The photo exhibition, I Know Them, is located at the Lumiere Brothers’ Centre of Photography.
The exhibition celebrates the work of Igor Gnevashev. In the course of four decades, he took hundreds of photos, which became part of the history of photography and became a calling card of films by Sergei Bondarchuk, Andrei Tarkovsky, Eldar Ryazanov, Vasily Shukshin, Nikita Mikhalkov, Leonid Gaidai, Sergei Solovyov and other outstanding Soviet film directors.
During the filming of Ivan Vasilyevich: Back to the Future, the photographer’s shot anticipated the director’s improvisation. The scene where Tsar Ivan the Terrible sits on the sofa holding a cassette tape recorder, was included in the film almost by chance. Actor Yury Yakovlev in full make up as Ivan the Terrible listened to music during the breaks in shooting. Gnevashev photographed this moment, and director Leonid Gaidai, who liked the improvisation, said: “Let’s put it in the film!”
Gnevashev described an episode from the filming of Kalina Krasnaya (Red Snowball Tree). That day director Vasily Shukshin was in high spirits and invited the photographer to go into the sauna chosen for the filming. Gnevashev said: “The sauna was nice, but when I went in, I realised that it was too hot for me. Seeing that I shrank away from the heat, Shukshin became thoughtful. That’s when I took a photo of him.”
Another hallmark image is a photo of Rolan Bykov and Kristina Orbakaite at the filming of Scarecrow. For Gnevashev, children in cinema were like a tsunami: a powerful force that can only be managed by people with a rare and unique talent, one that boring grown-ups find annoying and alien, and don’t even try to understand them. “Rolan Bykov was a man of just such a talent – an actor and director, outrageous and vulnerable,” the photographer said.
Another photo depicts director Andrei Tarkovsky on the set of The Mirror. During the filming, he could not achieve the effect of the rain and wind stopping abruptly. Gnevashev said: “Only after watching the film, I understood what he wanted. Such moments have profound significance in the film, but during the shooting, I thought that Tarkovsky was a bit nuts when I saw how furiously he kept grabbing the hose that made the rain.”
Another photo depicts actress Lyudmila Gurchenko, looking directly at the camera. Gnevashev often worked with foreign actors, who were never late, knew the script by heart and were rational and efficient in everything they did. “One day, Todorovsky asked Gurchenko to just walk from here to there. But she asked him to say first what her character’s day looked like. “Yeah, it was rainy, you got wet and felt cold. And on the way here, you broke a heel!” After this explanation, Gurchenko was able to walk from here to there,” Gnevashev said.
Igor Gnevashev is the winner of the Golden Eye of Russia award, a master whose name is recorded in the Modern Photograph international encyclopedia. For almost 20 years, he worked for the Soviet Screen and the Soviet Film magazines. Most of his work is devoted to Russian filmmaking. Among his photos included in the golden fund of photography, there are the picture Father and Son (1960), where a little boy hugs his father’s leg, and the First-Born (1963), depicting a father, walking along a country road, holding the bundle with his newborn to his chest.
The exhibition will continue until 5 March.
Source: mos.ru