On the first experiences of creating feature films in the Republic of Bashkortostan in the mid-1990s

Baiturina Diana Uralovna PhD in Art History Postgraduate student, Institute of Film and Television (GITR) Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, Gagarina street, 33-27 by2rina@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Practically nothing has been said about modern Bashkir cinema and the problems of its works. On Bashkir soil, cinema has passed an independent path from an area entertainment at the end of the XIX century and an instrument of Soviet propaganda to modern cinema dedicated to the problems of the small motherland ^[2].

By a special decision of the Government of May 25, 1990, the Bashkortostan Film Studio was established in Ufa. Its first head was Amir Abdrazakov. Until 1996, the first works at the studio were documentaries: "The Gates of Freedom", "Zainab Biisheva" (all 1992), "Gaskarov" (1994), etc. In 1996, the studio debuted in the genre of feature films, then two films were released: "The Glass Passenger" by Bulat Yusupov and "Two distant near winters" by Ildar Islamgulov.

Bulat Timerbaevich Yusupov – director, producer. Honored Artist of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Born on September 15, 1973 in Ufa. In 1995 he graduated from the directing department of VGIK (workshop of V.N. Naumov). After graduation, he returned to Ufa, where he started producing films. In 2009, he founded a film school in the capital of Bashkortostan.

In 2003, in an interview with the magazine "Belsky Expanses" Bulat Timerbaevich emphasized his position on national cinema: "I am a Bashkir myself, I was brought up on Bashkir culture, so I want this culture to become accessible to other peoples. For me, the ideal of national cinema is the film "Mimino". Do you remember how this movie was loved all over the country? That's how you should shoot – about your own, but for everyone."

The urgency of the problem of national (ethnic) in modern cinema seems especially urgent as the antithesis of Hollywood cinema. In the context of financial globalization, American cinema is conquering the film market without a struggle. In response to the challenges of the time, a quota for the screening of American films is being introduced in many countries.

No matter how great the desire to limit the screening of a monopolist in the field of cinema in favor of national cinema, cultural policy is determined by the viewer's demand for cinema. In the post-century years, cinemas do not have to choose: the restrictions imposed in connection with the pandemic have seriously affected the profitability of film screenings, and this is against the background of a worldwide trend of falling cinema attendance.

 Side by side with the confrontation between American and national cinema, there is also a struggle between the commercial mainstream and arthouse cinema, in which the arthouse obviously loses.

The researchers draw attention to the fact that the development of national cinema is becoming a significant cultural phenomenon of today, largely because, in contrast to the cinematic giants, it reproduces its own narratives imbued with national mentality. The authors create valuable copies of ethnic cinema with their own manner, style, language, which, in turn, are able to develop and enrich the cinematic hypertext. It follows from this observation that the development of national cinematography by no means excludes global cinematography, but on the contrary, enriches it ^{[6; p.23]}.

Ethnic cinema, by virtue of the locality of its mentality, is in itself worthy of universal attention, since it shows us an ethnos, in one or another of its manifestations. Here we approach the concept of identity as a property of the human psyche that allows us to identify ourselves with a certain group of people in various categories: national, cultural, racial, gender, etc.

Identity is understood as the conscious acceptance by an individual of social norms, rules, cultural realities and other characteristics that allow him to perceive himself as a member of a particular community and distinguish him from representatives of other groups.

The national-cultural type of identity is determined by a person's awareness of his belonging to the nation and national culture. The norms and rules of behavior adopted in a particular community, traditional ceremonies, individual elements of ritual religious culture, language, history, etc. will serve as identifications in this area.

The problem of ethnic cinema becomes the most urgent due to several reasons. Firstly, it is the establishment of national self-identification as a natural response to the processes of globalization. Secondly, it is a digital revolution caused by the development of video and the almost ubiquitous availability of software for shooting and editing films.

The study of the nature of cinema is often carried out from the perspective of the interaction of two aspects: objective (image, sound, structure of the film) and subject, mythological (mythological image). We propose to use three approaches to the study of film production: archetypal, structural-semiotic and hermeneutic. The first is the research of the myth inside the film production. He will show us the presence of elements of national myth in the work and their connection with literary archetypes and Jungian archetypes.  The second, semiotic, occurs in the conditions of the separation of signs from relations within the whole structure that defines film production as a kind of artistic "text". And the third, hermeneutical, is based on the tradition of interpreting cinema in the intertextual interaction of all artistic texts.

We resort to these types of film analysis for many reasons. It is fair to assume that the author of the film will emphasize belonging to the national culture in the work. Consideration of folklore elements in the film text implies a deeper study from the standpoint of archetypal analysis, and of particular interest is the possibility of comparing images of Bashkir folklore with other images: from ancient Greek mythology or images of Russian domestic literature. Semiotic analysis will allow a deeper analysis of the visual means of artistic expression, which, we assume, will also emphasize the national elements in this work. Hermeneutical analysis will help us to better understand the time and conditions in which this movie was created, and we will also try to draw some parallels with the film productions of other eras and peoples.

Analysis of the screen work "The Glass Passenger" (author – B.Yusupov)

1. Archetypal analysis.

A young writer accidentally gets involved in a criminal story, and now this incident is burdening his life. He remembers the past, remembers his youthful love. He worries about the time in which he could not confess his love.

The theme of the sun plays a key role in the film. The main character thinks a lot about the sun, talks about it: "and why did it catch fire?", "when will you fly back? – when we bury this sun," "the sun will run out of fuel," etc.

In Bashkir mythology, the image of the sun occupies one of the most important parts. In the kubair epic "Ural-Batyr", among other deities, the deities Koyash (Sun) and Ai (Moon) are mentioned. The sun is mentioned as one of the main deities.

The materials collected by folklorists also testify to the special veneration of the sun. The Bashkir language is rich in phraseological units mentioning the sun ("koyash ashau" – burn out in the sun, "koyash totolou" - abduction of the sun, eclipse, etc.). There are also many beliefs recorded, according to which people were forbidden to do anything under the light of the sun. For example, it was forbidden to show uncleanness to the sun, or, looking at the sun, it was impossible to say "the sun has gone out". And at the eclipse, on the contrary, it was necessary to "mourn" him. There is a scene in the film in which a ladybug runs through the hands of lovers. After all, in the Bashkir language there was a custom to call ladybirds "koyash apai", "koyashkort" – i.e. "aunt Sun" or "Solar worm" ^{[16; p.63]}.

The film is based on the postmodern principle of non-linear narration and division into chapters. By the way, the last chapter in the "Glass Passenger" was called "Sun Eaters".

According to the Bashkir legend about the origin of the Gaynans "Aina and Gayna", the demonic being of Azhdakh steals the sun. Gaina defeated the dragon, freed the sun, and since then his family has lived in the place where he won and freed the sun. The theme of "Sun Eaters" is close to this legend.

Thus, the thematic line of the sun runs in this movie as a red line.

The image of the main character refers us to the literary archetype of the poet. This is evidenced by several characteristic features. In the second scene it becomes obvious: before us is a writer, a thinker. "This has been happening for a long time. Probably from the moment I started writing short stories. But no matter how much I wrote, people didn't care about it, and no one read my stories," he says. 

With the image of Dante, an unhappy lover, the bearer of the archetype of the poet, the main character is related to his confession: "Exactly at twelve I will drown in this damned river because of unhappy love for you."

This scene is replaced by a metaphor of descent into hell. The main character announces to his beloved: "I'm going down into your soul" and finds himself in a basement with many rooms. This motif is inherent in the main bearer of the poet's literary archetype – Orpheus. The above-mentioned connection of the film with the theme of the Sun is especially important here, because according to one version of the myth, Orpheus was the son of the Sun god Apollo.  As Brodsky said: "A visit to the underworld is as much a great–story as the first visitor who inflicted it is a great-poet."

At the end of the film, we guess that the main character dies at the hands of villains. He failed to cope with the pangs of conscience after the crime committed, and the deserved punishment overtakes him.

A similar motif is often found in Greek tragedy. The hero, destined by fate to become a criminal, fought against this fate, but in the end he was still punished for the crime committed. The German philosopher F. Schelling believed that this was how the Greeks asserted the essence of human freedom. Heroes of Greek tragedies who committed a crime by the will of fate and then suffered punishment: Oedipus, Agamemnon, Orestes.

The researcher of ancient literature I. Tronsky notes that a characteristic feature of ancient Greek tragedies was "suffering". This state is inherent in our hero: he is tormented by eternal questions, looking for answers to them, but cannot find them. He wants to hear an excuse in a conversation with a friend, but he leaves because he does not want to be seen in his company.

The author of the picture himself draws a connection between his hero and the heroes of M.Y. Lermontov's novel "The Hero of Our Time". A voice–over (in the frame - a hand with a revolver) says Pechorin's remark when the main character aims a pistol: "Grushnitsky, there is still time, give up your slander ...". Obviously, the director does not draw obvious parallels between his hero and Pechorin and Grushnitsky. Many literary critics, starting with V.G. Belinsky, have noted that these heroes are two sides of the same archetype.Jung argued: "... in one individual there can be, as it were, several personalities..." ^{[18, p.247]}.

So, the image of the main character, with his searches and pangs of conscience, is associated with the archetype of the poet, which has existed in literature for many centuries. Revealing the depth of the main character's image is enriched with references to ancient Greek mythology and classical literature, including the works of Lermontov. Suffering and the search for answers to eternal questions are characteristic features of the main character, emphasizing his connection with the archetype of the poet and the heroes of other famous literary works. The work is saturated with symbolic content related to the theme of the sun in Bashkir mythology. We remind you that the image of the sun plays an important role in Bashkir folklore.

2. Semiotic analysis.

As already mentioned above, the picture is based on the postmodern principle of nonlinear narration and division into chapters. This helps the viewer to navigate the memories of a young man. Often, the transitions between episodes do not get a specific name ("Boring Summer"), but become an illustration of the author's philosophical reflections ("Once the war gave birth to a healthy generation that did not break its head in search of meaning and purpose: it just lived ...").

In some scenes, we observe a deliberate discrepancy between the visual and audio narration made by the director. In the first scene, the main character tells how, after getting off the train, he watched the end of the night, the dawn. At this time, the sunset is shown in the frame.

The same discrepancy between the narratives can be considered a metaphor in the dialogue scene on the river. The main character says to the girl: "I am descending into your soul" – and at this time he descends into the dungeon.

This artistic technique is rooted in another confirmation that what is happening in the picture is in an unreal, illusory world. The director emphasizes that the viewer should not take the events taking place in the frame literally. This is the narration of a man immersed in his own doubts, arguments, torments.

The key to further narration is the phrase of the main character, said at the beginning of the film. "Feelings, thoughts swarming in my head, even memories –and those seemed wrong."

The director, in the language of visual narration, emphasizes the role played by the appearance of a girl in the life of the main character. In the dating scene before her appearance, the frame was characteristically "uncomfortable", cramped. Two friends barely "fit" into it. But with her appearance, the frame "fills with air", gradually expands. To top it off, the scene ends with a funicular ride, in which the main character freely throws up his hands, as if in flight.

In the episode of his first appearance, the main character tells about a huge cloud that covered the stars. In one of the following episodes, he and his girlfriend are moving in the cab of a funicular, plunging into the clouds.

"Swampiness, humidity" traditionally characterize the state of transitivity in Bashkir folklore. In the epic "Ural Batyr", the "swamp" as a symbol of chaos reflects the basic idea of mythological thinking that the world before the act of creation was undivided. In Bashkir folklore, as markers of chaos, in addition to the swamp, sometimes appear: "toman" ("fog"), "monar" ("darkness", "mist"), "swamp" ("cloud"). Often the approach of doom or chaos is described as absorption by fog ^{[1; 45]}.

Therefore, we can identify the symbol of immersion in clouds at the very beginning of the film – as the initiation of preparation for death, the transition to the otherworldly, illusory world. So at the very beginning of the film, the hero performs the act of transition into his illusory world. In it, he moves chaotically between episodes of his life, remembering various key events of his fate.

 The exploitation of the theme of the Sun in the picture is evidenced by numerous shots. In some cases, only metaphors of the sun are used: a lit and extinguished light bulb, fried eggs in a frying pan, a burning match, perspective and the silhouette of the hero through a pipe.

The space-time axis of a literary text is located in the space of the other world. The hero seems to be stuck "in purgatory": in which his repentance for the sin he committed, as well as regret for the failed declaration of love, takes place. 

He goes through his path of redemption, and at the end of the picture he dies. This is evidenced by many signs:

- the door is like a portal to the other world. After a dialogue with a friend about the murder, the main character comes out of a dark room. In the doorway we see that his figure is flooded with light.

- modes of transport like Charon's boat. The director shows us for the first time a murdered man lying in a boat on the shore. At the end of the film, the viewer is shown a scene in which the trolleybus conductor announces that the line is breaking, there is no further way. In this context, the phrase is consonant with the stable lexical turnover "life line". Only one passenger remains in the trolleybus – the murdered man. 

- a passenger in a taxi. The scene in the trolleybus is shown by parallel editing with the scene in the taxi. There is also a person in the car – obviously, the main character. The montage "tells" us that the main character is now also dead.

The theme of "passenger" echoes the title of the film. The epithet "glass" is intended to characterize the "passenger": firstly, glass, which means fragile, broken. Secondly – frozen, frozen, frozen.

The director mainly chooses close-up and medium-close-up shooting. By this he emphasizes that we are immersed in the inner world of the hero, his experiences and the world of memories.

The pace of action is dynamic, sometimes ragged. In one of the scenes, the technique of repeating frames was characteristically applied.

The main object of the director's attention in this picture is the inner world of a creative person. The author emphasizes his emotional experiences, brings them to the fore. Structural-semiotic analysis helps us to pay attention to the unreality of what is happening.

Thus, the director actively exploits visual and audio narrative techniques, creating an illusory world that symbolically reflects the inner world of the character. The main character goes through the path of redemption and in the end dies, which is symbolized by various signs, such as the door, Charon's boat. The director mainly uses large and medium-sized plans to immerse the viewer into the inner world of the hero. The painting addresses the theme of doubts, reflections and torments of a person immersed in his own emotions and memories. Visual metaphors are used to emphasize the initiation of the transition to the other world.

3. Hermeneutical analysis.

The structural and semiotic analysis carried out above allows us to notice the obvious similarity of the author's concept with the idea of the Italian director Federico Fellini in his film "Eight and a Half", in which the accents were also built on the inner world of a certain gifted personality - in this case, film director Guido Anselmi. In the mentioned picture, reality and fantasy are also mixed together, the picture is replete with metaphors and allegories. Mainly for one purpose: to show the multifaceted inner world of the artist, the creative "chaos" of his mind. This parallel seems obvious to us, however, it should be noted that the creators of these paintings pursued different goals. If Fellini was interested in experimenting with the form and style of cinema, then it was important for Yusupov to place exactly heroes with a national character and heritage in a context that is conditionally understandable to every viewer.

And it is understandable: the short film "The Glass Passenger" was the thesis of a graduate of VGIK Bulat Yusupov. But in 1996, at the time of the film's release, only 6 years had passed since the founding of the Bashkortostan film Studio. And in that 1996, the film studio debuted in the genre of artistic short films. Two films were released at once: "The Glass Passenger" by Bulat Yusupov and "Two Distant Near Winters" by Ildar Islamgulov.

It is worth mentioning that the origins of Bashkir feature films often include the feature film "Salavat Yulaev" (1941) directed by Yakov Protazanov. However, the film about the Bashkir hero was shot at the Moscow film studio Soyuzdetfilm (now the Gorky Film Studio). Therefore, as a starting point for Bashkir feature films, we propose to take 1996, since we are talking about pictures shot directly at the Bashkortostan film studio.

In Bashkortostan, the film studio was opened in very difficult years for the Russian economy – in the 90s. Obviously, this is the reason for the studio's growth costs.

But the "Glass Passenger" gave a good impetus to the development of feature films in Bashkortostan. At the very beginning of the 2000s, new gaming, now full-length films, began to be released in a row. In 2001, the premiere of the first full–length feature film "Rainbow over the Village" took place, in 2002 the second full-length film "The Seventh Summer of Syumbel" was released. In 2004, a short feature film "At night it is possible" (directed by Aisyuak Yumagulov) was shot, which became a prize-winner of many international festivals. In 2005, Bulat Yusupov presented a full-length film "A Long, Long Childhood" based on the story of Mustai Karim. In 2005, numerous documentaries about the history of the Bashkir people were shot.

In 1996, the authors of the film Bulat Yusupov, Aidar Akmanov, Riyaz Iskhakov, Vladislav Bayramgulov were awarded the State Youth Prize named after Shaikhzada Babich in the field of literature, art and architecture. The main purpose of awarding the prize is to encourage young writers, artists, artists, musicians, architects and directors who have made a significant contribution to the development of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Note that the award itself was established just a year earlier. In 1995, only three people became its laureates. Therefore, the awarding of the team of authors of the film "Glass Passenger" was an important event in the cultural and political agenda of the republic. Now all the authors of the film have become famous figures of Russian cinema.

"I am a Bashkir myself, I was brought up on Bashkir culture, so I want this culture to become accessible to other peoples. For me, the ideal of national cinema is the film "Mimino". Do you remember how this movie was loved all over the country? That's how you should shoot - about your own, but for everyone," Bulat Timerbaevich said in an interview with the magazine "Belsky Expanses".

This quote of the filmmaker is the philosophy of his work. National cinema should unite people, especially in such a multinational country. Cinematography, as the most popular kind of art, is able to convey to the viewer in the most accessible form the national and cultural peculiarities of the life of a particular people, to tell about their spiritual values and worldview. By the way, the film was shot in Bashkir.

The Ufa film studio was opened much later than in some Soviet republics (for example, Gruziyafilm in 1921) – already at the sunset of the Soviet Union. Almost immediately, the work at the film studio faced a number of problems caused by insufficient funding. But the appearance of the film "The Glass Passenger" was a significant step in the cinema of Bashkortostan. And by the beginning of the new century, many films, including full-length ones, began to appear at the studio.

Conclusion

The film lacks a linear narrative, is replete with metaphors and references to folk folklore, to Russian literature, hints at images from ancient Greek mythology and drama. In our opinion, the author of the film sought to characterize his characters as carriers of national memory, national culture from the standpoint of modernity. The key role was played by the attraction to folklore, to the elements of the primordial, national.

In an effort to combine modernity and the past, the author made a choice in favor of modernity. He emphasizes that the most important and characteristic thing is how fairly ordinary incidents (first love, a ridiculous criminal story) are imprinted in the hero's memory, how they bring him back to folklore memory and why exactly these memories arise before his death.

Despite the external absence of references to the ethnic culture of Bashkirs (in addition to the sound of the film in Bashkir in Russian dubbing), this is a visual cinematic work that has become one of the first in a series of Bashkir feature films.

The film offers viewers a mixture of various mythological and literary motifs, archetypes and symbols, creating a complex artistic experience. The visual and audio narrative techniques used help to create an illusory world that symbolically reflects the inner world of the character. And the historical agenda fully corresponded to the trends of modern times: while at the sunset of the USSR the film studios of other union republics had already "thundered", the creative community of Bashkortostan was waiting for its turn to embody Bashkir national images on a wide screen. And, of course, we are talking not only about outstanding historical figures, such as Salavat Yulaev. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, another movie takes the place of the propaganda one – first of all, about a man with his inner tosses, illusions, delusions and payback for mistakes. This was the picture "Glass Passenger".