INTERVIEW
of books: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand
Faces and Myths to Live By, McKee’s Story, and loads of
professional literature on anthropology, psychology
(psychopathology, psychological types, stories from
actual practice etc.), philosophy, cosmology, physics and
so on.
Without the knowledge, modern storyteller will
only wallow in multiplying template stories. And to tell
stories today, one must be the best. So, you have to read
a lot, take interest in everything, observe people, listen
in on them, even spy on them. All life, all lives, the entire
world — that’s the source of a story. Intuition is also vital
to creating a proper script, original and unconventional.
Story has its own logic, often called three-act structure.
In fact, it is the frame of any person’s life: birth, death,
and something in between.
Give some tips for aspiring writers. What should
they begin with? How does one introduce oneself to
the right people and how does one meet them? How
does one make a name for oneself? (and not only
within one’s own country)
A scriptwriter and a writer must be proficient in
psychology and have interesting life experience. One also
needs to read a lot, listen, want to tell and pass on not only
one’s own grandeur and inflated ego, but something of
value. That’s all one needs to become a good scriptwriter.
As for making a name for oneself, one can either produce
one-hundred-percent-sure commercial hits, or adhere to
one’s own unique and, thus, lonely and often painful road.
It depends on what you are looking for: money, women,
WE SHOULD HAVE A FAITH AT OURSELF
and glory, or the happiness of being real and free, even if
people do not accept or love you.
You are scriptwriter and director. Does it benefit
the film if one person is responsible for both areas?
I’d say it happens. Or, sometimes, there are two
persons working together. To each his own.
What is the key to creating a script that holds the
audience today? What hooks must the plot have?
There must be no hooks from other films. People
have advanced a lot in terms of perception. We watch,
read, perceive too much; more than we live. Thus, the
audience becomes more exacting, and the storyteller —
less engaging. So, one needs to be sincere and righteous,
while really breaking the logic. Complex characters are
taking the center stage now — villains with kind hears
and enormous guilt. The more complex is the inner world
of the character, the more interesting is the story.
As a scriptwriter, what techniques do you use?
Do you have a role model among successful scriptwriters?
No authorities, no role models. I have favorite films,
favorite books, favorite writers: Borges, Céline, Bukowski,
Márquez, Jodorowsky, Virginia Woolf; favorite directors:
Godard, Bertolucci, Béla Tarr, von Trier, Roy Andersson,
Paul Thomas Anderson.I write as it goes, in a flow. But
first, I carry the story, or the feeling of a story inside for
a long time, it kind of stews within me. And while it
stews, I create the narrative track, place markers and
flags, direct the story. Though, it often bursts its banks
and makes its own and very different route to the end in
the process of actual writing.
How important is rich life experience to cover
this or that issue? For example, does one have to
experience tragic love in order to depict it vividly?
Yes. Experience is everything. Life, in fact, is a sequence
of experiences. As I have already said, dramaturgy did not
appear from nowhere, simply because it’s pretty. Its roots
are buried in life experience, structured by our brains
into stories. The more experience you have, the richer and
deeper the story is.
32 ▪ Issue 6 JUNE 2016
Season Screen TV Review
victims to my unreasonable expectations and inadequate
self-perception. Those things are not easy to overcome,
but there are two ways. Either you pull through and let
yourself go, give yourself the right to make mistakes,
to a bad film, to misunderstanding, to anything, and
everything will be okay, you will become free from the
thing you call ‘recognition.’ Or you don’t and simply
break down.
In your opinion, what does the audience want
today? What genre will be popular in the next few
years?
The audience always wants one thing: to be enchanted.
Everyone comes to the cinema for magic. People give their
attention to the director hoping to be scared, to laugh, to
cry, to live another life, full of emotions. As for genre, it’s
not really important. It’s just the question of mood and
depends on individual preferences, sometimes on history
phases.
What are some funny, awkward, interesting
incidents from your work as a director?
A lot of them. Like when I was running with the crew
after the actress, filming her jogging from the back, and
I had pockets full of small change, of which I completely
forgot. Then, during the shooting of Mandrake, seaweed
plugged the motor of the boat with seven crew members.
We were shooting three people in the boat with one
strong young actor doing the rowing. And then our boat
kept drifting due to the wind. The only persons who
happened to be “free,” i.e. have nothing in their hands,
were camera mechanic and I. So, we rowed on both sides.
I was giving orders, throwing lines to actors, watching
them act through the tiny camera monitor, and rowing,
all at the same time. There you have it, experience.
It is not easy to become recognized in the film
industry. Can you tell us about your failures on this
road? How do you overcome them?
Well, I had my fights with directors. Then, some films
didn’t work out, and my own films, as a director, fell
What unfulfilled dreams do you have today? :)
I have great dreams, I have smaller ones, but none
unfulfilled. I either have already achieved my goal, or am
on the way. Even if I don’t reach them while alive, I will
still consider them as “everything is possible.” ▪
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Issue 6 JUNE 2016 ▪ 33