Category: Videos

Movies and music videos

Book: Stanisław Lem “Solaris”

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Stanisław Lem is a classic of Polish science fiction, hugely popular among Russian-speaking readers since the Soviet era, when we weren’t exactly spoiled for science fiction. Apparently that very status is what kept me from writing a review of Solaris for so long—because, shame on me, I only read it recently.

If Lem himself is a star, then Solaris is probably one of his most famous works—yet most people who know it do so through its screen adaptations. The best known is the 1972 film by Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Soviet actors Donatas Banionis and Natalya Bondarchuk. In 2002 the Americans made their own version too: Soderbergh cast none other than George Clooney in the lead. And there was also an earlier TV adaptation with Vasily Lanovoy, released four years before Tarkovsky’s version.

It’s worth noting that Lem himself treated the adaptations of this novel rather coolly, because, first, he couldn’t imagine how it could be filmed at all—and second, he really disliked the way directors chose to reinterpret his idea. He even quarreled with Tarkovsky, calling him a fool, and later said that instead of Solaris, Tarkovsky had made “Crime and Punishment in space.”

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TV Show “The History of Russian Computer Games”

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Recently, the streaming service Okko released a documentary series titled The History of Russian Computer Games, about how the video game industry developed across the post-Soviet space—starting with the USSR era.

Anton Vert recommended it to me, immediately pointing out a few downsides. But it’s one thing to listen to smart people, and another to watch it yourself and then share your own opinion that nobody asked for.

In 30–40 minute episodes, the series talks about different milestones in the industry’s formation—first in the USSR, and then across the entire territory of this former Soviet empire. At least, that’s how the series is sometimes positioned (I’ll come back to this in more detail later).

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Films with Different Dubbings — Part 2

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It seems the first post about films with different dubbings was received quite well — and even back then I promised there would be a second part.

Although by now I’ve realized that calling it just “different dubbings” wasn’t quite accurate. It would have been more precise to call it “different versions.”

3. Rock’n Roll Wolf (1976)

Ever since childhood, I remember those TV “film concerts” — long compilations of songs from various animated films and movies. And almost always, one beautiful song would appear in those programs: “Mama” from the 1976 film of the same name (because in Russian the film was released under the title “Mama”, not “Rock’n Roll Wolf.”). Curiously, the film itself was shown on television quite rarely.

And yet it’s simply a costumed musical (we didn’t even use that word back then), loosely based on the fairy tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats (in English it is usually translated as The Wolf and Seven Kids.) At the same time, there was another wonderful Soviet musical, Wolf and Seven Kids in a New Way, which was released both as a vinyl record and as an animated film.

The movie Rock’n Roll Wolf was directed by the Romanian filmmaker Elisabeta Bostan and was a co-production between three countries: the USSR, Romania, and France. The main roles were played by well-known Soviet actors — Lyudmila Gurchenko, Mikhail Boyarskiy, Saveliy Kramarov, Natalya Krachkovskaya, and even the clown Oleg Popov as the Bear — alongside Romanian actors (how famous they were at the time, I honestly don’t know). The screenplay was a Soviet–Romanian collaboration, while the music was written by French and Romanian composers.

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Films with Different Dubbings — Part 1

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Many people enjoy watching films — some prefer the original audio, others like the dubbing tradition that has existed in the Russian-speaking world for nearly a century. But few people realize that some films were released with multiple different dubbings. The reasons varied, but the fact remains. And today I decided to talk about a few such films — all of them made in the Soviet Union.

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Musical “Les Misérables”

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When I wrote my review of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, I admitted that what pushed me to read it was the Hollywood adaptation of the musical based on the same book. Before the musical, I only knew the broad strokes about the novel. The musical interpretation, though a bit on the superficial side, turned out to be very engaging. I rewatch it from time to time, and many of the songs have made their way into my playlist.

At some point I got interested in the history of the musical itself. And it turned out not to be some little-known production. So I’ll try to give a brief overview.

The first staging of a musical based on the famous book was in France, in 1980—and of course in French. But that production ran on stage for only three months. And perhaps no one would have heard of it if, in 1983, a recording hadn’t been passed to Cameron Mackintosh, the producer of the Broadway version of the great musical Cats, with a proposal to create an English-language version. The text was rewritten for an English audience; a prologue and several new numbers were added; and most importantly, all the non-musical spoken dialogue was removed. This version premiered in London in 1985.

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Viking Song: My mother told me

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It’s been a long time since I last wrote about good songs. Now it’s time to talk about one that my younger children have come to love — and which we’ve already listened to dozens of times.

The song was made very popular by the TV series Vikings, although in fact it is more than a thousand years old. In English it is known by its opening words, “My mother told me”, while in Old Norse (Common Scandinavian) it sounded as “Þat mælti mín móðir.”

In the series, the song is performed by two brothers who, upon hearing each other’s voices, realize that both are still alive after the battle. But, as I said, after the series the song began to be heard in many places; it was even added to various videos on Viking themes (for example, over the trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla video game). In many versions, performers limit themselves to just about a single verse, which is repeated several times:

My mother told me

Someday I would buy

Galleys with good oars

Sail to distant shores

The song is dated to around the 9th century AD. And in this text, historians say, is reflected the time when the Vikings no longer had enough land of their own and resolved not only to go on distant raids but even began to contemplate settling in other lands — in particular, England and Ireland. On the subject of the full text of the song, there is an interesting article by archaeologist Martine Kaspersen: http://www.scandinavianarchaeology.com/my_mother_told_me/.

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Dirty and Politically Incorrect ’80s

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I remember that in my childhood in the USSR, there was a craze for aerobics that came from the ‘decaying’ West. Various courses were released, special programs aired on TV, even records were issued with music and exercises. But even back then, as a teenager, I had my doubts that everyone was getting into this sport purely for the sake of sport—especially the men.

Time passed, the craze faded, but it was replaced by yoga, CrossFit, and other things like Pilates, which shall not be named.

What’s interesting is that even today many still perceive aerobics as an excuse to watch attractive women—not exactly with sporting intentions. But if in the 1980s this was seen as a manifestation of self-expression and liberation, now such views and videos could very well get you charged with harassment. O tempora! O mores!

And back then they even made movies—with young John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. And no one went to jail, surprisingly. Even though it reeks of objectification of women, disregard for African Americans, and a bunch of other things.

So maybe the USSR was right about the decaying West after all.

Book: Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov “The Golden Calf”

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Earlier, I wrote that I had decided to reread the duology about Ostap Bender, which I had previously read only as a teenager. After finishing the “most complete” version of The Twelve Chairs, I picked up a similar edition of the second novel, The Golden Calf. This one is also presented as “The complete version of the novel without omissions or cuts.”

According to legend, the authors hadn’t planned to write a second novel—the first was self-contained, and Ostap Bender dies at the end. The authors even claimed they flipped a coin to decide whether he would live or die. But after the wild success of the first book, it would have been odd if they hadn’t gone ahead with a sequel. Although there is an opinion that the continuation had been planned much earlier, and the rest is just a neat and officially supported legend.

In the first novel, there were two main characters—Kisa Vorobyaninov and Ostap Bender himself. But it was clear who was playing the first violin, who was the thinker and driving force in the duo. Without Ostap, Kisa likely wouldn’t have recovered a single chair. That’s why the second book has no connection to the “leader of the Russian nobility” and instead puts the resurrected Ostap fully in the spotlight, now accompanied by new helpers who are significantly more useful (though still no match for him). As for his death, Ostap mentions it only in passing: someone did try to kill him, but brave Soviet medicine managed to save his life. The only reminder is a clearly visible scar from a razor cut on his neck.

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MyShows: How to Keep Track of TV Shows (and Movies)

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There was a time when I didn’t watch any TV shows at all, because I had a strong impression that all series were basically soap operas. (Too many of them were being shown on TV during the final years of the USSR—things like Santa Barbara and Simple María.) But then someone persistently recommended a space series called Firefly. Eventually, I gave in and watched it. And I was absolutely blown away by how powerful a well-made show could be—both in terms of writing and acting.

That’s where my love for TV shows began—as well as my appreciation for actor Nathan Fillion, who played the lead role in Firefly. He later starred in the excellent series Castle, currently appears in The Rookie, and, in my opinion, would have been the perfect choice to play Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie (though for some reason they cast Tom Holland instead).

For my wife and me, watching good shows has become a favorite way to spend our evenings together. But at some point, keeping track of what we’d seen and when new seasons were coming out started to get tricky. So I went looking for a good tool to help with that. A coworker recommended the service MyShows. I’ve been using it for many years now, and recently the developers added a new feature (still a bit rough around the edges, but promising)—tracking not only TV shows but also movies. So I figured I’d write a bit about this platform.

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“Highlander”: The Soundtrack

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Yesterday I talked about the two MacLeods from the Highlander series, but since I’ve already brought up this franchise, it would feel incomplete not to mention the film’s music.

True fans know, but many people never even stop to think about what music played in Highlander or who performed it. And yet, the soundtrack definitely played a big role in the film’s popularity, since it was created by none other than the mega-popular band Queen. In fact, based on songs written for a couple of films (including Highlander), they released the album A Kind of Magic.

It included the following tracks featured in Highlander:

  • A Kind of Magic
  • One Year of Love
  • Who Wants to Live Forever
  • Gimme the Prize
  • Princes of the Universe

All of these songs were written specifically for the movie, which is clearly reflected in their lyrics. Among them, two tracks gained the most widespread popularity.

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