He Was Almost Famous

Zavilgelskiy

Dialogues 1. Caption: Higher Courses For Script Writers and Directors. ANCO “Internews”. 2. Song: It`s so nice that now you`re with me. It`s so nice that we`ve got money and vodka. It`s so nice that I never have problems with erection. - That means I`m almost famous... 3. - Hello, may I ask you a question? Will you please tell me who is singing? - Hard to say. - Let`s get closer. - Maybe, Osmolovsky. - D`you know who `s singing? - Kobzon. Sounds like Kobzon. - But seriously. - Maybe, Letshenko. - Later. - I think, Osmolovsky. - D`you know who`s singing? - No,who? - Try and guess. - Rosenbaum. - This is Arkadi Severny. - D`you know anything about him? - He`s a handsome young man who sings songs in criminals` jargon, a kind of a cheap Russian pop-singer. - Is he still alive? - Sure. - Why is he not here? - Hope, he`s among the guests,we just don`t know him by sight. 4. Caption: “He was almost famous”. 5. Sergei Maklakov: - When he came to my place for the first time...and I`d already heard the tapes with him singing... I expected to see a huge broad-shouldered man who had been jailed several times. But that was the impression produced by his voice. When he sings it`s really cool... 6. Song: Over the roofs of multi-storied buildings Through the net of straight avenues I see the city in the smoke of clouds, The city, I cannot live without. I need neither boulevards of Moscow Nor luxurious view of Odessa. I just want to see the granitic banks of the Neva river Under the summer sun... 7. Maklakov: - You know what times we lived in. Everything was prohibited. You could sing only patriotic songs. And suddenly such an explosion! 8. Song: Ladies and gentlemen! Listen to me! I`m a thief with a fiddle-stick. I`ve chosen stealing as my career. Nearly all my time I spend in jail, And the jail misses me too... 9. Chronicles: - It`s a paradox. All modern writers, poets, composers are defeated by some criminal illiterate guy who wrote this song. Young people long for a strong hero, for a hero of deeds, not words. - Why has the minstrel song become so popular? Because of the lack of the intimate song. This movement should not be obstructed. It will reach its natural peak and then it will naturally fade away. (Leningrad,1968) 10. A Russian nouveau riche sings: (St.Petersburg,1997) Severny praised Odessa in his songs And I praise St.Petersburg Because I love it more... 11. Maklakov: - It`s much easier to listen to Arkadi`s singing than to deal with him in every-day life. For example, you went to bed. At 3 a.m. your telephone rings. That`s Arkadi asking you to come down. It means he has been riding on a taxi for several hours and I have to pay to the taxi-driver. 12. Sophia Kalyatina: - He was the zest of any party where everyone sang praises of him. He was dying for that. He was fond of being admired. And then:”Here you are, Arkadi, let`s drink together, you are a genius...”And Arkadi could drink a lot without thinking of the consequences. Then he felt sick: ”Oh,why did I get drunk?” He was very weak of will. 13. Song: I remember the snow-covered yard, You were standing near a blue taxi-cab. Silver snow-flakes glittered on your eye-lashes, And your tired and tender look was full of love... 14. Vladimir Tikhomirov: - I don`t remember where we were going. I was also drunk. We catch a taxi, Arkadi says something to the driver in criminals` jargon. The driver gets stupefied: ”So,you are that very Severny?” - “Yes”. Without saying a word the driver drove us to the taxi-park. Nobody saw Arkadi for 2 weeks. He lived there: guitars, girls. Nobody in the taxi-park worked while Arkadi was there... 15. Kalyatina: - I began to kick up rows because of those constant carouses, I said: ”Go away, Arkadi, I can`t stand it any more. On one hand, my husband, on the other hand, you. ”And he wept! He could get down on his knees and kiss my hands, and that was not humiliating. That time he also got down on his knees and said: ”Don`t drive me away, I`ll die without you”. 16. Song: The nightingale loudly sang in the orchard down the valley. I`m a young boy living in a foreign land who has forgotten all his friends... 17. Kalyatina: - When we lived in a country house in Sestroretsk he often visited us. Then he was as popular as Vysotsky. You could hear Arkadi`s recorded voice coming out of many windows. For him that was the highest degree of happiness. He heard his own voice. Ah! 18. Song: Hello,somebody else`s beloved, The joy of my dream. I would be loving you so much Till my last days. The past will never come back And tears will not help either. I want so much to kiss The eyes of your daughter. How could we have failed to save our fragile love... 19. Tikhomirov: - He confessed he had written this song for his daughter. He often sang it to the guitar and said it was the only song he had written himself. 20. Maklakov: - Usually he spent nights sleeping on the stairs in some buildings. He even didn`t have any claims to his wife during the divorce procedure. He just slammed the door and left. 21. Kalyatina: - He crazily loved his daughter. That was a real problem in Arkadi`s life. His wife didn`t allow him to see Natasha, but his mother-in-law was a tough woman. Secretly she allowed Arkadi to come to the kindergarten. So, we usually bought a huge box of chocolates and he went to see his daughter. You ought to have seen his face when he came back! 22. Maklakov: - I`ll put it like this: if he hadn`t been drinking so much there would never have been Arkadi as a personality. Maybe he would have become just an ordinary worker, who could sing a couple of songs at the table twice a year. His songs would have been lost. But in the nick of time we appeared. 23. Song: (First, Arkadi`s voice) - As usual I was offered a new song. I looked at it,listened to it and realised that the tune was familiar. Good Lord! The song was about us: Vovka Ramensky, Tikhomirov, Sergei. And I decided to sing it: Years fly without coming back Sparing neither surnames nor names. It doesn`t matter that the end is near, We wander through our lives with a smile. With no pity and tears the life tried to break our hearts. It left only anguish of loses, took away freedom and family. We are becoming old, but what should we expect in future? Peace among the family or evil memories and evil dreams?... 24. Kalyatina: - Everybody around him, all his friends, all those whom you see in these pictures, all of them recorded his songs without paying to him, but offering him a drink. He was not interested in the commercial aspect at all. For example, Maklakov, brothers Zhemchuzhny phoned him and recorded songs without any agreement, then they sold the tapes, but Arkadi had no relation to those tapes! 25. Nikolai Rezanov(Zhemchuzhny): - Tapes were distributed all over the country very fast: within a few months. The distribution mechanism was well-adjusted: you send tapes to your friends, they record them and send to their friends, etc. - And the money? - What money? In those times nobody thought of money. Everything was done voluntarily. 26. Arkadi`s voice: - As you`ve already heard I feel high and don`t know where to go, either to Leningrad or to Odessa. But I think I`m going to stay in Kryzhople: I`m ill, my chest and legs are broken. I see three roads before me. I`m standing all alone at the crossroads And don`t know where to go... 27. Tikhomirov: - During his last year he often told me he was going to die soon. He had a presentiment. Even about his photo for the tomb-stone he said: ”This photo is for my tomb-stone”. 28. Kalyatina: - His mother-in-law calls me and says: ”Do you know Arkadi has died?!” How`s that! We had a chat only 3 days ago. He died at some awful place where nobody realised what was wrong with him. They thought he was snoring, but it was his death-rattle. His mother-in-law went there and we learned what terrible conditions he died under. He died of dystrophia and pneumonia. 29. Maklakov: - He died `cause he joined the wrong people,the drunkards. He got stuck there, he had a woman there, and there he died. 30. Kalyatina: - The funeral was up to the standard. People collected a lot of money. The guys working at the crematory played the song “Sweet berry” performed by Arkadi instead of the official music. That was real shocking! His body is in the coffin and his voice is alive! Sure, the workers were reprimanded for that, but it was shocking! 31. Song: Sweet berry will entice us to the forest And will amaze us with generous ripeness, Sweet berry will dope us, - Bitter berry will make us sober. 32. At the cemetery: - And who installed the tomb-stone? - Don`t know...Before that I had arranged for a tomb-stone, but somebody had already installed this one. I thought I shouldn`t replace it. I can just say thank you to these people. 33. Song: Hello,somebody else`s beloved, The joy of my dream. I would be loving you so much Till my last days. The past will never come back And tears will not help either. I want so much to kiss the eyes of your daughter. 34. Credits: Script-writer and Director: Dmitry Zavilgyelski Director of Photography: Nikolai Volkov Camera operators: Victor Dobronitsky Vladimir Khreptovich Producer: Dmitry Zavilgyelski