Izvestia: "Putin advises Russian filmmakers to stop glorifying violence and vice"
The prime minister asked filmmakers to remember their moral principles.
On Monday Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting with the Film Council that took place in the White House. The meeting brought up many questions and cleared up one controversy that perplexed many filmmakers – why Konstantin Ernst abandoned the tried and true idea of airing a big release on Channel One during the New Year holidays.
The film "Vysotsky: Thank God I'm Alive" will appear in theatres on December 1, which is not good timing, as starting mid-month it will have to compete with the fourth film in the "Mission Impossible" franchise, the second installment of "Christmas Trees", and also a bit later the second installment of "Sherlock Holmes" and "Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey Wolf" cartoon will be released. It is clear that there must have been some real reasons for showing "Vysotsky" starting December 1 – reasons which became clear during the meeting.
Vladimir Putin watched the film together with the production team at MosFilm studios on Sunday evening just before the meeting. He said he liked the film. The prime minister started the meeting on Monday by congratulating the directors of the movie. Apparently, Channel One thought such advertisement would put any rival out of the way.
At the moment this project presented by Channel One is considered as the best upcoming Russian release. The number of Russian films in the national film industry has dropped even compared with the period of initial reforms in the film industry. During successful years Russian films made up at maximum 30% of the total.
A year and a half ago when film reform started, Russian films held already only a 15% share, in 2011 – 09,7%. Only one Russian movie "Christmas Trees" managed to end up in the top-ten of the most successful films and make 22,8 million US dollars at the box office (out of more than one billion of the total earnings) and take eighth place overall.
The Head of the Russian Cinema Fund, Sergei Tolstikov, sees one of the reasons for such "unfair competition" brought on by Americans. Major Hollywood companies deliver their films to the Russian market in "packages" – that is apart from the main blockbuster film they provide several additional titles. It forces our films out of the mostly privately owned theatres.
In his speech Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeyev mentioned the idea to introduce tax deductions that would be different for the release of Russian and foreign films. This idea was once popular but it turned out that its implementation would question the possibility of Russia joining the World Trade Organization.
"We will return to this idea after we join the WTO," promised Avdeyev.
"Way to go!" laughed Putin, unclear of whether he approved of the cynical remark.
"The Ministry of Economic Development proposed this idea," said the Minister of Culture, looking for excuses.
"Well, I told you, way to go!" summarized the prime minister.
However it was decided during the meeting that it is too risky to introduce tax deductions or any other protective measures without thorough preliminary elaboration.
The prime minister touched on an even more delicate issue mentioned in his speech. He suggested paying attention to the contents of the films and spoke about ethical norms that shouldn't let the film makers produce films that would violate the moral principles of the audience. Putin recalled the Hays Code that existed in 1930 in the USA. This code existed until 1967 and proposed several principles, one of which concerned the "inappropriateness of those films that undermine the moral principles of the audience." It was also inappropriate to "show crime, evil deeds and vices in such a way that would evoke the audience's sympathy".
It is too late to address this question to the Republican William Hays, but maybe Russian filmmakers will be able to answer: a true masterpiece doesn't show vices and evil deeds, but talks about people. And as is known, the artist usually loves his characters. So if we follow the Hays Code, will it then mean that "Bumer", for example, should have been banned, as its characters break the law? And the same goes for Alexei Balabanov's "Brother".
However Vladimir Putin assured all that he is not talking about censorship.
"We are not going to introduce censorship," Fyodor Bondarchuk confirmed after the end of the meeting. "But there are a lot of things to discuss at the next "Kinotavr".
The man who would have probably started the discussion about the moral principles of Russian film industry straightaway, Nikita Mikhalkov was not present at the meeting, which many people found surprising. But Nikita Mikhalkov is currently attending the Forum of European and Asian Media (FEAM).
Alexei Golenishchev, Izvestia
Larisa Yusipova
