"Moscow Saga": actors, roles, plot

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In 2004, the First Central Channel of Russia (ORT) showed a serial film "The Moscow Saga". The creators called it not a series, but a film novel based on the work of the same name by Vasily Aksenov.

A film group led by chief director Dmitry Barshchevsky and producer Anton Barshchevsky showed perhaps the most tragic period in the Land of the Soviets, from the NEP (1925) to 1953 - the death of Stalin.

The article will focus on the plot and actors of the "Moscow Saga" - one of the best films to date. The novel is divided into three cycles: Generation of Winter, The Great Patriotic War and Prison, and Prison and Peace. The chronology of events is also preserved in the film novel.

The main characters of the novel

It feels like the project was originally carefully and scrupulously thought out. Each frame, interior and even small details were chosen with taste and skill. The actors of the "Moscow Saga" are mostly famous and beloved by all artists. What is worth only Inna Churikova and Yuri Solomin, performing the Gradov couple! But many aspiring actors also showed theircapabilities. I was surprised by the beginning actress Ekaterina Nikitina in the role of Veronika Gradova. It is interesting that for this role she was awarded the “Professional of Russia” award, and the charming Olga Budina as Nina Gradova captivated with her spontaneity and talent.

Other actors of the "Moscow Saga" - a film novel of the beginning of the twenty-first century - also successfully joined their roles. The well-known young actor Alexander Baluev was invited to play the role of the eldest son of the Gradovs, Nikita, and Alexei Zuev, an actor from the ApArte Moscow Drama Theater, acted as the youngest son of the Gradovs, Kirill.

Marina Yakovleva brilliantly played Agasha, and Marianne Schulz captivated everyone with her cheerfulness in the role of the principled Marxist Cecilia Rosenblum. It should be noted that in the movie novel Cecilia is much more attractive than in the book. Actor of the Taganka Theater Alexander Rezalin showed all the drama of the passionate Nugzar Lomadze. Andrei Ilyin, who played Savva Kitaigorodsky, Nina's future husband and Boris Gradov's chief assistant surgeon, is currently one of the most sought-after actors.

Other actors of the film "Moscow Saga"

Unexpectedly for everyone, Alexei Kortnev, a musician known to all of us as the soloist of "Accident", was invited to the role of Vadim Vuinovich. In addition to Kortnev, another singer, the notorious Kristina Orbakaite, starred in the film. Christina Orbakaite's acting talent manifested itself even when she played the main role in the film "Scarecrow", so she played the role of the singer Vera Gorda very accurately. AndrewSmirnov, as always, adequately embodied the role of a friend of the Gradov family, Leonid Pulkov.

Let's consider the rest of the actors of the Moscow Saga. Sergey Bezrukov (the role of Vasily Stalin), Victoria Tolstoganova, Ilya Noskov (Boris Gradov IV), Alexei Makarov, Anna Snatkina, Lyudmila Pogorelova, Vladimir Dolinsky, Regimantas Adamaitis, Tatyana Samoilova, Mark Rudinshtein and many other wonderful actors were involved in small roles, who agreed to star in a film based on the cult novel by Aksenov.

Historical Figures

In the film, the shooting took place not only at the film studio, but also in places built for this purpose. An old house in Sosnovy Bor was recreated especially to show the Gradovs' dacha. There are many historical characters in the picture and in the book - these are Stalin, Beria, Frunze, Blucher, Tukhachevsky, and Nikita Gradov (actor Alexander Baluev) is identified with the Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky.

The fate of Aksenov's hero really resembles the life of the famous marshal, who had to go through camps, exile and be rehabilitated by Joseph Stalin.

Movie plot

At the center of the film is the Gradov family, consisting of the head of the family - Boris Nikitich Gradov - his wife Mary Vakhtangovna Gradova, nee Gudiashvili, their children: Nikita, Kirill and Nina, as well as their wives, husbands, grandchildren and others loved ones, both family members and friends.

The Gradov family lives in a family house built in Sosnovy Bor. For them all, the house personifies a living being, absorbing into its wallslaughter and tears of the inhabitants. Mary Vakhtangovna speaks about this during the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the house, and the audience throughout all the series will have to rejoice and be sad along with the heroes of the Moscow Saga series. The actors recalled that throughout the series, and the film was shot for more than two years, they grew up, almost like their heroes. According to the plot, they had to go through the horrors of war, prisons, camps together with the heroes. Almost everyone had to serve time in the camps, but not to lose themselves, not to harden and not become traitors.

Conclusion

Vasily Aksenov once said in an interview that his saga resembles the Forsyte Saga, but only Galsworthy's heroes met each other at a tea party (five-o-clock), and ours - at face-to-face confrontations.

The picture was taken measuredly, without fuss, it seems that more than thirty years have really passed. The war and Stalinist repressions killed many people, and not only physically. Just like Nikita and Veronika, Aksenov's parents stopped living with each other after the war. Watching a movie means not only enjoying the plot, acting and roles. The Moscow Saga opens the eyes of many to those distant years, so the film became an event in Russian cinema.