Gleb Panfilov and Inna Churikova.
Photo: Boris KUDRYAVOV
Halfway through his long life, Gleb Anatolyevich Panfilov became one of the leading conductors in the country. Besides, his brilliant career might not have taken place: he eventually studied chemistry in Sverdlovsk, where he spent his childhood and youth. In his youth he worked as a foreman in a chemical cleaning shop at a penicillin plant, but soon realized that chemical work was not his path. He then followed the Komsomol line: he began to do propaganda and agitation in the municipal Komsomol committee. And he proposed, in particular, to create an amateur film studio in the city …
Then came short films and stories shot for the Sverdlovsk television studio. Then Moscow and the higher courses for directors and screenwriters. And the first feature film – “There is no ford in the fire” – about the revolution and the young artist Tanya Tetkina, who got into the middle of the Civil War. This film, a year after its release in Soviet distribution, went to the Locarno film festival, where it won the main prize.
The love story of Gleb Panfilov and Inna Churikova.
The main role was played by Inna Churikova, who became Panfilov’s main and only love. It was impossible to imagine them one without the other; he starred in all of his films and there he played his most serious and carefully crafted roles. In an interview, Gleb Anatolyevich said: “For the first time I saw Inna on TV, in a production, where she played a ninth-grader, and her face caught my eye. I immediately thought that Tanya Tetkina had such a face. She was incredibly excited. (Panfilov did not remember the name of the actress. – Ed.) For six months I was looking for Inna, but to no avail. I even drew it and reproduced the drawings for my assistants. The whole film crew was looking for Inna… We have already started looking for other actresses for the role of Tanya. But one fine day Rolan Bykov told me: “Gleb, according to your script, there is a brilliant actress for the role of the main character in the film (he read my script).” I intemperately asked: “Who is she?” Bykov named her name: “Inna Churikova of the Moscow Youth Theater.” Inna and I will be forever grateful to Rolan Bykov for this meeting … “
In another interview he added: “Inna and I met at Lenfilm, where I worked and where we called her for screen tests. I walked into the room, and the girl from my drawing and from the TV show I once saw her on raised beaming eyes at me, it was her fate.
The best films of Gleb Panfilov.
Of course, it is fate. Together they made, among other things, “I ask for words”, “Theme”, “Vassa” and “Mother”, according to Maxim Gorky. But their most famous joint work was the film “The Beginning”, in which Churikova played two roles – a simple girl and Joan of Arc. The girl chosen for this role in the film is transformed, playing the patron saint of France. Panfilov did not have enough episodes with Zhanna in “The Beginning”, all his life he dreamed of making a real and big film about the Maid of Orleans. But they didn’t let him (an idiotic, but irresistible argument in Soviet times was: “She’s a Catholic, why should the Russians shoot her?”)
Another theme that he turned to all his life was the execution of the royal family. He recalled how, as a child, in 1942, he found himself in the Ipatiev House, where the tragedy occurred. I saw a bloody handprint on the wall. I imagined that it was the hand of Nicholas II, leaning against the wall when he was being shot. And he burst into tears and then ran home like a bullet. Then in the film “There is no ford in the fire” the phrase “The tsar was slapped!” and a note from Izvestia about the execution was quoted. Nicholas II appeared on the screen in Mother. And in 1988, Panfilov signed an agreement with the British to photograph the fate of the tsar and his retinue. This project of his was on the screen for 12 years, and in 2000 the film “The Romanovs” was shown. Crowned Family”, immediately nominated by Russia for the “Oscar”…
Years passed, and Panfilov continued to work actively. In 2006, his series “In the First Circle” was released, based on Solzhenitsyn’s novel, which he read in 1974. Then he could not even imagine that he would be able to make a film adaptation, and even in close collaboration with the author (who read the text in off). In 2008, he gave Churikova the role of Kruchinina in the film based on Ostrovsky’s play Guilty without Guilt, then the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the play The Lion in Winter and its television version, then the role of Elizabeth II in Audience work. , for which it was impossible to get tickets … Even in his last film “Ivan Denisovich” he managed to play the role of Churikova, and his heroine, a ghostly old woman, turned out to be quite appropriate in a film about Zekov’s everyday life .
It is impossible in a small obituary to tell about all the achievements of Gleb Anatolyevich, to recall all the most successful scenes from the films (the most famous are “Cross! Give me a cross!” in “The Beginning” and “They killed Allende, and you …” in “I ask for words”), lists all the awards (and “Subject”, for example, right off the shelf, received the “Golden Bear” at the Berlin Film Festival). Festival – how many directors can boast of such achievements?) He spent all the years allotted to him in the 21st century in the status of a teacher, the authority of which is undeniable.
In January 2023, Inna Mikhailovna Churikova died, and it was not entirely clear how Gleb Anatolyevich would bear this loss. She didn’t make it. A few months later, in May, on the eve of her 89th birthday, she suffered a bedridden stroke. And frankly, few people expected him, at his age, in the face of such great pain, to rise to his feet.
Gleb Panfilov died on August 26. This was announced by the director of the theater “Lenkom”. The time and place of the farewell and funeral will be announced at a later date.
