life-changing.
The background to the creation of Lenfilm studio's films Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha is as follows. With the filing of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army, publications periodically appeared in the press in the late 1960s that young people were reluctant to serve in the armed forces. It took cinematography to react to this urgent problem, for example, comedies on a military theme filmed in the West - “Babette Going to War”, “Mr. Pitkin Behind Enemy Lines.” The ideological task for artists and it was set like this: to raise the prestige of a soldier, patriotic films about the army and the comedy war are required, the director Vladimir Motyl took up the task of creating such a movie.
Appeal to the genre of heroic-lyrical comedy
Initially, the plans of Vladimir Motyl was to shoot a picture dedicated to the Decembrist Wilhelm Küchelbeker. The script was made up based on the historical biography novel "Kyuhlya" by Yuri Tynyanov. However, in the film sector under the Central Committee of the CPSU, the director was recommended to change the subject. Starting to shoot a film about the Great Patriotic War, Motyl decides to make the main character look like the Decembrist he loved - an equally awkward and eccentric dreamer. From here the genre of heroic-lyrical comedy was born - in a serious military drama such a character would look ridiculous. The heroization of the war with the image of battle scenes and coverage of the historical course of events is automatically relegated to the background. The director sees the main task in turning to the inner world of his heroes, showing the individuality and innermost feelings of a soldier.
Motyl turned to Bulat Okudzhava with a proposal to write a script. The director explained his choice as follows: "I adored this persistent, small, thin soldier, with his true truth about the war, soft humor amid heroic publications." The theme of the planned film about an intellectual student who falls into the war was close to the front-line soldier Okudzhava. Subsequently, he spoke of a creative alliance with Motyl: "still not knowing anything about each other, we caught the same plot."
On a military topic - both seriously and jokingly
The time to which what is happening in the film "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha" dates back to 1944, the final stage of the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Army with liberation battles is advancing across Europe towards "Berlin!"
The film was partially shot in Kaliningrad. As an example, a scene with a tipping of a canister of gasoline was shot opposite the only Gothic religious building in Russia, the Cathedral of the 14th century.
It should be noted that in the story written by V. Motyl in collaboration with B. Okudzhava, not all events and heroes are completely fictional. Some stories are based on real events. For example, an episode in which Kolyshkin, having gone on New Year's Eve for a parcel, got lost and fell into the dugout to the Fritz. Okudzhava took it from a note that appeared in one of the frontline newspapers. This story was told to a war correspondent by a soldier, who at first hid that he had visited the enemy’s location.
The situation that occurred in the Baltic Sea, when, literally a few steps from each other, Zhenya and Zhenechka missed each other, happened on the road of war with the director’s parents. V. Motyl, who had a hard time surviving the loss of his father and mother’s exile, added other autobiographical touches to the script. He was just a boy when the boys gathered in a military camp to prepare for a future war with Japan. Mentors there were former front-line soldiers, a variety of people: those who sympathized, and the Sordimord, because of which the children were starving. From here, from the difficult post-war childhood, the carefully drawn image of the rollicking and niggly soldier Zakhar Kosykh. This role was one of the first great works in the cinema for the novice actor Mikhail Kokshenov.
The image of Colonel Karavaev was created by Mark Bernes, who during the war became a popular favorite thanks to his work in such films as “Fighters” (1939) and “Two Fighters” (1943). The actor and songwriter did not complete the work on the role, the voice acting for the character for Mark Naumovich was performed by Grigory Gai. Bernes passed away at the age of 58, two days before the release of the Decree on awarding him the title People's Artist of the USSR.
In the episodes of the film "Zhenya Zhenechka and Katyusha" the screenwriter himself, writer and poet Bulat Okudzhava appears. A young volunteer who went to war from the Arbat court, Bulat was something like the main character of the picture. Much of that related to front-line life he brought to the script: images and dialogues, small, but important details. Motyl got ideas for some scenes from Okudzhava’s military youth, about which he spoke in the autobiographical story “Be healthy, schoolboy.”
In fact, the film was not about the war, but about the man in the war. About modern Don Quixote and about love, which will turn into a tragedy. The narrative is conducted in the form of an ironic and at the same time touching romantic story. The main artistic merit is the proclaimed inner freedom of a person in a difficult situation.
This is one of the few films in which the authors allowed themselves to joke on a military topic.
Zhenya Kolyshkin
A fragile intellectual from the Arbat, whom 1941 did not allow to complete his education at school, Zhenya Kolyshkin at the age of 18 serves in the regiment of mortars. Simple-minded and open-minded, he lives in the world of his fantasies and read books. There is no war in this illusory world, and Kolyshkin does not feel that he is really at the front. A sort of Don Quixote of our time, he hardly fits into the reality surrounding him. And therefore constantly gets into alterations and various stories:
- when in the episode with the accidental launch of Katyusha, the commander bastards him for incompetence and absurdity, Kolyshkin replies that his focus is to blame;
- in a quarrel among the soldiers, he invites his comrade with unplayable spontaneity: "Be my second!"
- in love with the signalman Zemlyanikin, Eugene is childishly naive when they play hide and seek in a huge empty house in the liberated city;
- in the scene with the lady of his heart, the knightly sword in his hands does not look funny, but creates the image of a touching and lyrical gentleman.
The action in the film is divided into peculiar episodes similar to the chapters of a chivalrous novel, with a slight touch of props and theatricality.
But in war as in war - what is happening in reality affects the peculiar inner world of the dreamer and romance Zhenya Kolyshkin. A strange and ridiculous young man, having passed through the crucible of war, turns into an adult man. And at the end of the film in front of the viewer is a matured 19-year-old guard fighter.
Initially, actor Bronislav Brondukov participated in film screenings for the role of the protagonist. But both scriptwriters were unanimous in choosing a performer when it came to Oleg Dal. According to external data, the actor did not match the character in any way. But according to the internal content, Pechorin of the Soviet era (as colleagues and critics characterized Dahl) was a “sniper hit” in the image. The director said that the main quality that he saw in Oleg was his absolute independence, the ability to think independently and subtly, to look at people and phenomena without taking into account established opinions. Oleg Dal is an extraordinary and tragic personality, which was in contradiction with time. And this contradiction worked for the inappropriate behavior of his character Zhenya Kolyshkin in the war. Hence the tragedy and the whole movie.
Zhenechka Zemlyanikina
When the shooting was already finished, the leaders decided not to allow the picture to be rented because of the tragic ending: the signalman Zhenechka Zemlyanikina was killed in the battle. Charming fair-haired girl of a slightly gross appearance, with a truly Russian female character - such, according to B. Okudzhava, was a real front-line girl. A sprig of strawberries at the entrance to the tent of signalmen and a laconic inscription "Who sticks out, I’m hitting! Zemlyanikina." One detail, but how much she talks about. This is the responsibility of the girl for the regimental communications entrusted to her on duty; and a hint that the annoying gentleman with her will be "sewn away"; and the firm intention of women, along with men, to fight for their homeland, giving a worthy rebuff to the enemy.
The main thing, according to the director, should have been in heroine - some feminine organic rudeness of a warring girl. Filming had just begun, it turned out that Natalya Kustinskaya, approved by the artistic council, did not correspond to her character's type. But the graduate of the Shchukin school, Galina Figlovskaya, struck Motyl with the accuracy of the portrait: "by no means a beauty, with sensual passionate lips created for both platonic and physical love." And when the actress appeared on the set, it turned out that by the character of Galina, she was a simple and sincere girl, a real fighting friend of Zhenya Kolyshkin and his comrades.
The acting profession did not become the main one for Galina Figlovskaya. Not lined up and a career in the theater. In the memory of the audience, she remained an actress, famous for the role of the front-line signalman Zhenechka Zemlyanikina.
The legendary Katyusha
In the frames of the film, among various military equipment, the legendary weapon of the Great Patriotic War appears - the BM-13 jet mortar, popularly known as Katyusha. Initially, our rocket launchers gave the launcher the name Raisa Sergeevna, first spelling from "rocket projectile". The Nazis dubbed the weapon the "Stalinist organ" for the consonance of its volleys with the powerful sounds of this instrument. Soviet military experts recognized the multiple launch rocket launcher as the “goddess of war”.
But the affectionate name "Katyusha" was given to formidable military equipment as early as the 41st, when the first missile salvo crashed down the enemy near Orsha. One of the guardsmen of the captain Flerov’s battery said about the installation: “I sang a song.” And in association with the popular front-line song by M. Blanter, to the verses of M. Iskovsky, Katyusha got its combat name. It is noteworthy that one of the subsequent models of the BM-31-12 jet mortar was called "Andryusha".
So, not only among the participants in the war, but also the front-line biography and "personal life" were formed at the weapon of Victory.
