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| colaj: cinesseur |
Jeremi Szaniawski: Let’s get this one out of the way: we know that Vladimir Putin supported the project in great part. This raises a lot of questions. Can I have your side of the story?
Aleksandr Sokurov: Of course. I have never been a supporter of Putin. I refused to support his presidential campaign in the past. However, in Russia, the government has allocated funds to support the arts. So in 2008, when he was the prime minister, and funds were extremely scarce because of the economic crisis, I went straight to him and asked him for his help. We met at his residence, near Moscow. I was well prepared for this meeting - I brought sketches, drawings; he was very well prepared too, he’d read a
version of the script. It all happened quite quickly.
JS: How do you explain this?
AS: I don’t know. I think it’s because Putin knows German and he knows German culture very well. I think he understood the importance of a larger conception of the arts.
JS: Did he like the film?
AS: I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it. My feeling is that he didn’t like it one bit. But he is a very reserved man. I knew Boris Yeltsin very well. He was a most open man. Almost overly so. Putin is completely different. But he is a very serious man.
AS: I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it. My feeling is that he didn’t like it one bit. But he is a very reserved man. I knew Boris Yeltsin very well. He was a most open man. Almost overly so. Putin is completely different. But he is a very serious man.
JS: Were you not concerned that he would demand something in exchange for this financial support?
AS: Vladimir Putin is not the type of man who will blackmail you. He is not primitive. He has many reasons to hold grudges against me. I am very critical of the politics in my country. He could destroy me. He doesn’t do this. Why did he give money for this film? This remains a mystery to me.
AS: Vladimir Putin is not the type of man who will blackmail you. He is not primitive. He has many reasons to hold grudges against me. I am very critical of the politics in my country. He could destroy me. He doesn’t do this. Why did he give money for this film? This remains a mystery to me.
JS: What is your take on the geopolitical struggle over Syria?
AS: I think Putin made the right proposal: that Syria hand over its chemical weapons. When the Iraq War started, I and many other artists wanted to appeal to the American government, to tell them not to bomb this country. It’s such a crucible of history and culture. This war caused such consequences … the museums were burned, sacked and robbed … the archeological sites, too. To bomb Syria would be a disaster: this country has such rich history, both visible and invisible, under the ground. It would be a great mistake to bomb this country.
JS: Many people have asked you this already: why end the tetralogy with a fictional character, when the first three films dealt with historical figures.
AS: Well, first of all, it’s not the tetralogy’s final point. The film is chronologically the final installment, but otherwise, the tetralogy is a circle. There is no starting or ending point per se. You open on Moloch, go full circle, and you will end on Moloch, going through Taurus, The Sun and Faust… It’s a vicious circle, too, a circle of evil, of vanity. Secondly, Faust may be a legendary figure, but he was originally a real character. A mystic, a charlatan! In the sixteenth century, he was just that, a petty ruffian. His name means ‘fist’ in German, after all… In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, his story grew, creating more and more interest… plays were written, books… And Goethe turned this figure of gossip and great fascination into an intellectual, an adult man, but who nonetheless will commit the most trivial of crimes. He uses Margarete, much as Hitler, Lenin or Hirohito used their people, and moves on. In what way is Faust different from these dictators? Each in their own way have been basely exploitative. They thought they were free of moral boundaries. It’s about the evil and damage that these men committed. The historical dictators caused millions of deaths. Faust abandons Margarete. They are all immoral. But they are prisoners of the circle. And they are all unhappy people.
JS: Do you equate Faust with these dictators who led millions of people to their deaths?
AS: Faust is a scoundrel. He leaves this young woman - he abandons her. It’s a crime. It doesn’t matter if the crime is personal or historical.
[excerpt from The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov. Figures of Paradox by Jeremi Szaniawski, Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2014]
A kind of Easter egg
