Cliff (film, 1983)

Boris Pavlovich Raysky, a bored Petersburg aesthet, comes to his family estate in a small town on the Volga.

Main roles:

• Georgy Antonov - Boris Pavlovich Raysky
• Elena Finogeeva - Vera Berezhkova
• Nikolay Kochegarov - Mark Volokhov
• Rimma Markova - Tatyana Markovna Berezhkova, grandmother
• Marina Yakovleva - Marfinka
• Elena Solovey - Polina Karpovna Kritskaya
• Vitaly Shapovalov - Ivan Ivanovich Tushin
• Nikolai Ivanov - Leonty Kozlov
• Tamara Lebedeva - Ulyana Andreevna Kozlova

In other roles:

The film was designed by the famous Leningrad stage designer Marina Azizyan . In her memoirs, she wrote that the director even before choosing nature suggested on the basis of the novel to depict a plan of the area where the action takes place. In the process, she looked at old family albums, everyday drawings, photographs, went to local history museums, turned to “ charming drawings by architect Vitberg , the album“ Russia “ Semenov-Tian-Shansky ”. When searching for nature in each city, she turned to local historians for advice: ^{[1] [2]}

And then it turned out that in every city there live “eccentrics” - local history enthusiasts who know most about their region. I recall one of them - he is a teacher by profession. ... With their help, we found the nature for the "Cliff". These searches resembled a detective story. Local history museums could help us much less.

The locations of the film were the village of Podvyazye , the cities of Arzamas and Gorky , the Museum of Culture and Life at the Shchelokovsky Farm , etc.

As a film adaptation, the film was recognized by critics as unsuccessful.

The article “ Literary Review ” published an article by Vladimir Artyomovich Tunimanov , IRLI’s chief researcher (Pushkin House) and I. Goncharov, head of the Essay Publishing Group, in which the film, which did not even reflect the name of the novel, was sharply criticized, in particular, following: ^{[3] [4]}

You watch the wide-screen “Cliff” and, paying tribute to yet another respectful, serious and solid film adaptation of the classic, you inevitably ask the question: did you need this huge spatial expanse and almost epic scale of the film canvas with views of the boundless Russian fields, roads and the distance beautifully shot by cameraman A Zabolotsky in the tape itself, which remained at the level and in the framework of the beautiful and cultural retro-stylization of the old noble nest and life? And to what extent does this elegant and fashionable cultural setting for love meetings and experiences of heroes and heroines correlate with the world of Goncharov’s “Cliff”?

The very name of the novel, which became an image-symbol, an image-concept of a “cliff” in Russian life, when the ties between times and generations were first and tragically broken, when centuries-old foundations of even clan nests were shaken, offered the film an insight into the fate of Russia on steep passes and “cliffs” her stories.

And what does the film offer us? Amorous movie stories, fatal dates and passions, the wide-screen incarnation of which can be exhausted by Pushkin’s famous line: “... And fateful passions are everywhere and there is no protection from fate”. ^[5]

The magazine “ Cinema Art ” raised the question of the success of the film adaptations of the Lenfilm studio in general, and the novel by Goncharov Vengerov in particular: ^[6]

But does not the spirit of film adaptation dry up? Veterans I. Kheifits and V. Vengerov are still faithful to him, but young people almost never come to replace him. Moreover, neither " Shurochka " nor "Cliff", with many private successes, became on par with the best screen versions of literary masterpieces inscribed in the annals of "Lenfilm".

The film expert Neya Markovna Zorkaya , analyzing the film adaptations of Goncharov’s novel, wrote ^{[7] [8]} that, as in the case of the 1913 film , “ it would be difficult to imagine the correspondence between the silent film and I. A. Goncharov’s novel, this complex, profound work ” , although the search for the plastic equivalent of the image of the novel is undoubted, and after 70 years:

Alas, after decades of film adaptation, including an attempt by V. Vengerov (1984), they are not comparable with a literary source.

"Cliff" was the last film directed by Vladimir Vengerov.

As the film expert Lyubov Arkus noted, film adaptations were the specialization of the director, but they did not work out, and “Cliff” became the last: ^[9]

Over the years, it has become increasingly apparent that the film adaptation that Vengerov has always been interested in, feels more comfortable on the small than on the big screen. Actually, the nature of his directing - an addiction to the novel form, to multi-figure compositions, to a detailed study of man - can be called television. He took up the Living Corpse. The film didn’t work ... The series based on the novel by St George’s Strogov did not add fame to Vengerov. ... I put the film on his story "Testament" (Second Spring), and with the same result.

Turned to the "cliff." The film turned out to be beautiful, and this was fundamentally for the author: in this way he sharpened the problems of Goncharov’s novel about reasonable boundaries and forms of freedom, about how it relates to duty and responsibility. But in response, Vengerov heard and read: “a beautiful wrapper”, “a melodrama from ancient life”, etc. He didn’t make films anymore.

• Persian O. - A new meeting with Goncharov (Sci-fi movie "Cliff". Scenario and production of V. Vengerov. "Lenfilm") // Leningradskaya Pravda , March 13, 1984