"It is very important how the actor himself relates to his popularity, to fame. A person gets drunk on them and often loses control over his self-esteem. For another, the main thing is the work itself, creativity and other worries, as Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin wrote: “What is fame? — A bright spot on the singer's shabby rags.” But I am convinced that creative longevity belongs precisely to those who do not consider their talent their property, but consider themselves only a conduit between God, who endowed them with this talent, and all the others who do not have it”.
This was stated to TASS by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov.
"Unfortunately, now the quality of films, the search for meaning, the depth of the questions raised and the quality of the answers to these questions are in second, third, fifth place.
This is the general trend according to which the "civilized world" dictates the criteria for evaluating a work of art. When a banana glued to plywood is presented as an artistic discovery and sold for 1.5 million dollars, there is no point in discussing Rembrandt. Unfortunately, neither cinema nor theater escaped this fate," says the Oscar winner.
"As for those who left the country, these are not the people who lost their homeland during the Soviet era because they did not accept the new power. They had lost their homeland physically, but not spiritually, on the contrary - their entire future life and all their work, regardless of whether they earned money as taxi drivers or dishwashers, the memory of Russia, their love for it - never left them. They created the greatest emigrant culture. They built everything on love for what they lost.
What is the life of those who left today, not expelled, but escaped, filled with? How much love is there for everything in what they are doing now? There is no point in analyzing it. Nothing can be built on hatred. Even in the Great War, we won not out of hatred for the Germans, but out of love for the Motherland. And that is why the Red Army field kitchens in the destroyed Berlin fed the inhabitants of this city," Mikhalkov continues.
"During the first wave of emigration, Ivan Bunin received the Nobel Prize in Literature for “Dark Alleys“. This work and “The Life of Arsenyev“ are imbued with love for Russia, and today Svetlana Alexievich receives this award because she hates it.
And again, Dostoevsky is right: where there is no God, everything is permitted. The courage of humanity lies in understanding this and its conscious resistance. And as pretentious as it may sound, in this sense the world, not yet blinded by the darkness of globalism, looks to Russia with hope, and for us the most important thing is that this hope never leaves us", adds the director.
And he continues on a political topic:
"Complete lies and duplicity rule the “civilized“ world. And this lie did not arise yesterday, nor a year ago, nor even 100 years ago. What should I believe? In the sincerity of the "white helmets", the Minsk agreements, after the signing of which a coup d'état took place the next day, in NATO's promise not to approach our borders, in the accusation of the occupation of Crimea after a deafening referendum and at the same time, without any referendum, the capture of the Golan Heights by Israeli troops, in Biden's promise not to justify his criminal son, in Trump's vow to end the war with Ukraine in 24 hours?
There is envy towards Russia - “why do you have all this and we don't?“ They are haunted by the realization that the untold riches acquired by our ancestors do not belong to them. It is not for nothing that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is credited with saying that it is unfair that Siberia belongs only to Russia. And experts estimate this wealth at no less than $72 trillion. No one has greater treasures.
And therefore neither ideology, nor communism, nor the Bolsheviks, nor “authoritarian rule“ affect our - as we mistakenly call them - partners, namely these riches, won with the lives of our ancestors. If you know all this, will you believe the friendly smile and sincere interest in knowing how you live?
I really liked the phrase said by our president - “internal sovereignty“ is a very deep thing: what do you believe in, what compromises with yourself can you make, do you understand the concepts of “sin and shame“, as my great-uncle, the historian Dmitry Konchalovsky, said. "In the end, it's a pity that they didn't notice for 10 years how the civilian inhabitants of Donbas were being destroyed," concludes Nikita Mikhalkov.