Many of the films that Russian audiences love would lose their charm if not for Anatoly Mukasey. For many years this man modestly stood behind the camera, creating true masterpieces of cinematic art. All the paintings to which Anatoly Mikhailovich was related almost automatically became hits.
Anatoly Mikhailovich Mukasey: facts from the biography
The future master of cinematography was born in Leningrad on July 26, 1938. Anatoly's parents were unusual people: they served as illegal scouts. And the houses appeared only for a while. In an interview, Mukasei said that he and his sister Ella, in total, had not seen their parents for about twenty years. They returned to the country for only a few days, after which they again went abroad. They reminded the children of themselves only by letters and parcels, which they passed on through friends.
Children from a young age understood perfectly well that there was no need to tell strangers about the true life of the family. Therefore, they sacredly kept family secrets. The children were brought up by a nanny. From time to time they were visited by serious people - "chiefs" who also looked after the children of the scouts.
Officially, Mukasei's father served as consul in the American Los Angeles. He knew Theodore Dreiser, knew Charlie Chaplin. Mikhail Mukasey himself filmed meetings with these people on color film, and then showed them to the children. It is possible that it is for this reason that Anatoly became interested in cinema.
Mukasey once made a discovery for himself, which determined his future destiny. He realized that the stories filmed on film can stop the passage of time, preserve the present for tens and even hundreds of years. Gradually, Anatoly developed a desire to become an operator. He became a student at VGIK and in 1961 graduated from the camera department.
Career and creative path of Anatoly Mukasey
For about a year, Mukasey worked at a newsreel studio in Leningrad. Then he came to Mosfilm. It was here that the director created a real pearl scattering of films, most of which were included in the "golden fund" of Russian cinematography.
Mukasey considers his profession to be one of the most important in the film industry. It is no secret that the viewer does not see the picture that the director creates in his head, but looks at the plot through the eyes of the operator controlling the camera.
Anatoly Mikhailovich is convinced that the work of an operator is akin to that of an artist. A motion picture is the same artistic canvas, only in motion. He developed the habit of looking at the works of masters of painting before filming.
In the mid-60s, Mukasey was invited to work on the film by Eldar Ryazanov. Together, the masters of cinema have shot an amazingly powerful motion picture "Give a book of complaints." Then there was a significant work on the film "Beware of the car". Both films have brought together a galaxy of great actors.
Anatoly Mukasey managed to work on the set with Rolan Bykov. The result of this collaboration was the film Attention, Turtle! A few years later, Bykov and Mukasey shot a film based on Nikolai Gogol's story "The Nose".
In a creative union with Alexander Korenev, Mukasey filmed "Big Change". After that, the audience enthusiastically accepted the film "For family reasons". In 1990, the film "The Trap for a Lonely Man" was released.
Anatoly Mukasey gets maximum pleasure when working on comedy tapes. Many scenes and lines in such films are born right on the set. An episode from "Big Change", where the hero of Yevgeny Leonov teaches in a dream a lesson given at school, was invented by Anatoly Mikhailovich.
Mukasey shot many cinematic hits in collaboration with his wife Svetlana Druzhinina. For the first time, they started working together on the set of the movie "Matching a Hussar". And we met in our student years. The couple shot the films "Circus Princess" and "Vivat, Midshipmen!" The married couple have two children and three grandchildren.
