Anniversary of The Flight
On January 14, 1971, an event took place in the cultural life of the Soviet Union, which can be called a turning point: the movie "The Flight" by directors Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov was released on the screens of cinemas.
The film "The Flight" is based on several works by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, of which the play of the same name is the main one. The play "The Flight" was written by Mikhail Bulgakov in 1926-1927 and in 1928 was being prepared for staging at the Moscow Art Theater. Alexey Gorky himself predicted "huge success" for the future performance. But...
But there was a denunciation of the "proletarian writers" to the "leader of the peoples." Stalin familiarized himself with the play and made his conclusion:
"The Flight" is a manifestation of an attempt to arouse pity, if not sympathy, for some layers of the anti-Soviet emigre - therefore, an attempt to justify or semi-justify the White Guard case. "The Flight" in the form in which he is, represents an anti-Soviet phenomenon. " - Сталин И. В. Сочинения. Ответ Билль-Белоцерковскому. — Т. 11. — М.: ОГИЗ; Государственное издательство политической литературы, 1949. С. 326—329.
As a result, the play "The Flight" was banned and remained banned until the death of the leader. More precisely, before the beginning of the so-called "Khrushchev thaw".
In 1957, the play "Flight", like a number of other works by Mikhail Bulgakov, was first published in the Soviet Union. After that, performances based on this play were staged in several theaters in the country. But film adaptations of the works of Mikhail Bulgakov were still prohibited. That is why the film "The Flight" directed by Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov, which reflects the play "The Flight", the novel "The White Guard" and the operatic libretto "The Black Sea", which became the first film adaptation of the works of the great Russian writer in the Soviet Union, can with good reason be considered a significant event in the cultural life of the country.
Today you can find a lot of materials about what tricks the filmmakers had to resort to in order to bypass or overcome all kinds of obstacles and traps created by the party and cinematographic authorities on the way to making the film. We will not retell them, but for those wishing to learn about the history of the creation of the film, we can recommend this publication.
The film about White Guards which evoke not hatred and disgust, but, on the contrary, if not sympathy, then pity and sympathy, and besides, created in the year of Lenin's centenary, of course, could not count on any prizes and awards from the Soviet government. But we can say thank them at least for the fact that the film was released in a large enough circulation of 1254 copies, due to which in the first year of the demonstration it was watched by almost 20 million people. In addition, the film was presented at the Cannes International Film Festival.
At the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, "The Flight" was nominated for a Palme d'Or. However, the festival jury, chaired by French actress Michelle Morgan, awarded the main prize of the festival to the British film "The Go-Between" directed by Joseph Losey. However, the film by Alov and Naumov ended up in a very worthy company of "losers", which included: Italian films "Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice)" by Luchino Visconti and "Sacco and Vanzetti" by Giuliano Montaldo, American films "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo and "Taking Off" by Milos Forman, Hungarian "Szerelem (Love)" by Károly Makk, French "Le souffle au coeur (Murmur in the Heart)" by Louis Malle.
Judging by the almost complete absence of reviews by professional film critics and reviews of non-Russian-speaking users on the IMDB website, the film by Alov and Naumov remained practically unknown outside the USSR. In this connection, one can only sympathize with foreign moviegoers. However, Russian-speaking professional film critics, one might say, passed over the film in silence.
And, meanwhile, the film received a rather high rating from ordinary moviegoers. 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated this movie from 8 to 10, and 24% of users rated the movie with the highest score - "ten".
Considering the above, the rating of the film "The Flight" by directors Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov according to FilmGourmand's version was 8.074, thanks to which it took 620th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
