TODAY’S BEST BET: The Professor’s Professor. And Then Some. Евгений Евстигнеев. Посторонним вход воспрещен/Evgeny Evstigneev. No Trespassing (Documentary. Russia, 2006) (TV Tsentr, 10:20). --> Arguably the most versatile actor of his generation, Evstigneev (1926-1992) would have made Stanislavsky weep for joy: he could play any character in any genre and make you Believe. He got into the theater business accidentally, indeed almost Cinderell-ically – as a drummer in a factory band in the Soviet sticks, he was noticed by the proverbial director passing through town -- and the rest is history. EE came to appear in countless theater productions and well over 100 films, the first of which to gain him national attention was E. Klimov’s classic summer-camp comedy Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещен/Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964), which was and remains great fun for viewers from 6 to 86. For my rubles, the other two great film roles EE should be remembered for best are, ahem, his two classic professors: the regrettably absent-minded German Resistance conspirator Prof. Pleischner, in Семнадцать мгновений весны /Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973); and the wonderfully Soviet-resistant Prof. Preobrazhensky in E. Bortko’s fine film version of Bulgakov’s Собачье сердце/ The Heart of a Dog (TV, 1988). Tell em, Professor. Directors and attractive women particularly loved EE, as this documentary highlights – the former b/c he needed so little coaching or prompting and could, much like Jean Gabin, score as well with a glance as with a line; and the latter – as G. Volchek, L. Zhurkina and I. Tsyvina eloquently testify – because there was something, well, irresistibly decent about the guy: the Believe thing clearly had a basis in the man himself. OK, tune in (or watch on YouTube below) and see/hear from colleagues, family and friends why it was said of Evstigneev – and not hyperbolically – that “his presence in a film or play was a guarantee of sensational success.” EE was the embodiment of that very rare breed of actor, the “master character maker”: his work raised the level of everything he appeared in.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 04:22:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015