Your Son and Brother was released in 1966. Its plot was based on Vasily Shukshin’s novels from the Village Dwellers storybook, namely Styopka, Snake venom, and Ignakha has arrived. It received Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR in 1967.
Filming took place in the village of Manzherok in the Gorno-Altai ASSR. On the other hand, the scenes of the first story, Styopka, were shot at Anisimov furniture factory on the bank of Katun river. The photograph depicts an encounter between father and his son who had just escaped from prison. Old man Voyevodin was busy with his boat and rasped wooden planks. He usually worked even on weekends, the old man understood wood, loved its smell and colour. Voyevodin-Senior was used to carpentry and had many years of experience in the field.
This scene is taken directly from the short story. However, the following phrase could not be translated into visual element and hence was cut: “The boat smelled of pine shavings, terrycloth, and slowly cooling sawn walls”.
Having entered the scene, Stepan who was portrayed by Leonid Kuravlyov, caught his father working. Then he saw his deaf-mute sister Vera. She rushed to her brother and “grabbed him, mumbled, and kissed him on the cheeks, forehead, and lips”. Shukshin described this episode in the story as follows: “And she was so happy at the moment that men were brought to tears. “She”s been waiting all this time, putting crosses on the wall”, the father explained to his son, “She loves everybody””.
Lydiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina told her husband that she had once been friends with a deaf-mute girl. They studied together until tenth grade and lived in the same neighbourhood. The director remembered this story, which served as an inspiration Stepan’s literary and cinematic sister Vera.
Vera was portrayed by Marta Grakhova, a deaf-mute actress of the Mimic and Gesture Theatre. Shukshin wrote the following about her: ‘Marta Grakhova has a wonderful dramatic sense. She is a natural actress, capable of “capturing” the author’s idea and accurately conveying it’. From the start, the director did not intend to look for another performer in the leading theatre groups. He was afraid that he’d get artifice and imitation instead of authenticity. Her feelings manifested themselves through movements instead of speech, and this ‘necessity to overcome’ the word affected the viewer irresistibly’.
Filming took place in the village of Manzherok in the Gorno-Altai ASSR. On the other hand, the scenes of the first story, Styopka, were shot at Anisimov furniture factory on the bank of Katun river. The photograph depicts an encounter between father and his son who had just escaped from prison. Old man Voyevodin was busy with his boat and rasped wooden planks. He usually worked even on weekends, the old man understood wood, loved its smell and colour. Voyevodin-Senior was used to carpentry and had many years of experience in the field.
This scene is taken directly from the short story. However, the following phrase could not be translated into visual element and hence was cut: “The boat smelled of pine shavings, terrycloth, and slowly cooling sawn walls”.
Having entered the scene, Stepan who was portrayed by Leonid Kuravlyov, caught his father working. Then he saw his deaf-mute sister Vera. She rushed to her brother and “grabbed him, mumbled, and kissed him on the cheeks, forehead, and lips”. Shukshin described this episode in the story as follows: “And she was so happy at the moment that men were brought to tears. “She”s been waiting all this time, putting crosses on the wall”, the father explained to his son, “She loves everybody””.
Lydiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina told her husband that she had once been friends with a deaf-mute girl. They studied together until tenth grade and lived in the same neighbourhood. The director remembered this story, which served as an inspiration Stepan’s literary and cinematic sister Vera.
Vera was portrayed by Marta Grakhova, a deaf-mute actress of the Mimic and Gesture Theatre. Shukshin wrote the following about her: ‘Marta Grakhova has a wonderful dramatic sense. She is a natural actress, capable of “capturing” the author’s idea and accurately conveying it’. From the start, the director did not intend to look for another performer in the leading theatre groups. He was afraid that he’d get artifice and imitation instead of authenticity. Her feelings manifested themselves through movements instead of speech, and this ‘necessity to overcome’ the word affected the viewer irresistibly’.
