The Master and Margarita (TV miniseries)

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The Master and Margarita
Format miniseries
Created by Vladimir Bortko
Starring Anna Kovalchuk
Aleksandr Galibin
Oleg Basilashvili
Vladislav Galkin
Sergey Bezrukov
Country of origin  Russia
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 10
Production
Running time 10 x 52 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Telekanal Rossiya
Original run December 19, 2005 – December 28, 2005

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита) is a Russian television production of Telekanal Rossiya, based on the novel The Master and Margarita written by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov between 1928 and 1940.

Contents

[edit] Background

The director and screenwriter of this adaptation is Vladimir Bortko. It was his second attempt to make a screen adaptation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. In 2000 he had already been sollicited by the Kino-Most film studio, associated with the competing channel NTV, but at the last moment the company did not succeed to come to an agreement with Sergei Shilovsky, grandson of Mikhail Bulgakov's third wife Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya and self-declared owner of the copyrights. In 2005, an agreement was found with Telekanal Rossiiya.

This TV-epopee of more than 8 hours was heavily criticized, or at least regarded with much skepticism. The first broadcast of December 19, 2005 was preceded by months of controversy in the media. Opponents feared that filming this for television would sacrifice the layered narrative of the novel and the complexity of the socio-political and metaphysical themes to the popular demands of the broadcast medium. Bortko followed the dialogues of the novel carefully, and the series became the most successful ever on Russian television. Most of the criticism stopped after the first appearance on screen. On December 25, 2005 40 million Russians were watching the seventh episode.

Despite the fact that the city of Moscow plays an important role in the novel, director Vladimir Bortko opted to shoot the 1930s scenes in Saint Petersburg. “Saint Petersburg today is much more like Moscow in the Stalin period than Moscow today,” he said. The biblical scenes were shot in Bulgaria.

Unlike previous screen adaptations, director Vladimir Bortko followed the novel meticulously. The setting of a TV-series appeared to be an ideal format to elaborate the complicated, multidimensional work with many different characters. “Bulgakov wrote the novel almost like a screenplay”, Bortko said.

[edit] The story

[edit] Three layers

The film is an adaptation of the novel The Master and Margarita written by the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. Three storylines are interwoven.

  • The first one is a satire of the ‘30s in the 20th century, the period during which Joseph Stalin is in power in the Soviet Union. The demon Woland comes to Moscow to have his annual Spring Ball of the Full Moon. Together with his demonic suite, he challenges the corrupt lucky ones, bureaucrats and profiteers of that period in an hilarious way..
  • The second one is set in the biblical Yershalaim, and describes the inner struggle of Pontius Pilate before, during and after the conviction and execution of Yeshua Ha Nozri.
  • The third one tells the love story between a nameless writer in Moscow in the ’30s and his lover Margarita. The Master has written a novel on Pontius Pilate, a subject which was taboo in the officially atheistic Soviet Union.

[edit] Differences with the novel

Despite the length of the TV series, a number of scenes and characters from the novel is not included in this adaptation.

  • The most notable absentee characters are the doctor, Kuzmin, and the demon Abaddon
  • The most notable absentee scene from the novel is The Dream of Nikanor Ivanovich, in which Bulgakov denounces, through the dream of a protagonist, the show trials in the Soviet Union. Vladimir Bortko replaced this scene with an assembly of authentic propaganda films of the Soviet regime from that period.

[edit] Trivia

  • Vladimir Bortko did not like the voice of actor Aleksandr Galibin, who played the role of master. His voice is not heard in the film. It was dubbed by Sergey Bezrukov, the actor who played the role of Yeshua.
  • The theme The Master and Margarita remains very topical in Russia. A number of events which happened, after the shootings, to the actors who have played a role in the TV miniseries, feed the idea for many Russians that a curse rest upon those who make an adaptation of The Master and Margarita, and are even today fiercely debated. Valentin Gaft, who plays both the roles of Kaifa as and the chief of the secret police, lost his 29-year-old daughter who had hanged herself in the hallway shortly after the shooting. Valery Zolotukhin, who played Bosoy, lost his 27-year-old son in the same way. Kirill Lavrov, who played the role of Pontius Pilate, got cancer and died on April 27, 2007. Aleksandr Abdulov, the personification of Korovyev, died of lung cancer on January 3, 2008. He was 54 years old. And finally, Vladislav Galkin, who performed Ivan Bezdomny, was found dead in suspicious circumstances in a rented apartment in Moscow on February 27, 2010. He was 39 years old.

[edit] Production

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Soundtrack

01. The Master and Margarita - 2:04
02. Woland’s theme - 3:40
03. Sheherazade (*) - 9:34
04. Frühlingsstimmen (**) - 5:47
05. Maestro! Hack out a march!' (***) - 1:47
06. Love leaped out in front of us - 4:47
07. Do you like my flowers? - 2:40
08. The Execution - 5:20
09. Azazello’s Cream - 1:47
10. Invisible and free - 4:48
11. Waltz - 3:48
12. Sabbath - 6:55
13. The Great Ball at Satan's - 12:02
14. Garden of Gethsemane - 3:21
15. Even the moon gives him no peace - 4:01
16. More about love - 6:58

Total time: 80 min. All tracks composed by Igor Kornelyuk, except :

(*) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Movement I: The Sea and Sinbad's Ship from the symphonic suite Scheherazade
(**) Johann Strauss jr. - Frühlingsstimmen - Waltz in B-flat major
(***) Dmitri Lensky - Song His Excellency from the vaudeville Lev Gurych Sinichkin

[edit] More screen adaptations

  • (Italian) Giovanni Brancale - Il Maestro e Margherita - 2008 (movie picture)
  • (Hungarian) Ibolya Fekete - A Mester és Margarita - 2005 (movie picture)
  • (Russian) Sergei Desnitsky - Master i Margarita - 1996 (TV film)
  • (Russian) Yuri Kara - Master i Margarita - 1994 (movie picture)
  • (English) Paul Bryers - Incident in Judea - 1992 (TV-film)
  • (Hungarian) Andras Szirtes - Forradalom Után - 1990 (movie picture)
  • (Polish) Maciej Wojtyszko - Mistrz i Małgorzata - 1988 (TV series)
  • (Polish) Andrzej Wajda - Pilatus und Andere - 1972 (TV film)
  • (Italian) Aleksandar Petrović - Il Maestro e Margherita - 1972 (movie picture)

To be expected:

  • (English) Baz Luhrmann - The Master and Margarita - 2012 (movie picture)
  • (Russian) Rinat Timerkaev - Master i Margarita - 2012 (animated movie picture)

[edit] External links

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