Anniversary of the forth (and the last) Soviet Oscar winner
On February 11, 1980, the premiere of Vladimir Menshov's film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" took place in the USSR.
A week later, the film took part in the Berlin International Film Festival. The film was nominated for the main award of this festival - the Golden Bear. But the jury of the festival, chaired by the Swedish actress Ingrid Tulin, awarded this prize to two other films: American - "Heartland" and German - "Palermo or Wolfsburg". Honestly, I have not seen these films, but judging by their ratings on IMDB and Kinopoisk, films are, to put it mildly, mediocre.
It would be interesting to know the opinion on this matter of Alexander Mitta, who was a member of that jury. Just because three months later on the screens of Soviet cinemas Alexander Mitta’s film “The Crew” was supposed to be released. And I'm not the first to think about this issue. Even 10 years ago, our famous film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev was concerned about this issue.
However, literally a year later, the film of Vladimir Menshov achieved success at another, no less prestigious film forum. "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" won an Oscar in the nomination Best Foreign Language Film. Moreover, in the competition for this award, Menshov’s film went around Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece "Kagemusha the Shadow Warrior". Menshov's film became the third, after "War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk and "Dersu Uzala" by Akira Kurosawa, to win an Oscar in this category. I emphasize: it was in this nomination, since in 1943 the film "The Defeat of German Forces near Moscow" directed by Leonid Varlamov and Ilya Kopalin was awarded the Oscar in the Best Documentary nomination.
The fact that the American film academics preferred Vladimir Menshov’s film to Kagemusha the Shadow Warrior, and to François Truffaut’s film “Le dernier métro (The Last Metro)” as well, simply outraged The New York Times film reviewer Vincent Canby, who wrote in his review that
"Mr. Truffaut and Mr. Kurosawa have have each made better films than the ones by which they were represented in this year's Oscar contest, but both "The Last Metro" and "Kagemusha" are superior to most films made by anybody in the last several years. In such company, "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" looks like hack-work."..- By Vincent Canby, May 8, 1981, The New York Times
In connection with the triumph of Vladimir Menshov's film "Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears", one episode from my personal life comes to mind. At the end of 1981, a high-ranking representative of the Central Committee of the CPSU visited our institute (I worked as a teacher at one of the provincial institutes then). At that time, there was a practice of "going to the people", when representatives of the "top" met with the "lower classes" in order to convey information about the real state of affairs in the country and abroad in the right light in a semi-official, relaxed atmosphere.
The Moscow guest briefly outlined the brilliant achievements of the national economy (which the store shelves told us much more intelligibly), and then moved on to the main achievement - the victory of Vladimir Menshov's picture at the Oscars. He described the ceremony in such detail and with such enthusiasm, as if he himself had taken part in it. (As you know, even Menshov himself was deprived of such an opportunity, and the gilded statuette was accepted by the USSR ambassador to the United States.) Among other things, he mentioned, quoting someone from the leadership of the American Film Academy, the reason why the prize was awarded specifically to "Moscow". Allegedly, for the fact that Soviet filmmakers finally understood the use of the Cinderella myth for propaganda, which Americans have been using for many years. To be honest, even then this argument surprised me greatly, since this myth was used in Soviet cinema for many decades. Take, for example, "Tanya" by Grigory Alexandrov (1940) or "The Great Beginning" by Joseph Kheifits and Alexander Zarkhi (1939). But, by the way, then, in my youth, I did not know how poorly the Americans, even experts, understand Soviet cinema.
Having finished the main part of his report-lecture-conversation on such a bravura note as our victory in the fight for the Oscar, the high-ranking Muscovite suggested asking questions. And then someone from our ranks asked: "And when did we manage to owe so much that our guys have to work off this debt in Afghanistan with sweat and blood?" Let me remind you that at that time the second year was ending since the introduction of "a limited contingent of Soviet troops into the Republic of Afghanistan to fulfill international duty." I was then surprised that our guest was not at all embarrassed by the question. Apparently, our audience was far from the first where he was asked such a question, and our guest was even glad that he could highlight the topic raised.
He told us in a confidential tone that "international duty" is such a figure of speech that is necessary for the world's progressive public. In fact, the introduction of a limited contingent was necessary in order to prevent the mortal danger hanging over our country. Allegedly, absolutely reliable information was received that America planned at the very beginning of 1980 to send its troops to Afghanistan and place its missiles there. Then the Central Committee officer began to draw maps and terrain on the board and explain that if American missiles were placed on the Afghan mountains, they could fly as far as Moscow. We, according to a high-ranking and highly informed guest, were literally a few days ahead of the Americans, and in order to prevent the impending danger, we can endure the sweat and blood of our soldiers and the tears of their mothers.
Everyone knows well what happened next. After 8 years, the Soviet Union somehow got out of the abyss of the Afghan war, losing 15 thousand lives of our young guys there. The new Afghan authorities brutally cracked down on the Afghans who collaborated with our "limited contingent." And a year after the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan, my country collapsed. A few years later, American troops entered Afghanistan and for 20 years (!) ruled there undividedly. But they never installed their own missiles on the Afghan mountains.
But let's get back from the surging memories to the picture of Menshov. Well, hack-work or not hack-work, this must be decided by the one for whom the films are made - the moviegoer. And the cinema viewers decided as follows: 84.4 million viewers watched this film in the first year of its demonstration. And this is every third resident of our country in 1980, including infants. Well, it was then - 40 years ago, before the advent of the Internet era. And today - 79% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world give this film a rating of 8 to 10. Such a "hack-work". However, what can we demand from film critics, especially American ones, even if Roger Ebert attributed the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" ... to Hungarian cinema. And this is a critic who is considered to be a guru in his field. What can we expect from the rest?
Considering all of the above, the rating of Vladimir Menshov's film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" according to FilmGourmand was 9,007, thanks to which it occupies 160th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
