Pavel Grigorievich Lyubimov is a wonderful filmmaker who has shot such masterpieces of Russian cinema as "Women", "School Waltz", "Running on the Waves" and others. And although Lyubimov died in 2010, he created all his films before the collapse of the USSR, so he can fully be considered a Soviet director.
Biography. Childhood
Pavel Grigorievich Lyubimov was born in Moscow on September 7, 1938. There is no information about who was his father. The name of the boy was given in honor of his maternal grandfather. From birth, Pavel lived surrounded by three women: mother, grandmother and aunt. Lyubimov's mother - Pogozheva Valeria Pavlovna - worked as an editor at the Gorky Film Studio for Children and Youth Films. Aunt - Pogozheva Lyudmila Pavlovna - was a well-known literary critic, film critic and film critic in the country; from 1956 to 1969 she worked in the "Art of Cinema" magazine as editor-in-chief. It was these women who passionately loved the boy who formed the personality of Pavel Lyubimov, his worldview and attitude to life and art.
Director's creativity and career
From childhood, Pavel was fond of reading and tried to write stories himself, to compose poetry. Another hobby was foreign languages, he eventually learned English perfectly. The penchant for literary creativity and fluency in English allowed Pavel Grigorievich to subsequently engage not only in film directing, but also in literary translations of works by foreign authors. In the meantime, the young man dreamed of the profession of a translator and was going to enter the Institute of Foreign Languages. But these plans were not destined to come true, and, as always, chance is to blame for everything. Once Lyubimov, along with his friend, with whom they were preparing to enter Inyaz, went on duty as public vigilantes. By tragic coincidence, they ran into a drunken military man who, as a result of a scuffle, shot and killed his friend Lyubimov with a pistol. Pavel was so shocked that he decided to change all the plans that they were building with a friend, and applied for admission to the VGIK - State Institute of Cinematography, to the directing department.
At VGIK, Lyubimov got on a course led by such eminent masters as Grigory Lvovich Roshal (screenwriter and director who has shot more than 20 films, including the trilogy "Walking through the agony, People's Artist of the USSR) and Yuri Evgenievich Genika (director, vice-rector university). In 1962, Pavel Lyubimov brilliantly graduated from VGIK, filming a short film "Aunt with Violets" as his thesis, which later, in 1964, won an award at a film festival in the Polish city of Krakow. Such famous actors as Nina Sazonova, Svetlana Svetlichnaya and Vladimir Ivashov starred in this film novel.
In 1964, Pavel Grigorievich Lyubimov began working at the Gorky Film Studio as an extras director, later as a stage director. And the very first feature-length film he shot, Women (1966), became a bestseller in Russian cinema. Irina Velembovskaya, then an aspiring writer who worked as a janitor, wrote a poignant story about the difficult female share of three employees of a furniture factory. Her story "Women" was published in the magazine "Banner"; she drew attention to him and offered to film the film critic Lyudmila Pogozheva, aunt Lyubimova. And again, the novice director managed to assemble a star cast: the famous Inna Makarova, Nina Sazonova, the young handsome Vitaly Solomin and Galina Yatskina. The music for the film was written by the wonderful Soviet composer Yan Frenkel, the lyrics by Mikhail Tanich ("Love-Ring" and "Old Waltz").
The next work of director Lyubimov was a film based on the novel by Alexander Green "Running on the Waves". This is a joint work of Soviet and Bulgarian filmmakers: the main male role was played by the Bulgarian actor Savva Khashimov, the cameraman was Stoyan Zlychkin. And of course, our famous domestic actors Rolan Bykov and Margarita Terekhova brought great popularity to the film.
Until 1994, the fruitful creative work of Pavel Lyubimov continued. In total, he shot 14 films - some turned out to be less successful and settled on the shelves of the film archive, and some are still the masterpieces of our cinema. An excellent directorial work of Lyubimov was the military-patriotic film "Spring Call" (1976) about service in the ranks of the Soviet army, about the relationship of conscripts with each other and with the command staff. The film starred brilliant actors: Alexander Fatyushin (a close friend of Lyubimov), Igor Kostolevsky, Pyotr Proskurin, the music was written by the composer Vladimir Shainsky. The film was awarded the Dovzhenko Silver Medal.
In 1978, the film "School Waltz" was released, where two main female roles were played by the wonderful actresses Evgenia Simonova and Elena Tsyplakova. The film made a splash and made a lot of noise with its very non-standard theme: love between a student and a 10th grade student, pregnancy of a minor heroine, the appearance of a rival, betrayal and betrayal of the protagonist - all these topics at that time were banned and did not correspond to the ideology of Soviet society … It’s even surprising that the film was not banned by censorship, came out on the screens of the country and was very popular over the years. The director himself considered "School Waltz" and "Women" as his most successful works.
One of the last films by Pavel Lyubimov was "Pathfinder" (1987), which was based on the novel by JF Cooper. A tragic story is connected with this film: Andrei Mironov, who played the role of the Marquis of Sanglie, died suddenly on the eve of the shooting of the finale. Lyubimov did not want to reshoot another actor, and the film was left as it is, with an incompletely disclosed image of the hero performed by Mironov.
For some reason, biographical articles about Lyubimov rarely mention his directorial contribution to the humorous newsreel "Yeralash", while Pavel Grigorievich filmed about twenty plots! In addition, for the 10th anniversary of Yeralash, director Yuliy Gusman created a television musical program “What is Yeralash?”, In which Pavel Lyubimov starred.
Translator career. last years of life
In 1994, Pavel Grigorievich completed work on his last film - "The Phantom of My House", where he acted as not only a director, but also a screenwriter. After that, he quit his job in cinema: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political and economic cataclysms taking place in the country caused a creative crisis among many artists of the early 90s of the twentieth century.
After leaving the film studio, Lyubimov took up literary translations into Russian of the works of contemporary American and English writers. In total, he has translated over 25 books, including "The Cauldron" by Larry Bond, novels by Ruth Rendell and Barbara Cartland and others. In 2000, Lyubimov was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.
In 2008, Pavel Grigorievich acted as a fighter for justice: he, like many other cinematographers, was outraged by the situation in which screenwriters and composers received royalties when showing a film, but not directors, since they were not considered the authors of the film. He filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court of Russia, the litigation dragged on for two years, but death did not allow Lyubimov to win the case.
The last few years of his life, the director suffered from lung cancer. He passed away on June 23, 2010. Before his death, Lyubimov asked that his funeral be held quietly, modestly, without solemn funerals and loud speeches. Farewell to Pavel Lyubimov took place in the Mitinsky crematorium, and he was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow, next to the grave of his mother and aunt.
Personal life
Pavel Grigorievich never advertised his personal life. During his studies at VGIK, he was carried away by his classmate Tatyana Ivanenko, who later became the lover of Vladimir Vysotsky.
Natalya Lyubimova became the director's wife, where and how they met is unknown. Natalia had nothing to do with cinema, was engaged in rhythmic gymnastics, was a master of sports.
The Lyubimovs had two sons. One of them, Alexey Lyubimov, starred in his father's film "The Limit of Desires" (1982) in the role of his namesake, the boy Alyosha.
