Film director Aksinya Gog about favorite books
IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and other heroines about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, the film director Aksinya Gogh shares his stories about favorite books, whose short meter entered the recently presented film almanac “Petersburg. Only for Love”.
My mother influenced my reading most of all - an art historian and a doctor of science. All my childhood, I was crawling around in different art catalogs, I could watch Saryan, Matisse, Bosch and Repin for hours. In order to put me at the table, they arranged a seat from my mother's catalogs and books that were on a stool — there was nothing special about the house. Mom always sat at the typewriter, surrounded by dozens of manuscripts. So books somehow were themselves always and everywhere.
When I myself did not know how to read, my mother read to me the Lewis Chronicles of Narnia for me at night. I was so captured by what was being described that I was absolutely not going to sleep. And once the mother says the words of the speaking horse: "And now it's time to sleep. Good night everyone! Prrrr ...." - as if it were written in the book, and the horse appeals to me personally. When then I re-read "Narnia" myself at the age of 15, I was really looking forward to this phrase, but it was not there.
Somewhere from 11 to 15 years, I went to the bookstores and chose books on the cover and, as it seemed to me, exotic. So I read a lot of strange things: some esoteric novels, modern prose and fiction unknown to anyone. Sometimes, however, she stumbled upon something worthwhile - the Magic Flute by Hesse or Rollan's Life of Ramakrishna. When I was 16 years old, I worked as an administrator on the TV program “School of Gossiping”: during the break between filming, I had to meet guests, set the table, cut sausage, wash dishes and bring coffee to Avdotya Smirnova and Tatiana Tolstoy. If the guest was not interesting to me, I read while shooting. Many interesting people from the world of literature came to this program: I remember how the poet Dmitry Vodennikov was in the studio - then I listened to his poems for another six months. So, once I came with a very serious face and a book by Osipov, The Path of Reason in Search of Truth. I remember that Dunya saw it, looked at me sternly and said: “Aksin, what are you? At your age there are so many interesting things that have not been read!”, I felt somehow embarrassed, and I hid the book in my bag.
When I was preparing to enter GITIS, and my girlfriend at the Moscow Art Theater School, we spent the whole day at the Chekhov Library on Pushkinskaya. And why only there we did not happen to her - some completely unimaginable stories. At that time our common favorite book was Meyerhold Rudnitsky. There, whatever trouble with Vsevolod Emilievich happened, the chapter ended with the phrase: "But Meyerhold did not lose heart." So we have it stuck in my head. When something unpleasant was happening, we sounded synchronously inside, "But Meyerhold did not lose heart." It was very funny and at the same time spiritually elevated - even now I sometimes remember this phrase when something hard is given. I have always been strongly supported and inspired by the memoirs: Alisa Koonen's Pages of Life, All Life Knebel, Ranevskaya's Fate Whore, Diary of Maria Bashkirtseva and Vysotsky, or the interrupted flight of Marina Vlady.
Once I realized that I was reading very emotionally. I play all the characters directly. I love to read aloud - even one. Actually, this is what happened to my love for the ancient drama. In the first year of GITIS, I spent the night reading Eurasis and Aeschylas myself, listening to the music of the verse - to myself it was not that. I do not attribute the Gospel to literature, but it can be re-read infinitely. When there is restlessness in your soul, you read at least three pages and everything becomes clearer. In general, I like to read any nonsense sometimes. Documentary stories about crazy deeds, scientific and pseudoscientific articles about life on Mars, nanorobots and transhumanism. It is very inspiring and lights.
Niels Thorsen
"Lars von Trier. The Melancholy of Genius"
Somehow in May was very bad. I had a terrible allergy, the graduation film was not mounted, and in general everything went derailed. I went to Africa from the Moscow spring and took the "Melancholy of a genius" with me - this book actually saved me. As soon as I become discouraged, I understand - it's time to Larsik. She called him "Larsik", so he became my family. I was warm to read about such a complex and ridiculous person, with so many phobias and pain.
Ancient greek tragedies
When I studied at GITIS, we had the subject "History of foreign theater". It was led by Professor Dmitry Trubochkin, an expert in antiquity. It was necessary to read about thirty different ancient Greek plays. I was so drawn out that, in my opinion, I read almost everything — at night and out loud. Even now, very little has produced such a hypnotic effect on me as the "Prometheus Chained" by Aeschylus or Euripides' Medea. It is interesting for me to watch them in the theater in modern productions: how such large-scale conflicts of the giants are trying to drag into the everyday field, turn into modernity. Although it is rarely good at anyone. I have always been amazed at the scope of personalities of heroes, because they are mostly demigods or gods. When reading, I always feel that a person can be with a capital letter. Well, Sophocles or Aeschyls - exactly with a big one.
Vincent van Gogh
"Letters to brother Teo"
When we entered GITIS, the first book that our master Dmitry Anatolyevich Krymov advised us to read was Van Gogh's Letters to Brother Teo Brother. When you see how a great person works endlessly, suffers and how difficult it is for him, it gives strength: you understand that you have to plow even more and not feel sorry for yourself. Reading diaries, you admire the power of a man who clearly knew what he was doing and why. That depth of thought, with which he tries to comprehend the universe from a branch of a bush to Jesus Christ, makes him seek and grow with him.
Mikhail Lermontov
"Demon"
I have Lermontov with illustrations by Mikhail Vrubel - as a child I could look at him endlessly. When I reread "The Demon", without looking at the illustrations, I still imagine them and see with Vrubel’s strokes even what he did not write. This is an incredibly beautiful piece, and you need to read it aloud to see and hear it. In fact, there is also something ancient in it: a demon who is in love with an earthly woman - and a completely insoluble conflict between two worlds.
Christopher Marlo
"Dr. Faustus"
I felt very sad when I learned that the original plot of "Faust" was created by the English playwright Christopher Marlo, the play was called "Doctor Faustus" - it was two centuries before Goethe. As a child, Goethe saw a street presentation of this play, it crashed into his memory, and after years he came up with his own Faust. In fact, this is not a rare story: for example, we know Don Juan as the romanticized hero Moliere, Hoffmann and Pushkin, but he was at first completely different - a very gloomy and scary, collectively real prototypes with a tragic fate. And the first to invent his image was the Spaniard Tirso de Molina - when I found out, it struck me that Don Juan had been created by a Catholic monk.
George Danelia
"Chito-Grito"
The book, from which it is impossible to break away: Danelia - he is such a storyteller, magician. It is not clear where the truth is, where is the lie, and where is the hint. A swarm of tales about his life — yes, such that I want to find myself in all the places and situations that he describes. I really love Danelia’s Tears Tape. She is incredibly touching, funny and full of pain. This is one of my favorite films, just for the soul. In Chito-Grito there is also some kind of piercing sadness wrapped in a touching and ridiculous veil. In general, I am a fan of irony, and one can endlessly learn from Danelia how skillfully and easily he twists everything.
Renata Litvinova
"Possess and belong"
For some reason, for me, this book became the poetry of a minibus - in the sense that I traveled by minibus, read it and everything around me became magical. Of course, to say nothing - it is clear that Renata has an incredible atmosphere everywhere: her own world, which is poured with mother-of-pearl, wants to live in it. I remember that it struck me how the world of Renata united with the world of Zemfira's songs when they began to collaborate. I listened to Zemfira from the beginning of her career, and then, when they met Renata, she had completely different works. And now there is a lot of such blue-green, renatovskogo.
Mark Shagal
"My life"
I enrolled in GITIS, where there was an exam in painting, and the night before I could not tear myself away from this book. She came sleepy, but inspired. Now I don’t even imagine the text itself at all, only some sensations, a thrill, which it caused in me. We must return to it again, because I now remember nothing but a feeling of tenderness.
Alexander Men
"Culture and spiritual rebirth"
This book gives clarity of mind. Clarity is not in the sense of specifics, but in the sense of "like a clear day" - such a bright day. Sometimes just a couple of pages can be read and somehow everything becomes quiet and peaceful. It is worth reading it in small doses, when a complete mess in our thoughts leads to an order in the soul.
Evgeny Schwartz
"Shadow"
In general, I love fairy tales - they are without tinsel. I listened to this play as a radio play a long time ago, in a cassette player with a red rec button, and then reread it. For some reason, while listening, the whole world consisted of three colors, a bit like a cardboard layout: a mix of orange, purple and black. I still remember those intonations and music - in my head the phrase “Shadow, take your place” sounds. It seems to me that if I suddenly hear these voices again, I will tremble. Immediately recall all the circumstances, the thoughts of that time. Books are like smells: you will hear a smell that was associated with something ten years ago, and that’s all — all the details at once, all the sensations as if right here, next to each other.