My opinion, as you might guess, is nothing similar in this case. First of all, Everett’s new biography apparently commemorates the actor’s intimate relationships with Susan Sarandon and Paula Yates. Osborn writes that one of the criticisms leveled against Everett is that, since he is gay, he cannot “feature in a love story”, because “he doesn’t know what a woman is”. Well, it looks like he does, after all. Secondly, to judge an actor’s potential by whom he/she spends their nights with is totally unacceptable. We’re talking talent and art here, and hence sexual ‘orientation’ must not be used as a sole factor (especially negative) to form an opinion about someone’s creative potential.
The reason why I am being so open-minded is not simply that I am generally open-minded. The first version of Quiet Flows the Don was made in 1931, by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya. 1957 saw the second, famous version by Sergei Gerasimov. It is said that Sergei Bondarchuk had been thinking of taking his vision to screen for about twenty years, but only got the chance to do so at the turn of the 1990s. Although it is only now that his work has finally reached the audience, he had finished shooting his film in 1993.
By only looking at the dates – 1931, 1957, 1993 – one can see that what we’re talking here is a truly notable case of bringing the same novel to screen by two generations of film directors (Pravov was born in 1901, Gerasimov in 1906, and Bondarchuk in 1920). Of these versions, neither could be totally unbiased or uninfluenced by the time. My argument is simple: rather than in direct comparison to the previous films, one should view the current version of Quiet Flows the Don in the context of Sholokhov’s novel, Russia’s ever-changing political and cultural climate, and Bondarchuk’s own legacy. There are bound to be changes in our reading of Quiet Flows the Don now, in comparison to even the early 1990s. And it is very unlikely that the changes in Russia’s political climate from the 1960s until the 1990s would not have impacted Bondarchuk’s own reading of Sholokhov’s novel.
Also, on the film front – the Indian epic, Makhabkharata, is to begin to be filmed in 2008. Meanwhile, the director of the very successful TV series under the same name is going to write the script. He promises to embellish the Bollywood film with the special effects comparable to those in The Lord of the Rings. The TV series has been so popular that the Indian railways reportedly had to change timetables because people refused to travel during the screening of episodes. Well, while the Bollywood is planning to shoot the Indian epic, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf is now in post-production in Hollywood. And a much awaited premiere of Russian fantasy story Wolfhound is currently being scheduled for the early 2007. Cannot all this, together with three versions of Quiet Flows the Don, be a better proof that history matters?