“A five-year-old boy can be a director in Hollywood”: Konchalovsky on work in the USA, censorship and dinner with Nastasya Kinski

“Do you remember how you imagined Hollywood before you got there?” And what changed when you started working there?

- I got to Hollywood in the last years of its post-war heyday.

Hollywood in general was very belated in European culture - in contrast to American literature, which treated it with awe. As you know, all the prominent American writers of the 1930s spent in Paris. Hemingway, Faulkner ... that's it. 

When I arrived in Hollywood, European cinema reigned there. Spielberg adored Truffaut, the French director. Coppola, Scorsese adored neorealism and all the paintings of de Sica. Maurice Chevalier starred in Hollywood during the war. After the war - Vittorio Gassman, Sophia Loren. After that, great directors were called to America - Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman.

True, neither Kurosawa, nor Fellini, nor Bergman could. They came, watched how everything works - and molt. They could not work in Hollywood.

For what reason? Because the producer reigns in Hollywood. The producer is king. I remember when I shot the film “Tango and Cash” (this is a huge production!), The producer came and said: “Come along, I want to talk with you.” I say: "I am shooting." And he says: “Don’t be afraid, they will take off everything without you. Everything will be fine". They’ll take it off without you, you know? In Hollywood, the director can be a five-year-old boy who knows two words: “motor” and “stop”. Everything else is done by itself.

When I got to Hollywood, and there was a huge French colony, and I lived with the artist Coppola ... it was some kind of paradise. Agnes Varda, the famous filmmaker of the French "new wave", also wanted to shoot something. Bertolucci began filming there. It was a time when Hollywood was not yet the bait of Wall Street.

On the other hand, it was clear that this time was ending. And it ended at the moment when Star Wars came out.

Star Wars brought so much money to studios! .. And most importantly, Wall Street realized that a new era was beginning, an era of huge, huge money. By the way, Lucas (George Lucas, creator of the saga. - RT ) told me how he walked around the studios and offered the Star Wars script. Nobody wanted to take it! In the end, persuaded. Says: "I agree to withdraw without money." - “Okay, give it, there is $ 11 million in total.” And he: “Under one condition. All the toys (called merchandising) I will make and I will sell. " He was told: "Well, take your toys." Here. The picture was worth $ 11 million, and he earned somewhere around $ 200 million on toys. Hollywood crouched on its hind legs: "What happened?"

But this happened: the baby boomer generation has grown. They were 15-17 years old, and they went to the movies. Star Wars is not made for parents who still read Faulkner, but for young people who eat popcorn or ice cream. From now on, I think Hollywood fell into the hands of Wall Street. They realized that you can invest a lot of money and earn huge money. The era began when the main films began to be made for the teenage generation. And that was the end of an era that I had the happiness of experiencing.

Until that moment, money played a relative role. It was possible to make serious money in relation to costs. The same “Godfather” was worth $ 6 million ... “The Godfather”, which raised a lot of money! Then Hollywood was important to make a lot of inexpensive paintings. After the advent of Star Wars, budgets suddenly grew unthinkable.

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This was the last mine charge, which undermined the ability to make independent cinema the way it was before when I arrived there. I started there some kind of independent work there. John Voight then watched Sibiriada, and he really liked it.

In short, I had the illusion that I would have a career in Hollywood. But it was not Hollywood.

It so happened that I spent two and a half years without work, taught at the university. He tried to prove to everyone that I was not a camel, but that was impossible. Although I already had Sibiriada, the festivals were Cannes, success, grand prix.

I came to a place where I always had to be able to sell myself. And I suddenly realized that I could not sell myself. Because the Soviet government. Under the Soviet regime, you don’t have to sell yourself, you don’t have to come up with a storyline, tell something there and say how much this will bring money.

I was very lucky that Nastasya Kinsky was very fashionable then. I remember I called her to a restaurant. We were familiar with her from Paris, they from Polanski came to Sibiriada. She said: “Let's see you again” (because I was offered to stage “The Seagull” with her in Paris, as a performance). We met, and suddenly she asked me: "And you have no picture for me?" I say: “No, I don’t have a picture for you, I have a small script that I wrote for Isabella Adjani.” She broke out so offended. And I had $ 100 in my pocket and nothing more. I think: God forbid, I don’t have enough money. There was absolutely no money. I say: “Yes, such a plot ...” She: “And what, I can not play?” I suddenly realized: “Why not?” Boom! She: "I want to." Meanwhile, Time magazine comes out with her on the cover.

All. I have great prospects. We are going to Cannes. There I meet Israeli producers who tell the story. In the morning, at eight in the morning, in Cannes (it’s difficult to get up in Cannes at eight in the morning, but they appointed me like that), while I was telling him the plot and dancing, he would sit in his underpants on the edge of the bath and shave. I told him, told. I’ve been unemployed for three years. He says: “A good script. Move to America. If you transfer to America - (and I had an action in Yugoslavia) - we will do it. Go down, have some coffee, think. ”

I went and drank. I already knew that I agreed on everything. But I was lucky, and I began to shoot in America paintings that are independent of Hollywood.

I believe the real sunset in Hollywood began, of course, with the “witch hunt”. After the war in America, the Communist Party and socialist ideas were very strong. And then the largest directors, actors, writers were called to the commission on charges of anti-American activity. The second blow was inflicted on Hollywood when Wall Street came and said: “We will invest in you, and you will work for us. We will make Marvel films. ” And it went: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Ironman (Iron Man. - RT ) and so on. That is, money decided to make money. And everything turned into a machine, designed to create pictures for the youth as uniform as possible, with lots of effects.

I remember when I was shooting Odyssey, they told me ... Censorship in Hollywood is much more powerful than it was in the Soviet Union. Only nobody understands this ...

- What do you have in mind?

- Everything is very simple. In the Soviet Union, it was impossible to make pictures that called into question the role of the Communist Party. Everything else could be removed.

Not only that, if you take all the pictures that were forbidden, there will be maybe ten of them. In particular, one of mine, one at Tarkovsky. But how are they forbidden? They printed not two thousand copies, as usual, but two. She kind of came out, and she's gone. But she was taken off.

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And in Hollywood, it's almost impossible to make a picture: it will be cut off in the bud when you only submit an application. Or you shoot and, if you don’t like something, you are simply removed from the picture. The producer decides everything for you. How do you shoot whom do you shoot. Well, if you are not Spielberg, not the person who brings a billion dollars.

But I know that the strictest censorship in Hollywood itself is the Pentagon. Coppola told me that.

The Pentagon approves all films that feature military personnel or CIA workers. He reads everything. And, if the Pentagon is against, people have to make edits.

It seems to me that this is the tragedy of American cinema.

I have to say that it is an illusion that Hollywood makes it possible to express oneself. You must be able to such unbearable willpower, to be able to adapt! Here is Bekmambetov a talented filmmaker. And with what difficulty did he do something there? Here, Bodrov managed! This, of course, is luck. But today, intelligence has gone from Hollywood. Nobody needs him. Where did he go? In the television. All the best literary cinematographic works are now in series. Thank god there is a platform.

Coppola wrote about this, Scorsese wrote about it, Lucas wrote about it. They said that it’s impossible to shoot sequels all the time. Ironman four, five, six, and so on. Where is the creativity? And this is the big issue that David Mamet, the great American playwright, wrote about a wonderful book called Bambi vs. Godzilla. He compared today's Hollywood with Godzilla, and the artist with Bambi.

What can I say about Hollywood? It was a very pleasant city where it is impossible to have friends. Wonderful weather, you can run around the ocean. When I arrived there, of course, the illusion was that I got exactly where I want to be. But, thank God, now I have the opportunity to do what I want. At home and in Europe. 

- You happened to work with Sylvester Stallone on the film “Tango and Cash”. Four years earlier, he had made the movie Rocky 4, in which he fought against Soviet boxer Ivan Drago, and the USSR was generally shown as such an evil empire in the spirit of the Cold War. Do you think Stallone really saw the Soviet Union like that?

- Oh, nonsense! Of course not. He generally cares. It is necessary to make money, it is necessary to make a commercial thing. Who is the villain in a commercial thing? Either the Chinese or the Russians. Well, come on, let’s do the Russians. All.

He did not think about politics at all. This is an absolutely purely commercial movie, where it was necessary to set how ... Yes, Stallone is charming, smart, practical. Well, you know, there is a famous expression: "Nothing personal, just business." Nothing personal, just business. Here's how to make a movie in America.

See the full version of the interview with Andrei Konchalovsky on RTD.