Page 182 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

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Interview with Alexander Medvedkin

Question: How did you start work in cinema and why?
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Medvedkin: The story of my start in cinema is somewhat unusual.
The positions that I stand for in cinema are upsetting. They differ from
those of my colleagues. I’ll tell you in my own words the essence of my
position in cinema.
I’ve worked in cinema for nearly sixty years and my positions
haven’t changed. I’ve paid very dearly for this, because I’ve had to
overcome enormous obstacles and a great deal of misunderstanding,
great resistance, and so perhaps the most valuable thing that you will get
from me is the knowledge of what I wanted in cinema. What I wanted,
and what I still want, from cinema is that it should be a weapon of
attack, an offensive weapon in the battle against evil, wherever it
originates and however limited our resources for that battle are.
I’ll try and give you a few examples of the limitations and the
difficulties that I’ve encountered in my life. Before I became involved in
cinema I played an active part in the Civil War. There was something
called Budyonny’s cavalry. I was a trooper, a combat commander in
battle and a teacher, a political worker, once the war was over. People
forget nowadays that around 1921—2 things were quite different from the
way they are now. The country was in ruins, people were exhausted and
the male population had been decimated in the Civil War. There was no
bread, industry had been laid waste, the transport system wasn’t
functioning. On top of that, because of the First World War, a generation
of illiterates had grown up. Russia has always been known for the great
tragedy of its peasantry. As a peasant country it has always been
illiterate. We had recruits who were illiterate and we taught them to
read. We made them into human beings. Roughly 70 per cent of our
recruits were illiterate. I’m proud of the fact that I played a part in the
process of educating this problem generation, so that by the time of the
Great Patriotic War [1941—5] the illiterate soldiers who had come to us
in complete ignorance had become the backbone of the command. They
were in charge of battalions, tanks, brigades. A very large number rose