#dir. martin scorsese

[inatriestostudy]

you know what

we don't have to work our asses off trying to put Goncharov on the english wikipedia pages... we just have to divide and rule. start with the other, lesser known languages and the pages that nobody's going to look through.

sooner or later, we'll reach english. it's inevitable.

[film-mike]

The Age of Innocence,1993, dir. Martin Scorsese

The Age of Innocence (1993) dir. Martin Scorsese

[danascullly]

Can you hear it? Can you hear the ticking of the clocks, Goncharov?

GONCHAROV (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese

[connanro]

what i should be doing: research on music and special education

what i am doing: compiling a google doc of all the goncharov (1973) scenes i’ve seen mentioned on tumblr and ao3

[fruity-phrog]

I felt the need to create this masterpiece:

Erasing Goncharov’s head was very reminiscent of that scene and I was laughing way too hard doing it.

[guess-im-here]

We’ve got to make this happen

If this gets 20,000 notes in the next 2 weeks I'll make a Goncharov remake.

[romanceyourdemons]

i have a terrible disease where i want so badly to watch movie but instead i have a life where things happen sometimes

[themightiestacorn]

linear/non linear time in clocks/water in Goncharov (1973)

what’s fascinating to me about the clock theme in Goncharov is the way it contrasts with the frequent references to water (boathouse, bridge, anchovies, etc) in Katya’s storlyline. Both clocks and water deal with time—one of them linear and one of them non-linear. Scorsese is absolutely pulling from mythological rivers as pathways to the underworld that, in addition to bringing people from one world to another, alter a person’s experience of time and the chronology of events. Katya’s story begins with water as a manifestation of her relationship to non linear time as evidenced through Katya’s father’s death in a boathouse. Katya’s intense guilt begins in a place of water. When she leaves Goncharov for the last time before the betrayal, they meet on a bridge. She is once again surrounded by water as she is wracked with guilt. Goncharov is associated with linear time (through clocks) while Katya deals is the nonlinear. (Another piece of this that I’m too tired to write about here is the idea of queer time and the differences between Katya and Sofia’s relationship and Andrey and Goncharov’s as linked with the water/clock motifs respectively.)

[amarshmallownamedo]

Do you think I should ask my asshole film buff brother if he's seen Goncharov (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese?

[itsanidiom]

Goncharov (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese | Fav character

[clementimetodie]

holy shit

[sgt-celestial]

this pops up every time i watch a new show or listen to new music

[fortheturnstiles]

me trying to get my friends to watch the last waltz for marty’s birthday tonight and failing . but still rewatched pink flamingos that was great

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Anyone looking for more movies like Goncharov would do well to check out the work of Andrey Plasskin (1946-2009), especially Ivan Lebedev (1985) and The Presbyter (1992). I know that Russian culture and art get a bad rap these days, and in many cases reasonably so, but Plasskin is unusually clear-eyed about his country and its problems, and even in his Soviet-era films like Ivan Lebedev he’s able to work within and around censorship to turn an insider’s lens on many of the same traumas of Eastern European history that Goncharov addresses with an outsider’s lens. The movies aren’t as visually impressive as Scorsese, mostly due to technological limitations, and you don’t get to see a young Robert De Niro in one of his best roles as Goncharov like you do in Goncharov, but they’re still well worth a watch for true fans.

[still-lightless]

statement of an anonymous tumblr user regarding Martin Scorsese's 1973 film Goncharov, starring Robert De Niro

[connanro]

look, as much as i like to talk about the tragedy of goncharov/andrei (yes i know that's not the official spelling but 'andrey' is a bad and dumb romanisation from the 1956 translation of the novel), i really think that the foil katya/sofia provides is equally, if not more fascinating - especially given the political climate of 1973 when the film was produced. obviously there's a huge issue of lesbophobia when it comes to sofia's characterisation, and i'm sure we all know the reason she gets sidelined is because the katya/goncharov/andrei triangle is more conventional (if subversive) in terms of social class status.

but sofia. sofia. she plays the role of both the overlooked serving woman AND the threat of female sexuality. you can't even call her two-sided because the roles are so integrated. like, the film obviously deals with threats to the idealised husband-wife relationship - anyone with eyeballs can see how dangerous andrei is to goncharov - but the threat sofia poses is so much more subtle. she's a woman who isn't what she seems. she's in a position of relative vulnerability. she initially plays the role of sympathetic listener to a katya who is struggling to adjust to her own role as a mafia wife in foreign territory. and then!! and tHEN! the romantic tension starts building! it's incredible because it's a reversal of the typical maid/employer relationship - the employer is katya, a woman, and it's SOFIA who makes the initial overtures. i can't get into the complexity of sofia's motivations in this post, but it's definitely a mirror of goncharov's motivations to befriend andrei.

the way that katya responds to sofia's flirtations is, i think, the most interesting aspect of it. we would expect to see katya portrayed as an innocent, naive women being preyed upon a more powerful/mature woman (sofia), but she's not. she clocks (pun intended) sofia's intentions immediately. her reticence is purely about preserving her own place in the complex web of relationships that unravel over the course of the movie. the conflict of their relationship isn't that katya doesn't know what she wants (as is the case with goncharov); it's that her desires oppose each other. she truly does love goncharov, but she she wants to go back home - which she can't do because of him (!!!). she loves sofia, but she hates the entire situation that allowed them to meet. goncharov is supposed to represent security for katya, and sofia freedom; a classic duty-vs-feeling sort of thing. but in the end katya has neither security nor freedom. her relationships gradually fall apart, starting with ice pick joe's death and culminating with that absolutely GUTTING showdown in the middle of act 3. (no, i'm not over it yet. don't talk to me). in the end, it's sofia's vulnerability, not katya's, that undoes them. it's so delightfully tragic, especially because goncharov/andrei's story ends the same way despite all the other differences.

anyway. yeah. gonna be thinking about this for a while.