The Very Same Munchhausen

The Very Same Munchhausen (1979)

Тот самый Мюнхгаузен

A philosophical and poetic portrait of the famous (or maybe infamous?) Baron Munchhausen. His crazy, yet very merriment, stories, views and behavior is what sets him apart from others. He becomes alienated from the society that failed to grasp his brilliance. In fact, his brilliance is what underlines the faults with the society itself. It's a beautiful yet tragic story that is filled with dense and intellectual dialogue.

Date of release
1979-12-31
TMDB
7.7 / 10 (97)
Runtime
2h 22m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, TV Movie
Director
Mark Zakharov

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia
  • Filmed in: Wernigerode Castle and Wernigerode

The Very Same Munchhausen is a 1980 Soviet fantasy comedy-drama television film directed by Mark Zakharov, based on a script by Grigoriy Gorin.

Production

The literary script was based on Grigori Gorin's play The most Truthful, which was a success in the Russian Army Theatre (with Vladimir Zeldin as Münchhausen). Mark Zakharov liked the show and decided to transpose it to the television screen. During the work on the script the play was seriously revised and greatly changed compared to the theatrical version. The music by Alexey Rybnikov was originally written for the play.

The core of the ensemble was created out of actors from the Lenkom Theatre. According to Zakharov, Oleg Yankovsky, following his role in Zakharov's previous film An Ordinary Miracle, was perfectly suited for the role of Baron Münchhausen. However, Zakharov had to convince the State Committee for Cinematography. Even Gorin remained unconvinced, he wanted Andrei Mironov. Yankovsky was identified with more heroic characters.

I am grateful to Mark Zakharov for believing in me, he saw in me the atypical comedic talents, the ability to convey the sad irony of the character which I myself frankly did not suspect. Zakharov preferred to take a well-known actor and cast him against type. And for me it was really a godsend

Leonid Bronevoy adopted his role without issues. Yuri Vasilyev from the Moscow Satire Theatre initially auditioned for the role of Theophilus but Leonid Yarmolnik ended up getting the part. Some difficulties arose when casting the role of Martha. For the role, many actresses auditioned including Tatyana Dogileva and Irina Mazurkiewicz. After a long search, Yelena Koreneva was chosen by the State Committee.

The film was shot in the socialist East Germany (the real Münchhausen lived in the city Bodenwerder near Hanover, in the capitalist West Germany). It was much easier to arrange the film shooting in the GDR, so the location became the streets of Wernigerode which had an "authentic" look, and the city was hardly affected during World War II.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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