In two years the great film director Sergei Parajanov would have turned 90, he passed away over 20 years ago. To commemorate the original artist, an unmatched mystifier, “the freest man in the enslaved world,” the National Taras Shevchenko Museum launched an exhibit of the works of Ukrainian cameraman Yurii Harmash and theater and film director Vinicio Arias Rojas (Costa Rica).
Yurii Harmash got acquainted with Sergei Parajanov back in his student years in 1969. Like many of his colleagues, he was practically hypnotized by the creative work and personality of the director, who was different from everyone else, a Tbilisi-born Armenian, who shot his most famous films in Ukraine.
Harmash photographed Parajanov for the first time several days after the director was released from jail, in January 1978, in the apartment of Parajanov’s wife Svitlana Shcherbatiuk. In 1982-83 he observed the artist through his camera in Tbilisi, and in 1988 – in Ivan Mykolaichuk’s home village Chortoryia, Chernivtsi oblast.
Those photo works made the groundwork of the exhibit organized within the framework of the project “In Memoriam. Sergei Parajanov” with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine, the National Union of Moviemakers, the Armenian Association of Cultural Relations, and PARADJANOV ART.
Harmash’s pictures, bearing unique historical significance and made by a high-skilled cameraman, are full of a personal attitude of a person who cares about Parajanov’s memory. Not only have the photos kept the moments of life of the genius director, which are gone for good, but they also revealed themselves in a peculiar meaning in the exhibit and were supported by words about Parajanov said by the most outstanding personalities in the world of cinematography of the past 20th century.
Make your own judgment.
Jean-Luc Godard: “Cinema has a picture, the light, and reality. Parajanov was a master and host of this temple.”
Michelangelo Antonioni: “The Color of Pomegranates by Parajanov, whom I consider one of the best contemporary directors, stuns with its perfect beauty. His contribution to cinema above all is in creating a unique cinema language. The world of Parajanov’s films is a magic combination of color, plastic, music, and word. The scenes from his films show encyclopedic knowledge of Eastern culture and art and rampant imagination.”
Andrei Tarkovsky: “In the USSR you could not avoid being intimidated. Yet they failed to intimidate Parajanov. He is probably the only person all over the country who embodies the adage: ‘If you want to be free, be free.’
“There are few men of genius in the history of cinema. Robert Bresson, Kenji Mizoguchi, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Sergei Parajanov, Luis Bunuel… None of these film directors can be confused with each other. They all were pursuing their own ways, maybe with certain weaknesses and eccentric manners. But they always did so to the end of a clear-cut and deeply personal concept.”
These words said by Parajanov’s fellow artists once again prove his undoubted mastery, innovation, creative originality, yet he was not a monument to himself. He lived like other people do: he was wildly in love, he quarreled with his family, he caroused with his friends, he played tricks on them and gave them generous presents; he suffered and strongly believed that he was exclusive.
In the interview below, Parajanov tells about… Parajanov. Maybe everyone who admires the director’s creative work will learn a bit more about him as a person.
The following is not autobiographical notes of the bright, unexpected in everything he was doing and the way he was living, Sergei Parajanov. These are living memories of a person, who was close to the great director, his nephew Georgy Parajanov.
Georgy is a professional moviemaker. Several years ago his documentary How I Died in Childhood, dedicated to his uncle, closed the official program of the Cannes Film Festival. It tells about retribution for being genius and what sufferings may await the select few.
The picture won the grand prix of the International Film Festival “Golden Apricot” in Yerevan. It also won the First Prize, a Gold Plate, of the Ismailia Film Festival (Cairo) and was recognized by the film critics as the best film of that forum. How I Died in Childhood also won over worthy competitors in the film showing in Fukuoka, Japan, and at Moscow’s Stalker it was nominated for Golden Eagle, a prestigious prize of the Russian film academy.
Our meeting was absolutely accidental. Georgy PARAJANOV came to Kyiv incognito, on business, to shoot a film about an original Ukrainian artist Maria Pryimachenko. We were introduced to each other by an old friend of mine, cameraman Volodymyr Pika, who was helping the director in Kyiv. I could not but use the opportunity and interview him about his famous uncle. He agreed with kindness and Eastern gallantry.
When did your earliest memories about Sergei Parajanov form?
“I can say that I was near my uncle for my whole life, since my birth, although there was a time when Serezha [since his childhood years Georgy have been calling his uncle by this name. – Author] was residing in Kyiv or served his term in prison. But we lived together in one house for the last 12 years of his life, in 1978 through 1990. These years, hours, and minutes became the best and richest time of my life, my great universities. However, I must admit that he was not the main authority in my childhood years. My first teacher was Grandma Siran, mother of Serezha and my mother Ruzanna. As a memory about her I wrote the screenplay Everyone’s Gone and it won the Andrei Tarkovsky Memorial Prize. Maybe, I will shoot a full-length live-action film. At the moment I am working on a long novelette, which I have entitled Everything I Remember. Not only does it concern Sergei Parajanov, but also the events that took place before I was born, but I know about them. Grandma told me stunning stories. I must say that many people who have published memories about my uncle and his house became very tense, waiting for the book’s publication. They are nervous and jealous.”
It is known that Sergei Parajanov was not a simple man. Maybe he could be at times unrestrained, even rude. What was your communication like? For you perceived Parajanov not as a genius, but simply as family.
“I understood pretty well who was living near me. I appreciated his every word and movement. For example, I liked very much to look at Serezha’s hands while he was eating. I have never seen anything more beautiful and perfect. It is unbelievable how the man behaved with a simple piece of bread. With what awe was his thick hands holding it! Of course, I understood what a figure my uncle Serezha was. On the other hand, he was never a fanatic, never went crazy, never put on airs because of being a great man. I fell in love with his collages, films, friends, etc. But it was a routine life for me. Like bread and butter. See, the fact that I was born presented me with it. Some people imagined communication with Sergei as an incredible feast, but for me it was folkways: we had quarrels and argued. And in 1978 he incarcerated me.”
How?
“Just imagine. However, I did not go to jail. But I was tried for an attempt to kill my uncle. On one wonderful day he literary drove me mad. I was so mad that I took an axe and went towards him, and he ran to the police office and wrote a complaint. Later we reconciled.”
Do you go often to your Tbilisi house?
“Sergei’s son Suren sold it for 5,000 dollars long ago. It makes me feel sad, because I believe… I did not want to tell you, but I will: I believe that the house won’t bring happiness to anyone, like the money he was paid. My old Grandma cursed the house.”
Why?
“I think that our house saw and knows too much. I think it should have collapsed. It had to collapse! And I wanted to build a fountain on that place, so that water simply purled on the square where our house used to stand. Unfortunately, it has been redesigned; there is nothing left from its tracery balconies. It is not our house anymore: Sergei died, my mother died too, I have left Tbilisi long ago. I was the last one who locked our house’s door and made, in my opinion, a genius collage, Everything that Has Been Left from My House. It shows two keys, a toilet mirror, and a lock. Viktor Bazhenov is going to publish a wonderful book of photos Sergei Parajanov and the super cover features my collage.”
Does the surname Parajanov help you or become an obstacle?
“It both helps and hinders. It opens many inaccessible doors: the officials have to listen to me whether they want it or not. Maybe they won’t assist me, but they have to receive me. Sometimes they even give money for my projects. But the surname also irritates many people. It simply irritates them. I think, Sergei did harm to many. Justly. Justly! But he did harm.
“Sergei needed to die for people to start yelling about him at every corner. And he knew in his lifetime everything about himself and created Parajanov’s image. Serezha was the best image-maker ever. People like him start the wars, make revolutions. He made a revolution in cinema, in the genre of collage. No director over the world has a house museum like the Parajanov Museum in Yerevan. The Fellini fund includes only 12 ties, and that’s all, whereas many presidents who came to Yerevan consider this an honor to have dinner in Parajanov’s museum, and Charles Aznavour sings there and eats dalma. So, my uncle deserved such attitude. Serezha understood pretty well who he was. He often said when his temper was short (addressing his wife Svitlana Shcherbatiuk) – my aunt can confirm my words if she remembers. He shouted, ‘You all will be cashiers in my museum!’ though there was no museum at the time. And he was making predictions: ‘You will be sitting there and stealing money! There will be 200 visitors, and you will tell there were 120!’ (laughing).”
Have you ever seen dreams about your uncle?
“Every night.”
Are these dreams colored?
“Yes. I see only colored dreams.”
Do you know who else sees them?
“No.”
They say, schizophrenics see them.
“Who said I am normal? Do you want to say that you are normal?”
I’m not for sure.
“I have never seen any black-and-white dreams. But I do see colored dreams every night.”
Aren’t you exaggerating?
“No, child, I never lie. Real Sergei Parajanov comes to me at nights. One day I saw Andrei Tarkovsky. I knew him personally. He was Sergei’s closest friend, he came to our house. They were friends and understood each other well, and when Andrei died, my uncle missed him a lot; he said there was no one whom he could tell anything. I see Sergey in my dreams practically every night.”
Does he tell you anything?
“Maybe he does not speak so really with me like I am speaking with you. He does not look at me in the way I am looking at my favorite aunt, who is sitting in the corner now [Parajanov’s wife Svitlana Shcherbatiuk. – Author]. And when I wake up in the morning, I receive an incredible supply of emotional energy after a prayer. Apparently, my uncle wants me to create something. Maybe make a new collage? I cannot live without this, this is what makes me happy.”
What good things did you pick up from your uncle?
“This is a good question. One day Sergei said a very important phrase to me: ‘I hate you; you have become a secret observer of my life.’ That I bit in his breasts and was suckling them. Like a she-wolf. At that time I did not understand what he meant, but time has passed and the years I spent with my uncle got carved in my memory. Now, when I have become a lonely man… And Moscow is an awful city, a person feels very lonely there… I often cry. I write a book, I recall Serezha, and I cry bitter tears.”
