The painting "Station for Two" by Eldar Ryazanov was released on the big screens on February 11, 1983 and was a resounding success - more than 35 million viewers watched it in the USSR alone.
Leading actress Lyudmila Gurchenko received a prize for a female role at the XVI All-Union Film Festival and the title of "Best Actress of the Year" according to the Soviet Screen magazine, and the tape itself was named "Best Film of the Year" by the same publication.
In addition, the film was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, received the Warsaw Siren award from Polish film critics as the best foreign film, and entered the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival.
The only and unique
The success of "Station for Two" is largely tied to the personality of its director.
Eldar Ryazanov has always been an outstanding director who created a unique atmosphere on the set and gathered incredible teams.
“This was expressed in the fact that he, basically, gathered around him people who were close in spirit, in fact, in talent.
Therefore, I always went to improvisation and therefore there was always such an atmosphere, ”Alexander Shirvindt, who played the role of pianist Shurik in the film, shared his memories in an interview with RT.
“This is the only director who had, as I call it, a film troupe,” Olga Volkova, who played waitress Violetta in Station for Two, told RT.
The actress noted that Ryazanov never offered the actors the same images in which they had recently appeared.
“He changed places, he gave a different quality.
Didn't use type.
This is the first.
Secondly, despite the fact that he knew what he was doing and was a man of power, after each shooting we all gathered on the bus, watched the video and everyone said what he thought.
And Ryazanov often listened and changed, included our proposals - also a unique, rare case, ”said the actress, emphasizing that Ryazanov’s shooting was precisely “collective creativity”.
“Although he knew what he was doing and was tough on his line.
But he always allowed us to express his comments, listened and immediately tried.
What other ambitious director would heed an actor's suggestion for character movement?
And he accepted it and further accepted my proposals.
And in me it’s not the swagger of the actor that I’m so well done, but what he heard, ”recalls Volkova.
Based on real events
Eldar Ryazanov wrote the script together with his co-author Emil Braginsky, with whom at that time he had been collaborating for almost two decades.
Filmmakers did not advertise the fact that the plot of "Station for Two" was based on two real stories at once.
The first is a case from the life of the famous Soviet composer Mikael Tariverdiev, who partly became the prototype of the protagonist Platon Ryabinin.
Tariverdiev took the blame for his beloved, actress Lyudmila Maksakova, who accidentally knocked down a man to death.
The artist said that he was driving, and was put on trial.
For two years of proceedings, relations with Maksakova fell apart, and the composer himself did not go to prison under an amnesty.
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The second case occurred with the poet Yaroslav Smelyakov, the author of the poem "Good girl Lida", which was heard in the film by Leonid Gaidai "Operation" Y "and Shurik's other adventures."
In the early 1950s, he served time in the camp as a political prisoner, to whom, after the death of Stalin, the attitude was softer than to other convicts.
Smelyakov, on receipt, was released on "dismissal" - to friends Yuli Dunsky and Valery Frida, who were in a settlement not far from the camp.
After the feast, all three overslept the alarm clock and, so that the poet would not be late for the morning verification, Dunsky and Frid dragged a friend on themselves.
Modesty and broken knees
They shot "Station for Two", as often happens in the movies, from the end - for reasons of matching the weather.
There were some adventures: in the final scene, the heroes Basilashvili and Gurchenko run with an accordion to the gates of the colony, exhausted from fatigue and demonstrating a whole range of emotions - hope, love, despair - after all, Ryabinin (like Smelyakov in reality) by all means you have to be sure on time.
It's almost -30°C outside.
The actors ran along a snowy road, the cameraman was taken on a sled.
In order for the camera to keep up with the characters, several people from the film crew were “harnessed” into the sled.
Rumor has it that Ryazanov himself was one of them.
Basilashvili and Gurchenko often slipped and fell, which had a positive effect on the emotional component of the scene, but it was not an idea in itself - it was just that the road was really of little use for running.
As Ryazanov later recalled, Gurchenko had “both knees smashed to pieces” from falls.
Another episode caused a lot of difficulties - the kiss of the main characters.
The artists met just a couple of hours before the start of filming, and Basilashvili, who was famous for modesty, not to say shyness, was not ready to kiss an unfamiliar woman.
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the director and left the site.
The situation was saved by Gurchenko.
“They didn’t agree with me, and I just left the shooting.
I thought that they had removed me and someone else would play, but two days later a call followed.
I came, and Lucy gave me the text: she wrote it herself.
Since then, a really warm mutual friendship has begun between us, ”said Oleg Basilashvili in the TV program“ Secrets of Our Cinema ”.
The plot of "Station for Two" is interesting because, against the backdrop of an already not very banal story, the characters, as the plot develops, open up from new sides and radically change the viewer's attitude towards themselves.
The main character, musician Platon Ryabinin, secretly travels from Moscow to Griboyedov to see his seriously ill father.
He is afraid that there will be no other chance to see him, because the hero is most likely to be imprisoned for a fatal accident in which his wife was to blame, and Ryabinin, to help her save her career on television, took responsibility.
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At the station of the provincial town of Zastupinsk, Ryabinin goes to a restaurant, where he has a conflict with the local waitress Vera.
The hero refuses to pay for lunch ("What should I eat this?! It's already been eaten once!") and because of the scandal that has begun, he is late for his train.
As a result of a series of misadventures, Plato is forced to spend two more days in Zastupinsk.
He loses his wallet, tries himself as a melon merchant and suddenly finds true love.
In the course of the action, Plato, somewhat arrogant, reveals himself from a different side and turns out to be a noble and selfless person.
As well as the waitress Vera, who at first gives the impression of a provincial boorish woman: in fact, she is a sympathetic and kind woman, forced to cope with difficult life circumstances.
The “role” of the railway station in the city of Zastupinsk, which in reality never existed, was “played” by the Rizhsky railway station in Moscow.
But problems arose here too: according to Ryazanov's plan, the station was supposed to be a transit station - through.
Riga is a dead end.
Therefore, some of the scenes were filmed in other locations, for example, at the Losinoostrovskaya station in Moscow and at the Vitebsky railway station in St. Petersburg.
The colonies and the village were filmed in the suburbs.
Not losing relevance
Attention to detail, careful study of the script and characters, creative freedom on the set, directed in the right direction by a talented director, a brilliant cast - all these are the components of the success of Ryazanov's films in general and "Station for Two" in particular.
That is why the director's work does not lose its relevance even now.
“Absolutely, to the terrible, to the surprise,” said Olga Volkova.
Eldar Ryazanov himself also appeared in the film in a small role.
He played the deputy head of the station, to whom Basilashvili's character addresses on the platform, realizing that he was late for the train.
It is the hero of the director who owns the catchphrase “I personally don’t go to restaurants, I dine at home.
My wife is a great cook.
And restaurants are a completely different department.”
The station for two was re-released in Russia in November 2022.
Then the tape, which became a classic of Soviet cinema, was shown in about 40 cinemas.