65 years of The Forty-first

On October 15, 1956, Grigoriy Chukhray's film "The Forty-first" was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas.

The film is based on the short story of the same name by Boris Lavrenyov, written in 1924. Moreover, Grigoriy Chukhray's film became the second film adaptation of Lavrenyov's story. The first was carried out by Yakov Protazanov in 1927.

It should be recalled that Boris Lavrenyov during the Civil War first fought for the Whites, and then for the Reds. And it was this duality reflected in his story, which served as the literary basis of the film, to some extent became something of a foundation for some conflict situations that do not stop to this day.

But - in order. Grigoriy Chukhray, who went through the war, from May 1942 to April 1945, directly took part in the fighting, wounded four times, in 1953, being 32 years old, graduated from the directing faculty of All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (ARSIC). After that, he worked for two years as an assistant director, and then as a second director at the Film Studio named after Dovzhenko in Kiev (Ukraine). While still working at the Dovzhenko Film Studio, he tried to initiate the production of a film based on Lavrenyov's story, which he read while in the hospital in 1943. But where there! The management of the film studio, who religiously adhered to Leninist-Stalinist dogmas, did not want to hear anything.

But in 1955, he was invited to work at Mosfilm by the then director of this film studio, Ivan Pyriev, who sensed the wind of change in the country and relied on young cinematographers who were more or less free from Bolshevik dogmas. Invited and, as Grigoriy Chukhray later told, offered to shoot the film right away.

When asked to direct the film, Chukhray replied that he would like to make a film based on Lavrenyov's story. Chukhray spent three hours explaining to Pyriev his vision of the script for the future picture, but realizing his lack of experience in creating scripts, he asked the director of Mosfilm to give him an experienced screenwriter. Pyriev proposed the candidacy of 48-year-old Grigory Koltunov, who already had about 10 fairly successful feature films on his account. Chukhray agreed.

However, according to Chukhray, creative frictions immediately began with Koltunov. According to Chukhray the reason for the conflicts was ideological differences, the same duality of the literary source mentioned above. Koltunov strove in his script to reflect the class struggle traditional for Soviet cinema. Chukhray wanted to focus on love between a man and a woman. The conflict between the director and the screenwriter was so acute that Chukhray was going to declare to the artistic council, where the script was to be approved, his refusal to insert episodes based on Koltunov's script into the film. But, supposedly, the cautious Sergei Yutkevich, who was Chukhray's teacher at ARSIC, dissuaded him from doing this, advising him to quietly shoot only what he considered necessary. And the unnecessary - do not shoot.

Be that as it may, the script was approved, Chukhray, together with the film crew, went to the Caspian to shoot a film. All the twists and turns and problems of making a film are described in some detail by Grigoriy Chukhray. There is no point in retelling all this.

Now it is difficult to say how much the final version of the picture is based on Koltunov's script, and how much - on the scenario sketches of Chukhray himself. But in the credits of the film it is clearly stated that the screenwriter is Grigory Koltunov. In this form, the film was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas and was a huge success with the audience. More than 25 million Soviet moviegoers watched it in the first year.

And in May 1957, Grigoriy Chukhray's film "The Forty-first" was presented for the International Cannes Film Festival, where it received a nomination for the Palme d'Or. Chukhray's film did not receive this award. The jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous French writer André Maurois, awarded the main prize to William Wyler's movie "Friendly Persuasion". But for the debutant director, which at that time was Grigoriy Chukhray, to be in a more than worthy company of "relative losers" was very honorable. And the company, indeed, got together glorious: "Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped)" by Robert Bresson, "Kanal" by Andrzej Wajda, "Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)" by Federico Fellini, "Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal)" by Ingmar Bergman and others.

But Grigoriy Chukhray's film "The Forty-first" did not remain without an award. The jury established a Special prize "For the original script, humanism and romance" for this movie. The jury selected Grigoriy Chukhray as the beneficiary of the prize. But this did not suit Grigory Koltunov at all, or rather, his heirs. As recently as July 1, 2021, Grigory Koltunov's daughter, Victoria, published an article "Koltunov and Chukhray" on the Ukrainian Internet resource ODESSA Daily where in very harsh terms she criticizes both Grigoriy Chukhray himself and some Russian media for their allegedly not quite conscientious assessment of the merits of all those who took part in the creation of the film "The Forty-first" (1956). In short, the main message of the article is as follows: The Cannes jury awarded the prize "For the original script ...", the screenwriter was officially Grigory Koltunov. Consequently, the main contribution to the Cannes Prize was made by Koltunov. The rest are so, insofar as.

And what angers Victoria Grigorievna even more is the frequent mention of the assessment of the film Chukhray attributed to her father as "dirty White Guard cooking". Well, this is absolutely understandable: there is a revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, decommunization and all that sort of thing. And here they remind about dad's vilification of the film, in which a noble White Guard and a Red Army woman in love with him are shown almost for the first time. Somehow not at the time.

However, all these disputes and clarifications of relations in no way detract from the merits of the picture itself. Probably the most objective assessment of the film is its characterization given by the French film critic Antoine Royer: "Près de trente ans plus tard, la nécessité de respecter absolument l’esprit de la Révolution était peut-être moins impérative, et si le film de Tchoukhraï suit aussi scrupuleusement l’intrigue du récit original que le film de Protazanov, il s’en affranchit par, sinon sa liberté (ce serait un bien grand mot), en tout cas son ouverture. Aux schématismes idéologique (les braves Rouges face à la vermine tsariste) et aux héros infaillibles que le cinéma soviétique exaltait encore il y a peu, le film de Tchoukhraï répond en décrivant des personnages plus complexes, en proie au trouble ou au doute. Ce faisant, il ouvre son film à une forme de romantisme ou de délicatesse assez largement absentes du cinéma soviétique de la fin des années 40 ou du début des années 50. Plus encore, et de façon plus ou moins consciente, il en viendrait même – ô sacrilège – à questionner l’unilatéralité de l’engagement idéologique communiste. Car si le film de Tchoukhraï est évidemment politique, il n’est pas idéologique : ce n’est pas le devoir révolutionnaire qui compte, c’est la jeunesse de Marioutka – et à travers elle toute la jeunesse soviétique – les perspectives qu’elle incarne et les conflits auxquels elle est soumise. L’objectif, plutôt que de raviver la flamme révolutionnaire d’un récit vieux de 30 ans, était ainsi de capter une vérité plus générale, celle d’une jeunesse tiraillée entre sa soif d’instantanéité et sa volonté d’écrire son histoire."

It has already been noted above how successful Grigoriy Chukhray's film "The Forty-first" was among moviegoers of the mid-50s. Modern moviegoers rated this film no less highly: 62% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated this film from 8 to 10.

With that said, the rating of Grigoriy Chukhray's film "The Forty-first" according to FilmGourmand was 7,802, thanks to which it entered the Golden Thousand and took 990th Rank in it.