Writers and screenplays (Andrey Plataonov!)

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Nadia,

Andrey Platonov wrote a large number of screenplays.  They have been studied relatively little but are all available, along with his plays in DURAKI NA PERIFERII (vol 7 of the recent 8-volume edition published by VREMYA).

I am grateful for your question, since this gives me the opportunity to mention that NYRB Classics are just about to publish a new expanded edition of our translation of Platonov's unfinished novel HAPPY MOSCOW.  This will also include 4 other closely related pieces, one of which - titled either "Otets" or "Otets-Mat'" - is a bold and very witty screenplay.  Here below are a few sentences from my introduction:

Platonov’s screenplays have received far less attention than his other work. Not one has yet been made into a film, even though several films have been made from his stories. To Platonov, however, the cinema was important and he carried on writing screenplays throughout his career. His views on the cinema were characteristically uncompromising. In a 1930 article, he wrote: "Because of a temporary technological inadequacy, the cinema was once called “great and mute.” . . . It would now be more appropriate to call our cinema “The Great Blind one”: our cinema simply does not see where the camera lens should be focused. Our cinema is blind, like a newborn being; most films have nothing at all to say to the tense consciousness of contemporary man—their muteness is absolute, not a matter of mere technology." […]
Platonov often took material from one genre and continued to explore its themes in another. He first outlined the themes of The Foundation Pit in a 1929 screenplay, The Engineer, and he wrote his greatest short story, “The Return,” only after completing a far longer screenplay on the same theme. “

All the best, Robert

On 10 Oct 2012, at 05:07, Nadia Roscoff <roscoffn at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>> Dear SEELANGERS,
>> I was just wondering if anybody can think of any Russian writers who created
>> screenplays for their own works. I cannot think of anybody, other than
>> Nabokov and Akunin... Any input will be much appreciated!
>> Thank you! 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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