Grigory Chukhrai is a Soviet film director, honored artist, screenwriter with a destiny worthy of becoming an example for the modern generation.
Wounded three times in the war, he managed to survive in order to convey his unique creativity to the viewer through the TV screen.
Grigory Chukhrai: biography of the Soviet film director
Grigory was born in Melitopol (Ukraine, Zaporozhye region) on May 23, 1921. His father, Naum Zinovievich Rubanov, was a military man. Mom - Claudia Petrovna Chukhrai, after a divorce from her husband in 1924, met a man who became Grigory's stepfather. It was Pavel Antonovich Litvinenko, who worked as the chairman of the collective farm and laid the best human traits in the upbringing of the boy.
At the end of 1939, Grigory Chukhrai was drafted into the army. He began his service as a cadet of the regimental school of the battalion of the 134th Infantry Division in the city of Mariupol. During the Great Patriotic War, he filed a report on enrollment in the airborne troops, which was satisfied by the command. So, being a paratrooper, Grigory Chukhrai participated in the battles of different fronts, in the defense of Stalingrad,often jumped behind enemy lines with a parachute, was wounded several times. In August 1944, he became a member of the CPSU (b), and in December 1945, being in the rank of senior lieutenant, he was fired to the reserve after being wounded. Grigory Chukhrai received many awards for the front-line path covered, including the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War, the medals "For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For the Victory over Germany".
First steps in cinema
Upon his return in 1946 from the front, the future director Grigory Chukhrai, whose filmography is amazing with the truthfulness and inner strength of films, entered VGIK, the directing department. Working as an assistant director, he practiced in M. Romm's film "Admiral Ushakov". After graduating from an educational institution, in 1953, Grigory was offered to stay at Mosfilm, but the promising young man decided to return to Ukraine, where he got a job at the Kyiv Studio of Feature Films, first as an assistant, and then as a second director.
Military "Forty-First"
In 1955, at the request of M. Romm and A. Pyryev, Grigory Chukhrai (photos are presented in the article) was transferred to Mosfilm.
There the author began to create the first independent film "Forty-First" (1956), which was based on the story of B. Lavrenev. The work was positively evaluated by the audience and won a special prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. This picture is about the doomed love of two people who find themselves on opposite sides of the class barricades, about the sincere, deep feelings of a man and a woman whomIzolda Izvitskaya and Oleg Strizhenov, who became symbols of the 1950s era, played soulfully. This picture, in which everything is really strong, sincere and painful, makes you not only believe what is happening on the screen, but also empathize with all your heart. Although there are no deaths in front of the camera lenses and there are no enemy soldiers, director Grigory Chukhrai managed to make the viewer deeply imbued with wartime, showing that even in the most acute, terrible historical moments, life goes on and people love each other, no matter what.
Triumphant "Ballad of a Soldier"
Chukhrai's next film "The Ballad of a Soldier" (1959) was successful, also triumphantly walked across the screens of the world, won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival, striking contemporaries with a deep insight into the psychology of an individual, inner harmony and artistic integrity.
Grigory Chukhrai came up with the idea of this film when he was still a student. He, a front-line soldier, really wanted to tell about his comrades-in-arms, many of whom did not live to see peacetime. The screenwriter Valentin Yezhov, who also went through the war and wished to tell the truth, honestly, without loud phrases, in simple human words about a peer, a hero soldier who gave his life for the Motherland, helped the young director with this idea. The main character of the picture, Alyosha Skvortsov, brilliantly played by Vladimir Ivashov, became a vivid symbol of the Russian soldier of the Great Patriotic War.
"Clear Sky" by Grigory Chukhrai
Motion picture "Puresky” (1961) was devoted to understanding the Stalinist period in the history of the country. This is the story of "Stalin's falcon", a fearless Soviet pilot who survived German captivity, expulsion from the party, deprivation of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but remained a blindly believing communist.
The film featured a brilliant ensemble cast: Nina Drobysheva, Evgeny Urbansky, Oleg Tabakov.
In 1964, a 2-episode drama film “Once upon a time there was an old man with an old woman” was released, telling about the life of people from the Russian hinterland, namely the old Gusakovs. At the end of their lives, they faced difficult trials: a fire destroyed their housing, which forced the elderly couple to go to their daughter Nina in the Arctic, whose life did not work out. The film tells about the human race for happiness, and the title of the picture refers the viewer to Pushkin's fairy tale about the goldfish.
About the deserter's mother
The next work - "The Bog" appeared on the screens in 1977. This is a film about the mother of a deserter - Matryona Bystrova (Nonna Mordyukova), who lost her husband at the front, then her eldest son. Trying to save her youngest child, the quiet, shy Dmitry (Andrey Nikolaev), from the war, she decided to hide him in the attic.
Saving her son, the mother doomed herself to the pangs of conscience, and her child to spiritual death. Every day Dmitry turns into a hunted and evil animal, whose life consists of food, whining, blaming his mother for all the troubles and constant fear. Mother's private historythe deserter grows in the context of the film to epic proportions, making this work the most significant work about wartime. At first, Grigory Chukhrai wanted to name the painting "Atypical Story", because the mother is forced to shelter the child not from enemies, but from her own.
"Life is beautiful" in a fictional country
The joint Soviet-Italian work “Life is Beautiful” (1980) with the participation of Ornella Muti, an Italian movie star, tells about a certain fictional country in which a military junta rules and any free thought is brutally suppressed. Taxi driver Antonio Murillo becomes involved in the underground's political struggle against the dictatorship. Dreaming of the profession of a pilot and his own plane, he becomes a victim of a denunciation, ends up in prison, where he is tortured. Thanks to his resourcefulness, he managed to organize an escape from prison and even from the country.
In 1985, in collaboration with M. Volodsky and Y. Shvyrev, Grigory Chukhrai, whose filmography is mainly devoted to wartime, made a documentary film "I'll teach you to dream" (1985). The work is dedicated to the memory of the teacher and great director Mark Donskoy.
Director Grigory Chukhrai: personal life
The personal life of director Grigory Chukhrai is similar to his works - real, poignant, sincere. The director met his future wife Iraida Penkova in 1942 in Essentuki, where he was sent as part of the landing troops. Together with her friends, a 21-year-old student of the local pedagogical institute dug anti-tank ditches, and in the eveningswent to dances. There, two halves of one whole met. When the Germans entered the city, the young man was transferred to other positions, and Iraida remained in the city. For two whole years, Grigory Chukhrai, whose personal life did not make sense without Iraida, was looking for his love, but to no avail. Then he wrote to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, and a miracle happened: the girl read this message and responded. In 1944, Grigory Chukhrai returned to the city liberated from the German invaders, and on May 9 the couple got married. From the groom, Iraida received a huge bouquet of lilacs as a gift. A year later, in 1945, along with the wedding anniversary, the young family celebrated the Great Victory. Since then, May 9 has become a double holiday for the spouses, and lilacs are their favorite flowers. Gregory and Iraida lived together for more than half a century. The director's children are his son Pavel, who followed his father's path and became a film director, and daughter Elena, who graduated from the film studies department of VGIK.
Chukhrai's social activities
In addition to filming, the Soviet director was actively involved in social, teaching and administrative activities, in 1965-1975 he was the artistic director of the Experimental Creative Association at Mosfilm, in 1966-1971 he worked as a teacher in the director's workshop of VGIK. Since 1965, he was the secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, and in 1964-1991. - Member of the Collegium of the USSR Goskino.
The last years of his life, Grigory Chukhrai was very seriously ill, survived several heart attacks, and could not move well. Notbecame a great director on October 29, 2001, he was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.
Today, the Soviet film director is the owner of the largest number of international awards - 101! And this despite the fact that Grigory Chukhrai made only 8 films during his creative life. He shot each of them according to his own script, not imagining how you can work with someone else's material. Years after the death of the director, his films still participate in film festivals, receiving various awards.
