TV series

Master i Margarita - 1989

Aleksandr Dzekun

In 1974, Aleksander Dzekun (°1945) graduated at the Institute for Theatre, Music and Film in Leningrad and started to work for the Academic Drama Theatre Karl Marx in Saratov, where he became director in 1982. From 1991 to 1997 he was also Artistic director of the theatre. Dzekun directed more than 50 plays, many of which were written by Mikhail Bulgakov, like Zoya's apartement, The Crimson Island and The White Guard.

In 1986 he directed an adaptation of The Master and Margarita, a play for which the spectators had to reserve two evenings, since it was too long to be shown in one go.

In 1989, Dzekun adaptated his play for television. As suggested by the subtitle - Chapters from the novel - the film doesn't cover the entire novel. Only 21 chapters of it were adaptad in a film of 190 minutes.

It's 190 long minutes, frankly speaking. For this film is not really a film. It's a video recording of a long theatre play. The specific expressive power of the medium film has not been used, while the specific expressive power of the medium theatre is lost. This film is neither one nor the other.The static camera positions never allow the representation to break away from the original theatre version. But a theater play needs direct contact with the public to come alive. A contact, which is inexistent on screen, and that's why I think this film is a missed opportunity.

Technical details

Media
TV-film in 2 parts

Director
Aleksandr Dzekun

Actors
Vladimir Litvinov, Valentina Fedotova, Aleksandr Galko, Sergey Sosnovsky, Tamara Dzhuraeva, Grigory Aredakov

Release date
1989

Time
190 minutes

Languages
Russian

Subtitles
None

Subtitle project

This film has not been included in our subtitle project. Your webmaster subtitled only this fragment in English, French and Dutch, just for the purpose of showing it on the website.