The Specifics of Documentary Television. Television and Cinema of Kyrgyzstan in the 70s - Early 80s. Part 2

Plots of Kyrgyz documentary filmmakers and their embodiment

The context of a unified television program sometimes unexpectedly makes the familiar and known perceived in a new way, immensely increasing the responsibility of journalists from local TV studios.

One August evening in 1977, Central Television aired the documentary "If Not Me, Then Who?" by the "Kyrgyztelefilm" studio. The next day, in a report from the information program "Time" about the solemn opening of the All-Union meeting of student labor unions at the Grand Kremlin Palace, we saw boys and girls in blue jackets — those who, having stepped over the threshold of school with a maturity certificate, will not feverishly think: what to be? They already know. And not from the stories of others. In the fields and farms, in reindeer herding brigades and school forestry — throughout the country, members of labor unions work, which have rightfully become a school of ideological, moral, and physical training for millions of young men and women.

Thousands of Komsomol youth brigades and collectives work in the republic's agriculture: the movement of school graduates to master agricultural professions has truly become mass. The theme "Village and Youth." How is it addressed by television journalists?

...Graduates of Jalal-Abad Secondary School decided as a class to go work in animal husbandry.

...Yesterday's schoolchildren: Talgat Kolupbaev, Alexander Gorbunov, Bekzhan Kuapychev, Maktybek Dogombaev themselves proposed to create a Komsomol youth brigade of milkers at the dairy farm of the "Nizhne-Chuisky" state farm.

...In their native collective farm, the labor biography of the graduates of the Janay-Bulak Secondary School began. The first comprehensive shepherd brigade "Edelweiss" in the Tian Shan mountains - a laureate of the All-Union Lenin Komsomol award... "16 girls" - a cotton-picking brigade of tenth graders from the "Communism" collective farm in the Karasuu district.

The film "If Not Me, Then Who?" (script by M. Yakovlev, director M. Yakovlev, cameraman I. Karelina) is about them.

The polemical title of the film comes from its reportorial beginning: meetings of tenth graders from the Sokuluk rural school with the chairman and Komsomol organizer of the collective farm. "If not me, if not you — who will feed the country?" — asks a tenth grader. Not all 17-year-olds think on such a scale. This makes the main theme of the film even more unconventional.

The task for the authors becomes more difficult — the relevance and specific "targeted direction" of the theme require modern embodiment. About youth — it cannot be cliché. About youth — it cannot be uninteresting. The television forms of organizing life, documentary material work precisely to reveal the theme, making the film "belong" to the TV screen.

That is why the half-hour film made in Kyrgyzstan and shown on Central Television was organically supplemented and summarized by a three-minute report from the information program "Time." That is why the film "fit" into the television program of the week, saturated with diverse visual information about the life of the republic, the country, and the world.

The specifics of documentary television. Its enormous influence is now also felt by "non-television" documentary films made in studios for the "big screen." After all, it is no secret: the main path to the viewer today is the television screen. And how much documentary filmmakers take into account the peculiarities of the television "channel of communication" — the small screen, "home" viewing conditions, etc. — largely determines the distribution fate of their works...

This same theme — the prestige of the profession of rural workers, the problem of retaining personnel in the countryside, the theme — man and his work was also dedicated to another film — "Following the Flock" (script by R. Aitaliev, cameraman T. Ibragimov) about the shepherd from the Ton district, Tashtanbek Akmatov — Hero of Socialist Labor, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, delegate of the XXVI Congress of the CPSU. The film, which unfortunately became the last for Mikhail Yurievich Yakovlev...

Deficit of authenticity Katya and Katerina Matveevna

...On June 1, 1974, on International Children's Day, with a performance by Sergey Mikhalkov, Central Television began showing a new multi-part series "Children of the Soviet Country," created by documentary filmmakers from all union republics. The people are noisy and happy; they came to us on Saturdays in the Uzbek film "Let There Always Be Sunshine!" and in the Latvian "Enter This World," in the Kazakh "Who Will Keep the Gardens" and the Ukrainian "I Go to Seek," in the Turkmen film, in the Azerbaijani...

With the introductory word of Shukurbek Beyshenaliev, the premiere of the film from Kyrgyzstan "Children of the Mountains" (script by K. Dzhusupov, director V. Vilensky, cameraman V. Durandin) took place on Central Television in the summer of '74.

It would seem: created by order of Central Television, intended for showing to the all-Union audience, what new can it tell us, the Kyrgyz?

"Children of the Mountains" became the directorial debut in television cinema for V. Vilensky, the cameraman of the feature films "Mother's Field" and "Ambush," who is also successfully working in documentary cinema (his film "Post" made at "Kyrgyzfilm" received high awards at the XV International Film Festival in Leipzig and the VI All-Union in Almaty).

A searching artist, not missing the main details (how much they sometimes mean in cinema and especially in documentary) and not forgetting the main thing amidst the abundance of accurate details, Vilensky the cameraman brought this into the direction of television cinema.

The film consists of four short reports.

The first report is solemn — from the meeting of the republican pioneer organization dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the feat of pioneer Kychana Dzakyipov. The second report is businesslike — from a session of the club of young archaeologists at Frunze Secondary School No. 10, whose numerous finds interested the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The third report is funny — from a solfeggio lesson: little Chinara sings and conducts. The fourth report is amazing — from a ballet class. At first — work: the teacher's remarks, the noise of rehearsal. Then — the same movements? No, already different — confident, polished.

Four reports in a 30-minute film... But there is no feeling of "overload." The synchronous episodes are well thought out and precise. The life of the children of the republic presents itself before us in its joyful, happy diversity.

A person begins with childhood... And how wonderful it is that in their childhood there were those next to them whom the film introduces us to — Nikolai Dmitrievich Cherkasov, who raised more than one generation of young archaeologists, Kokabay Mambetaliev, Hero of Socialist Labor, who created a unique local history museum in a rural school in the Tian Shan mountains — teachers by vocation.

Those who hold a camera know how interesting and captivating it is — to shoot children. And to observe their complex and amazing life through the lens of a movie camera, and to shoot them without interfering, is also very difficult.

Psychologically accurate portraits of "Children of the Mountains," the authenticity of genre scenes, "caught" by the watchful lens, modern changes in the appearance of industrial Kyrgyzstan, poignant landscape sketches of the mountain republic are shot at such a professional level that one must speak not just about the expressiveness of cinematic imagery, but about its aesthetics — an essential requirement of true art.

...In the depths of the frame, in a still green garden already strewn with yellow leaves, boys play football. And in the foreground, carefully leaning against a tree, stand cases with violins — small and large. This frame, full of the rhythm of youthful movement and the calm charm of autumn — is one of the best in the film.

Mountains are a favorite theme of the screenwriter and director Evgeny Kotlov. There, the action took place in his previous films — "Six Signals Per Minute," "Yaks Are Born on Snow," and this film — "Hello, Katya!" (cameraman E. Baryshnikov).

The authors show the everyday life of a border post: training of personnel, overcoming obstacles, working with service dogs. White winter camouflage uniforms are replaced by protective ones, with spots of various shapes and shades — matching the color of the terrain...

Without a doubt: a difficult job has been done. The very fact of shooting a documentary film at an altitude of 4000 meters deserves respect. Mountain ridges, turbulent rivers, dizzying heights. The southeastern border, a post in the mountains...

The choice of genre, the method of understanding facts and phenomena of specific reality is, as is known, a delicate, creative matter. Judging by the film, the authors are closer to this form — narrative, conducive to reflection.

The hero of the film, one of the soldiers, we see at work — he... kneads dough. Puts the dough into molds. Places the molds in the oven. And off-screen at this time, the text of his letters home, to his native village, sounds. We do not know — does he send these letters. This is not so important. What matters here is something else.

The choice of such a form of narration also determined the structure of the film. For us, the viewers, this compositional technique allows us to see what the hero tells ("writes"). For him, it allows to hide behind a joke and the sadness of separation, and the things that are difficult (and sometimes impossible) to talk about. An excellent technique. Reliable. Proven. In the beloved "White Sun of the Desert," created in the early 70s at "Mosfilm" by screenwriters V. Yezhov, R. Ibragimbekov, and director V. Motyl. Remember — there, the red army soldier Fyodor Sukhov — excellently played by A. Kuznetsov — "wrote" (mentally, during short breaks) letters home, to Russia, to his native village to his wife: "Hello, dear Katerina Matveevna!" "Hello, Katya!" — writes soldier V. Kuznetsov in the telefilm by E. Kotlov. Look at that...

The plot of "White Sun of the Desert..." is an ironic, entertaining (and instructive!) fiction. In our telefilm — everything is true! Real people were filmed at a real post. In the feature film, the artistic interpretation of recent history allowed the creation of bright, full-blooded characters, convincing in their human specificity. Extraordinary characters! It is no coincidence that our cosmonauts, their colleagues from socialist countries, before the difficult long journey, once again watch this film and take it with them into orbit... In the documentary film about people of a difficult, courageous profession, the matter of revealing characters is much more complex. This is precisely because of the reality of these people. The authors from the "Kyrgyztelefilm" studio prompted us to make such a comparison...

It seems that even in the genre of film sketches, a convincing embodiment of the theme on the TV screen, which does not tolerate artificiality, would not be hindered by a more documentary manner of mastering life material. Episodes with a service dog named Matilda, the detention of a "violator," the New Year celebration with the Snow Maiden, played by a young soldier, do not strengthen our faith in the reality of what is happening at all. The work clearly lacks an "outside view," serious editorial revision. The feeling of randomness was sometimes caused by the careless sound design of the film.

The context of a unified television program... That same evening, two and a half hours later, in the information program "Time," we saw material from television journalists from Frunze — G. Semenov and V. Balabrikov. Mountain ridges, turbulent rivers, dizzying heights. The southeastern border, a post in the mountains... The same theme — the everyday life of border guards. It was interesting to watch this little "plot from life." The informational richness of the text, clear, logical editing, conciseness in the selection of visual material, and the reporter's articulate speech — a very important detail... And most importantly — the personal attitude of the journalists to what they were showing, what they were talking about. The authors' enthusiasm does not leave the viewers indifferent.

True art is always a discovery. The world opened up for itself the mountainous Kyrgyzstan through the prose of Ch. Aitmatov, the paintings of S. Chuykov, G. Aitieva, and the documentary films of B. Shamsiev and T. Okeeva... In the second half of the 60s, Kyrgyz documentary cinema — including television — produced many interesting visual and musical films about the republic — its history, everyday life, culture, and traditions.

From the ordinary, everyday, wise meanings of true life values were extracted in the audiovisual novella by the screenwriter K. Dzhusubalieva, director K. Yusupzhanova, and cameraman I. Karelina. The modernity of the thinking of the authors of the film "Kumys" (1979) lies in the ability to see what is happening through the eyes of people who have come to the jailoo for the first time, in the ability to organically combine the viewpoints of "outside" and "inside." Careful attention to deep, enduring, genuinely folk traditions is enhanced by the kind intonation of the author's commentary by K. Dzhusubalieva.

All this, of course, increases the cognitive value of the film. And not only for us — the viewers of Kyrgyzstan.

Shown in one of the issues of the "Traveling Cinema Club" on Central Television, the film told — simply and wisely — tens of millions of viewers about the green jailoo Son-Kul at an altitude of 3016 meters above sea level, about the people living there.

Interest in a person, their fate, in an event that helps to understand the character, the psychology of contemporaries, to comprehend the time; one's view of the surrounding world, the desire to tell about it in a new way, through oneself — all this is in the traditions of the best films of Kyrgyz documentary cinema. And television — too.

To preserve what has been accumulated in searches and experiments while moving forward, developing what has once been achieved, is difficult. Today, the viewer has the right to expect from documentary television cinema new, more modern forms of presenting already familiar material. A template approach to creating films inevitably leads to descriptiveness, to the indifferent exploitation of "exotic themes." And then, even an interesting (which is not so often the case) work of a sound engineer may not fix things, as happened, for example, in the 30-minute visual musical film "Melodies of Jailoo" (script by A. Makarov, Sh. Abdildaev, director A. Makarov, cameraman A. Saifulin).

One of the main problems of Kyrgyz television cinema is the lack of solid script development.

The specifics of the television screen (in this case — documentary, dealing with factual material) dictate their own laws. Neglecting them inevitably leads to undesirable consequences. What then becomes the object of attention for television journalists, what is captured on film, comes to our home evenings through the television screen?

..What is not told, what is not shown in the film "In One Team"! (director U. Dairbekov, cameraman V. Bogolyubov). For half an hour, the image and the narration strongly declare the idea of "the feeling of elbow" among the members of one brigade.

The template nature of the film apparently stems from an unsuccessful script foundation. The attempt to recreate the image of a contemporary on screen boils down to a list of objects that have a direct or indirect relationship to the members of the brigade chosen for filming. In the desire to fully reveal the theme of the film, the authors themselves drift away from it, losing the main thing: what a person has done obscures the person themselves.

The lack of coherence, the looseness of the television narrative does not save even the "plot twist" — to introduce viewers to each of the brigade members, whose photographs hang on the Honor Board. The portraits, unfortunately, remain just photographs.

The characters of the workers, their thoughts, their fates are almost elusive; they are somewhere on the other side of the television screen. The authors failed to achieve what the narrator calls for in the film: "to show work through action, not words."

There are times when it seems that the diversity of phenomena and facts of today is not always interesting to television documentarians, and therefore the range of topics at the center of their attention is not very wide. This, of course, reduces the choice of expressive means in the process of working on films at all stages of production: script, directing, camerawork, narration. Thus, mediocre works appear, of which, unfortunately, there are quite a few even today.

Psychological specificity and persuasiveness, the ability to closely examine human characters — this is what Kyrgyztelefilm's documentary films still sharply lack.

The plot of the film "Six Signals Per Minute" (author-director E. Kotlov, cameraman U. Djeentaev) is an operation to rescue a climber in trouble. For 20 minutes, we see both the course of the rescue operations in the mountains and the management of them from the climbers' camp. But strangely, the movement of the plot along the route from one of the "towers" of the "Korona" glacier to the "Ala-Archa" alpine camp gradually "lowers" both the "set" height and our faith in what is happening.

Observing how diligently, with many detailed elements, at a set distance, with pre-selected lenses, this "rescue" was filmed among picturesque mountains, one begins to seriously doubt the reality, the authenticity of what is happening. The restored, in this case — staged event becomes the plot of a documentary film for the television screen, which is very sensitive to the slightest insincerity, falseness. The loss of a sense of proportion, indiscriminateness in the choice of expressive means turns against the authors, becoming a boomerang that nullifies both the interesting concept and the difficult work of its embodiment.

Staged reporting is one of the undeniable acquisitions of the television screen. Creating conditions that contribute to the fullest expression of the author's idea is among the most powerful emotional means. And it must be used with special caution!

A frame is a document. An episode is a chronicle. This is how real events are usually filmed by the best masters of photo, cinema, and television journalism. Finding interesting life material, capturing moments... Qualities that are essential for those who make films for the largest and most demanding audience.

The process of forming aesthetic principles continued in the documentary television cinema of the republic even in the late 70s. But time goes on. And we very much hope that the works of the studio will finally find a place for an acute sense of authenticity, specificity of fact, and imagery of generalization. In all the diversity of themes. In all the variety of genres. And then, in close-up, with the keen "eye" of TV, we will see our contemporaries on the television screen.

Essays on the development of television and cinematography in Kyrgyzstan in the 70s - early 80s. Part-1