"It is difficult to be a god" by Alexei German Sr. and the material culture of Arkanar. 18+

The Erarta Museum presents an exhibition of costumes and artifacts from the fantasy world created by the genius of Alexei German Sr. for the painting “It’s Hard to Be a God”.

The painting “It is Hard to Be God” by Alexei German Sr. is a real block, more precisely, an iceberg of the Soviet and Russian spiritual culture of the twentieth century, which split from the universe of the Strugatsky brothers back in 1968. The first script based on the popular science fiction novel of 1963, the young director wrote together with Boris Strugatsky four years after the publication of the original work. The filming was prevented by the caution of film studio employees who were afraid to deal with social allegory when Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia. Fortunately, this was not a fatal blow for Alexei German, since an alarming phone call with bad news was overshadowed by a meeting with his future wife and co-author Svetlana Karmalita. After 32 years, a film set will unfold in Czech castles based on the Strugatsky story with a script by Svetlana Karmalita.

The work on the film lasted for 14 years, and “It’s hard to be God” was released on the screens already a legendary picture after the death of Alexei German. Critics unanimously recognized the film as a landmark creation of a genius, which will take years to comprehend.

An exhibition at the Erarta Museum of Modern Art allows you to not only once again turn to the film from a certain time distance, but also to touch the mystery of the creation of a never-existing world with its own culture and life.

In the preparatory period of filming - at the stage of photo and film screening, an endless sea of possibilities opened up for the film’s artists. Costumes from the legendary Lenfilm studio paintings Hamlet and Origin sank in the basement vaults - only a few armor survived, so the whole Middle Ages had to be experienced and re-created.

Photographer Sergei Aksyonov, on the instructions of the director, shot pictures, documents, drawings, engravings - visual material from the late Middle Ages in museum collections and collections for six months. As a result, the entire director’s room from the floor to the ceiling was hung with photographs of images of the era on a scale of 10 x 15. In the first half of the preparatory work, the whole team was armed with albums with reproductions, going to watch movies. The history of the costume of the era of late feudalism was carefully studied, but then the costume designer Yekaterina Shapkaits hastened to forget what she saw - only fantasy had to work to create a fantastic fashion.

Ekaterina Shapkaits speaks of dressing the actors of the second and third plans in the films of Alexei German as a composition of fate, where every thing, for example, shoes, is a testament to the character’s life path.

Sergei Kokovkin, who created weapons, musical instruments, toys, and numerous trifles, such as erotic pictures and figurines, emphasizes that each object in the film has a strictly defined function, and nothing was done for beauty. The director did not tolerate falsehoods, and, noticing an attempt to embellish the life of Arkanar, conceptually did not shoot this or that subject. This, perhaps, explains the fundamental departure from color, which sometimes very upset the artist.

Everything is very specific in Sergey Kokovkin’s sketches - many sheets contain the director’s comments and his signature-blessing. After Alexei German’s visa, musical instruments, coinage, and instruments of torture were sent to production. The workshops and the forge of the Stieglitz Academy worked on metal ceramics and wood, frescoes, sculptures and mechanical constructions were made by the masters of the Lenfilm “Workshop of Decorative and Technical Structures”, where old theater secrets of the props were miraculously preserved.

Sergei Kokovkin, included in the filming process, testifies: German only worked out the first plan - the plan of Rumata. Everything was thought through 360 degrees, although sometimes only half fell into the frame. German gave the second and third plans to the director-students.

Ekaterina Shapkaits compares the stage divorce by the director with a grand ballet, where each character is thought out so much that it deserves a separate film. The whole city was inhabited during the selection of types and photographing - it was at this moment that the images and style of objects were born. About 600 costumes were created - characters belonging to different social groups: peasants, slaves, gray army, monks, poor and rich dons, townspeople. The costumes of 1000 battle monks were made, who got into the film only briefly - the background. For eight to nine months of the preparatory period, the main body of costumes representing the conventional Northern Renaissance was invented. Shoes of this period were on thin soles, although massive boots with square toes were made for the film. There is also a “bear paw” familiar from the painting by Lucas Cranach. In the work on the costume, they tried to use a variety of textures, emphasizing the graphic nature of the black and white frame: fur, leather, rope, hemp and even bast.

On display at the Erart Museum, a variety of skin experiments will catch the eye. The Tannery on Vasilievsky Island, which was still operating in the late 90s, purchased the cheapest materials for filming. A team of fanatically dedicated dressers cut the skin into pieces, ribbons and belts. All this was intertwined, sewn, embossed, painted and turned inside out. So, by searching and experimenting, real designer good luck was born! For example, corrugated tunic Rumata from a thin husky. This lightweight short sleeveless jacket has an interesting design - it is not sewn, but assembled into rivets made of thin stripes of leather.

Vests, corsets, mittens, bonnets for peasants were knitted from hemp for the film. Huntsmen and dons deliberately wrapped themselves in wild furs. The entire costume and props, in the language of the movie, were additionally “invoiced” - painted, burned, washed with hoses, dried, painted and burned again. The result is visible on the screen.

Separate hard work - field shooting. Czech castles, reverently guarded historical monuments, had to be revived and filled with flies, mud, dung and dashing people. The exhibition halls of the Erarta Museum, of course, are not able to convey the atmosphere of the set, but the exposition allows you to feel the scale of film production without a “green screen”, inviting the audience to take a courageous step into the artistic reality of the great picture.

Organizers of the exhibition: Rushan Nasibulin, Mikhail Kopeikin
Artists: Sergey Kokovkin, Georgy Kropachev, Elena Zhukova, Bella Manevich
Costumes: Catherine Shapkaits
Props Director Assistant: Oleg Yudin
Photographer: Sergey Aksenov