Vasily Katanyan: biography and filmography

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:53

Best known as a cinematographer, Vasily Katanyan has also worked extensively in the writing field. He was lucky to participate in the lives of people close to Mayakovsky, he devoted many works to this great poet. He was even more fortunate to be born in 1924 in Tiflis, which sheltered many poets and artists with whom his father communicated and worked, and then to move after them to the capital. And later become a famous documentary filmmaker and memoir writer.

Path

Everything was conducive to this path, since the Katanyans were surrounded by real idols all their lives. His father, also Vasily Katanyan, married for the third time in 1937 - to Lila Brik. It was at the same time a tragedy, since his wife and mother of Vasily Jr., Galina Dmitrievna, suffered greatly, and at the same time happiness to plunge into that isolated world, into which not everyone enters. The book about the most famous woman of her time, written by Vasily Katanyan (son), is considered comprehensive in terms of revealing the atmosphere of this most interesting era.

Family. Tiflis

Father of the famous cinematographer, born in April 1902 in the already anticipatedrevolutionary events in Moscow, the elder Katanyan quickly entered the most famous companies of poets of the Silver Age, since he was remarkably gifted as a literary critic and wrote good poetry. Studied Vasily Katanyan (senior) in Tiflis, at the Polytechnic Institute. As a student, he became friends with Evreinov, Kamensky, Kruchenykh, Zdanevich, spoke in their company with articles and poems.

Then, in 1919, Katanyan Sr. was accepted into the Union of Russian Writers of Georgia and given membership in the "Workshop of Poets". Since 1921, he published the newspaper Art, worked at the Zakkniga publishing house, where he published Mayakovsky’s books, who remained a favorite poet for life, including the following: “To Sergei Yesenin”, “Syphilis”, “A Conversation with the Financial Inspector” (they were illustrated by the famous Rodchenko), and the sweetest book for children with illustrations by Zdanevich - "Every page, then an elephant, then a lioness." In 1926, his first literary work was published, which aroused noisy interest and general approval - about censorship in Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection".

Moscow

The Katanyans moved to the capital in 1927. Vasily Katanyan (father) took a three-year-old boy around Moscow, showed him the editorial office of the Novy Lef magazine, where he got a job as a secretary. By the way, Katanyan Sr. was published everywhere - in the most important publications of the country: Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Evening Moscow, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Young Guard,where he later worked. Little Katanyan Vasily Vasilyevich listened attentively and looked intently: after all, his father was a member of the Executive Bureau and the Council of the Association of Soviet Writers, the people around were exceptionally interesting. Especially those who helped write about the great poet.

It so happened that a great love for the work of this giant in all respects led to a tragedy in the Katanyan family, but otherwise the book about Mayakovsky - "The Roots of Poems" would not have been published in 1934, and in 1940 - a collection articles "Stories about Mayakovsky", when everything had already somehow settled down, and young Vasily Vasilyevich Katanyan reconciled with the appearance of Lily Brik in his life, and with the rest of reality. Mayakovsky completely entered the Katanyan family - all three editions of this poet passed through the hands of Vasily Sr. as a compiler and editor: both 1939, and 1949, and 1961. Vasily Jr., like a sponge, absorbed everything that was happening around. And amazing things happened.

Atmosphere

Vasily Jr. delved into everything his father did from a very young age. He not only watched, but also helped. After the departure (or rather, after he was kicked out) of his father, the most fundamental work of Katanyan Sr. came out of the family. At this time, Vasily Jr. no longer lived with his mother, but in the family of his father and Lily Brik. Students are still studying Mayakovsky's work according to the "Brief Chronicle …", which was published in 1939, and are absolutely unaware of the tragedies that accompanied this. The world knows two of the most talented Katanyans - father and son, and who is Vasily Leontyevich Katanyan,in the past a citizen of the USSR, for some reason the world does not know.

But Vasily Abgarovich wrote both plays and screenplays, perhaps that is why his son had an excellent cinematic career. It is impossible not to mention the play "They Knew Mayakovsky" staged at the Leningrad Academic Theatre, the opera "Not Only Love" by the composer Shchedrin, where the libretto was written by Katanyan Sr., the script for the film "Anna Karenina" and the script (probably excellent) of the failed film about Chernyshevsky. Such a multi-talented person could not grow up a mediocre son. The whole environment, the atmosphere itself helped to get the impressions and knowledge necessary for a life lived solely for the sake of creativity.

Half a century in movies

Katanyan Vasily Vasilyevich was friends with a colleague - Eldar Ryazanov. That is why this surname sounded in two popularly beloved films: from the lips of Myagkov (“Katanyans will come”) and Filatov (“Katanyan is my last name”). The films of Katanyan Jr. are no less famous, despite the fact that they are documentaries. Because in them the audience meets their favorite celebrities again: Anna Akhmatova, Rodion Shchedrin, Maya Plisetskaya, Sergei Eisenstein, Paul Robeson, Arkady Raikin, Lyudmila Zykina…

Vasily Katanyan - film director - actively participated in the creation of the series "The Great Patriotic War". He also made many independent documentaries that won prizes at international film festivals. Vasily Katanyan is a director whofilmed documentaries for a little less than half a century! Not every person has the opportunity to get satisfaction from his profession for such a long time. He also wrote books, and many writers consider the younger Katanyan one of the best memoirists.

Two loves

The New Yorker magazine recently published an article by Francine du Plessis Gray, the daughter of the same Tatyana Yakovleva, who, as a young Parisian emigrant, won the heart of the great Mayakovsky. At that moment, only a year and a half remained for him to live in this world. The article was called "The Last Whom Mayakovsky Loved". Du Plessis did not learn anything from her mother about this connection, since the family had an aristocratic "do not talk about it." A bunch of letters and telegrams fell into her hands after the death of both her mother and stepfather. In 1999, the poet's daughter came to Moscow to acquaint the Mayakovsky Museum with the documents she had.

And a year later, a book was published about another woman, written by her stepson. Russia met with trepidation this hitherto unknown correspondence of the sisters - Lily Brik and Elsa Triolet. And they corresponded for a very long time, almost all their lives - from 1921 to 1970. It was prepared by the writer and director Vasily Katanyan, who was already approaching the last threshold, whose biography was filled with the living breath of these historically famous women, since his father had been married to one of them for about forty years.

Two hundred and ninety-five letters saw the light of day. Collected by Vasily Katanyan photo with solemn autographs andrandom table drawings made by the poet’s hand, the smallest notes, lengthy letters and telegrams sent from all over the world, he classified and published, revealing to readers the veil of secrecy over the poet’s relationship with his women. Perhaps no one could have done it more tactfully and chastely, as Vasily Katanyan did.

Lilya Brik

Life decreed that Lilya became the closest of people to the poet. This has been proved indisputably and tragically, since the suicide note listing his family was started by Mayakovsky with the name of Lily Brik. Even the birth mother and sisters are mentioned below. Du Plessis refers to a certain masochism, to which the poet allegedly had a penchant. All friends were really surprised at the cruelty that her communication with him turned out to be, it was despotism of the highest level. And he was quiet with her, timid and obsequious, always and everything for the sake of her slightest whim. However, du Plessis is certainly biased, and friends did not see the whole truth.

This deep attachment to stay on one despotism for so many years simply could not. How else to explain that even after his death, Lilya Yuryevna was deeply extraordinary even in old age, attracting people to her with both sharpness of mind and personal charm. She knew how to make friends. The most talented cinematographer Spergey Parajanov, whom she repeatedly saved from all sorts of troubles, confirmed this. Vasily Katanyan was always benevolent in his writings towards his stepmother. Lilya Brik inflicted a huge injury on a fourteen-year-oldthe boy, when his father left the family for her, there is no need to even talk about the stress that Galina Dmitrievna, his beloved mother, experienced. And yet.

High relationship

Osip Brik himself came to persuade the wife of Katanyan Sr. Let them - Lilya and Vasily - continue to prepare the complete works of the poet, he said, they need to see each other daily. Show tolerance, he said, do not drive your husband away, despite the fact that Vasily’s close relationship with Lily is getting tighter and tighter. But Galina Dmitrievna was not close to such morality. Even when in the book Vasily Katanyan writes about the severe depression that overtook his mother, he is careful with statements about Lila and bitterly drops a few phrases about the influence of Osip Brik on her.

And still, the tolerance of the writer, as they say now, rolls over. He carefully hides his antisympathies, even his sympathies are not in the foreground. He does not evaluate anyone, as if wisely forgives all those who did not do well. Bright characters are brought to the fore, and not the action, no matter how dramatic it may be. It is over, everything has passed, - as if Vasily Katanyan is telling the reader. "Touching the Idols" is completely structured like this. A writer-memoirist, probably, first of all, should keep in himself such an aesthetic attitude. For him, the colorful personality, originality and significance are more important. Sergei Parajanov, Maya Plisetskaya, Lilya Brik - all the people who are at the center of this book become the main characters precisely due to their personality.

Memoirist

Katanyan Jr. probably experienced the elements of life creation more than once, overcame the gravity of norms and laws that were considered generally accepted. Perhaps that is why he refuses to moralize and does not appear to the reader as a bore. Let everyone understand events in his own way, as best he can, and evaluate them in the way he is scientific. But this is a double-edged sword - there is no defender from Vasily Vasilyevich either.

He doesn't prove things that could be proven, leaving all the complexity and all the ambiguity to the reader. What remains is a personality, painted by the author brightly and convexly, in which the secret is not revealed at all. Only charm is revealed. Katanyan chastely retreats before the secrets, bowing humbly. He does not make ends meet, he does not impose his understanding of the concept of the personality of the described hero.

Heroes

Roman Karmen, and George Balanchine, and Grigory Kozintsev, and Sergei Eisenstein turned out like that. Passionarity for Vasily Katanyan is the main characteristic of the hero of a film or book, pushing other qualities to the background and subsequent plans. This is documentary evidence in his films. Facts. A real person known to everyone. But miraculously, on this canvas, such a multi-component image arises that draws the reader a much broader picture of a long-gone reality. Spectators and readers interpret this canvas to the best of their own ideas about life's realities.

Biography touches

During the war, Vasily Katanyanas a minor boy, he worked at an aircraft factory as a turner and miller - and he learned this. In 1944 he entered VGIK to Kozintsev - to direct, where he met Eldar Ryazanov. He received a diploma as a director of feature films, but took up documentary filmmaking. He came to work at the TSSDF and stayed there for forty years. Since 1957 he was a member of the Union of Cinematographers. In the sixties, he met the family of the famous Tallinn art critic Julius Gens and married his daughter, Inna, who was a film critic and was the best versed in Japanese cinema.

The archives of their father, their own and Lily Brik, they now kept and studied together. Part of it is kept in state archives - manuscripts, letters, diaries. A personal fund of the director and writer was created on the basis of home audio recordings. For example, the voices of Lily Brik, Elsa Triolet, Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda, Nazim Hikmet, David Burliuk, Alexei Kruchenykh, Konstantin Simonov, the voice of opera celebrity Denise Duval and much, much more are recorded there. Vasily Katanyan died in 1999 after a debilitating and long illness, and was buried in Moscow. His wife prepared a posthumous memoir for publication, based on his diaries, and also completed work on books that he did not have time to complete.

Artist

Besides studying literature and cinema, Vasily Katanyan created interesting collages, bound books, and he did it so well that his works participated in various exhibitions with great success - sometimes of a very, very high level.

For example, in 2003 there was a collage exhibition inRussian art of the twentieth century in the Pushkin Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery; in 2005 the exhibition "Collage in Russia" in the Russian Museum; exhibition "Patchwork Quilt" in 2009 at the Literary Museum of Moscow, where many exhibits from the family archive were presented in addition to collages and home-made books - letters, photographs, and other interesting documents.

Books by Vasily Katanyan

• "Magic Touches" (with collages by Parajanov), Moscow, 1987.
• "Contemporaries about Mayakovsky" (introductory article, compilation, comments by Katanyan). Literary memoirs. Moscow, 1993.
• "Touching the idols". "Vagrius", 1997.
• "Immense Ryazanov". Collection, p. 91-96. "Vagrius", 1997.
• "Parajanov". Moscow, 1994.
• "Patchwork quilt". "Vagrius", 2001.
• "Lilya Brik. Life". Moscow, 2002.

And, finally, the films that Vasily Katanyan left to his descendants. The filmography is quite extensive:

1. "Sakhalin island". 1954 Brussels International Festival 1955 - Prize.

2. "Stories about Kabarda". 1956

3. "Stars in Moscow". 1959

4. "Sergei Eisenstein". 1958

5. "Road of Spring". Cinema panorama. 1959

6. "USSR with an open heart". 1961

7. "American Ballet" 1962

8. "Daypoetry". 1964.

9. "When the soldiers sing." 1965

10. "Young Debut" 1965

11. Paul Robeson. 1959

12. "Arkady Raikin". 1967

13. Maya Plisetskaya. 1964

14. Maya Plisetskaya. 1982

15. "Anna Akhmatova". 1987

16. Epic "The Great Patriotic War" (participation). 1979