Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory, and Patriotism

13. The Production of the Past

New Year magic: Poster for Irony of Fate 2 with striped Beeline cell phone ornament and photos from the first film. 271 Sergei Gurevich, a producer at Nikita Mikhalkov’s Studio Tri-te, explained in 2008 the appearance of patriotic productions in the following way: We were all close to collapse—the film industry and the television industry. For a while our film Barber of Siberia stood alone against 1990s culture. Then the Russian television audience got fed up with Latin American soaps and other foreign productions. People didn’t mind watching foreign films on TV in general, but Mexican passion every day only goes so far. Thanks to the leaders of our television networks—Konstantin Ernst first and foremost—investment began on domestic productions, on things that happen here in Russia. Studio Tri-te got involved right away, first with The Requested Stop [Ostrovka potrebulia ] in 2000, which was produced by Ernst. Television, in other words, started this trend and it quickly became evident that there was an enormous demand for domestic themes. Film followed. Technologies had changed—the newer technologies and demand for domestic productions reinforced each other. The revival did not have much to do with the government. Mostly it was the intuition and good sense of network leaders. Ernst was the key—he loves movies and this love drives him. It’s a coincidence that Putin and the revival happened at the same moment. No one has ever called us and said, “Do a patriotic film.” . . . We are business oriented, not ideologically oriented. Right now, however, business points toward patriotism because of the mood in Russia. We respond to public demand for patriotism . For quite a long time people were deprived of anything to feel proud of. The news was bad, then worse, and then it was like living in Zanzibar or something , where nothing would ever get better. The low point was the ruble collapse, but it also gave us the point where we needed something positive.1 The Production of the Past T H I R T E E N 272 Fantasy Pop History That “something positive” was the role Konstantin Ernst played in revitalizing Russian patriotism. When the USSR collapsed, Channel One went through massive changes.Itreachedthelargestnumberof televisionsetsintheUnionand served as the primary means through which Soviet information got disseminated . Its symbolic significance cannot be overstated: when hardliners attempted to wrest control of the crumbling union from Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, their primary aim was Channel One’s Ostankino Tower. The station became ORT (Obshchestvennoe Rossisskoe Televidenie, orPublicRussianTelevision)throughaNovember30,1994,presidential decree. Like the other formerly Soviet stations and new channels such as NTV, ORT in the 1990s took part in what Ellen Mickiewicz characterizes as a “battle ground, literally and figuratively, for those who would retain or gain political power.” The story of post-Soviet television in the Yeltsin era, she writes, “Had moments of heroism and incompetence, tragedyandcomicopera,warbutalmostneverpeace.”2 KonstantinErnst emerged as the victor in these struggles; he became ORT General Director on September 6, 1999. Ernst oversaw the station’s name change to Pervyi kanal, or First Channel, on September 1, 2002. In the eyes of his supporters, Ernst saved Russian television and even the Russian film industry.Hehasproducedcommerciallysuccessfulprograms,retaining stalwarts such as the news program Vremia while also introducing new faresuchasPoslednyigeroi[Thelasthero,theRussianversionof Survivor], and the popular American series Lost [Ostat´sia v Zhivykh]. His slick productions are seen by many as soulless propaganda for the zero years. Ernst has produced the past, turning Pervyi kanal into not only the television channel with the widest reception in the world’s biggest country, but also into the most significant film production company. Ernst started out as a biologist. Born in Moscow in 1961, he graduated from the biology department at Leningrad State University in 1983. Three years later, he defended his Ph.D. dissertation in biochemistry. In 1988, Ernst switched professions as jobs became more mobile during perestroika, later declaring that when he saw his future as the director of an institute, he “jumped off that train” because he “did not want to know his fate in advance.”3 He started to work for First Channel’s news The Production of the Past 273 program View (Vzgliad). In 1991, he produced and wrote his first programforthestation , Matador. Hebegantomoveupthecorporateladder as First Channel and then ORT experienced the ups and downs of the Yeltsin years. Ernst became the general...