Meeting Gorbachev

Werner Herzog, André Singer: Meeting Gorbachev (2018). Werner Herzog and Mikhail Gorbachev. On the wall: a portrait of Raisa Gorbacheva.

Werner Herzog & André Singer: Meeting Gorbachev (2018). Herzog asks Gorbachev what he would like to have on his grave marker. Gorbachev replies that he cannot tell about himself, but an epitaph of a friend of his has remained unforgettable: "Мы старались." / "We tried". My screenshot from Yle Areena. I tried.

Ystäväni Gorbatshov / Min vän Gorbatjov.
    GB/DE/US © 2018 History Films / Spring Films Ltd. / Werner Herzog Filmproduktion GmbH. PC: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion. P: Svetlana Palmer.
    D: Werner Herzog, André Singer. SC: Werner Herzog. Cin: Yuri Burak – colour – camera: Zeiss CP.3 lenses. M: Nicholas Singer. S: Vasily Amochkin, Andy Coles, Vladimir Rizun. ED: Michael Ellis.
    Soundtrack selections include: "Zamuchen tyazholoi nevolei" / "Замучен тяжелой неволей" / "Slavery and Suffering" / "Sait kärsiä puolesta aatteen" (L. Shulgina / Grigori Machtet, 1876) played at the funerals of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko.
    Poem read by Gorbachev: Mikhail Lermontov: "Vyhozhu odin ya dorogu" / "Выхожу один я на дорогу" / "All alone I walk upon the roadway" / "Yksin kuljen autiolla tiellä" (1841).
    Featuring in new footage: Mikhail Gorbachev, Werner Herzog, James Baker, Miklós Németh, George Shultz, André Singer, Horst Teltschik, Lech Wałęsa.
    Archival: Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, Raisa Gorbacheva, Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsin.
    Consultant: William Taubman
    Thanks: Vitaly Mansky.
    Languages: Gorbachev speaks in Russian, Herzog in English, Wałęsa in Polish, Teltschik in German.
    90 min
    Festival premiere: 1 Sep 2018 Telluride Film Festival.
    US premiere: 3 May 2019.
    Finnish telepremiere: 1 July 2020 Yle Teema.
    Corona lockdown viewings.
    Viewed with Finnish subtitles by Kari Jokelainen from Yle Areena, viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 1 July 2020.

Larry Gross (Telluride Film Festival 2018): "Werner Herzog and André Singer’s riveting documentary, filled with unforgettable archive materials and based on three long interviews, provides incredible access to, arguably, the world’s greatest living politician. Now 87 and battling illness, the visionary Mikhail Gorbachev, the former General Secretary of the U.S.S.R, has mellowed and slowed down. Still, gently but resolutely, he is pushing towards his goals. Herzog, as on-screen interviewer, does not disguise his affection, celebrating Gorbachev’s three remarkable accomplishments: negotiations with the U.S. to reduce nuclear weapons; cessation of Soviet control of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany; and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. All of this in six years! One German diplomat sums up Gorbachev’s approach: “The process went so quickly that ... opponents were overcome by the reality of the situation.” Herzog and Singer remind us of the drastic and unforeseeable way the world changes." –LG (U.K.-U.S.-Germany, 2018, 90 m)

AA: The Cold War ended 30 years ago, and if there was a politician during the period of transition that would deserve to be called "a world-historical individual", that person would be Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev led the moribund Soviet Union to the transformations called "perestroika" and "glasnost", he accelerated the process of détente into high gear, and he let the process happen that led to the fall of the wall in 1989.

In Werner Herzog and André Singer's documentary Gorbachev emphasizes that the end of the cold war was something that the global powers achieved together. It was their mutual and intentional purpose.

The Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986 was a particularly severe setback in which the USSR under the leadership of Gorbachev acted disgracefully at first. But Gorbachev took the nuclear calamity very seriously and multiplied his efforts in nuclear disarmament.

Gorbachev did not want to dismantle the Soviet Union. He wanted to transform it. He failed. Instead of democracy, freedom and justice, forces of autocracy and money prevailed. But the world is changing, and perhaps Gorbachev will be assessed not as someone who ended something but as a harbinger of something bigger yet to come.

In a film of 90 minutes it is possible to discuss Gorbachev's career mostly as a list of main clauses. They are familiar, yet it is really rewarding to repeat them. As the leader of the USSR Gorbachev was in office only for six years (1985–1991), but during those years the world changed, largely thanks to him.

Herzog and Singer's film can be recommended as a recent history excursion for young people who had not been born by 1991. It is deeply moving for people like me who were alive at the time. I remember learning about Chernobyl as a student in West Berlin. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was the most important day in my life. I was hosting Alexander Sokurov as a guest of the Helsinki Festival in the early autumn of 1991: he did not know to which country he would return (it was still the USSR).

The subject is of maximum gravity, but the film-makers display a sense of humour. The Soviet funeral march is repeated in three memorials before the appointment of Gorbachev as the Soviet leader. The Austrian news anchor fails to realize the significance of the fall of the iron curtain, instead focusing on slug control by beer. Gorbachev displays dignity in his televised resignation speech, despite farcical attempts by the tv crew to mastermind the event.

Herzog evokes the Greek divine force of Kairos, the God of the right moment. Gorbachev repeats his famous remark to Honecker: "Who comes late in politics will be punished by life".

The most emotional dimension in the film is devoted to the love of Mikhail's life, Raisa, whose portrait hangs over Mikhail and Werner.

In the end, Mikhail is proud of his achievements and still committed to the projects of democracy and nuclear disarmament. He is disappointed about the victory of the forces that seized the power and the property in their own hands.

Werner Herzog asks him what epitaph he would like on his grave. Gorbachev says that he does not know, but he will eternally remember the one on the grave of a friend: "Мы старались." / "We tried". The film ends with Gorbachev reciting a beloved Russian poem, even better known as a song, Mikhail Lermontov's "All alone I walk alone the roadway".

An interesting double review of Meeting Gorbachev and Ludmila Gordon's Pravo na pamiat / The Right to Memory: Benjamin Nathans: "Profiles in Decency", NYRB 23 April, 2020.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: YLE AREENA INTRO:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: YLE AREENA INTRO:

Dokumenttiprojekti: Ystäväni Gorbatshov – ohjaajalegenda Werner Herzog kertoo viimeisen neuvostopresidentin tarinan

Neuvostoliiton kahdeksas ja samalla viimeinen presidentti Mihail Gorbatšov teki työtä rauhan, perestroikan ja glasnostin puolesta. Maailmanpolitiikan kulkua muuttanut mies halusi uudistaa suurvallan poliittista ja taloudellista järjestelmää.

Gorbatšovin ensimmäinen ja tärkein tavoite oli saada maahan enemmän demokratiaa. Se tarkoitti hänelle myös enemmän sosialismia.

Tarmokkaan Gorbatšovin uudistuspyrkimykset johtivat liennytykseen ja vaikuttivat ratkaisevasti kylmän sodan päättymiseen sekä lyhyen ja keskimatkan ydinaseiden hävittämiseen. Työstään hän sai vuonna 1990 Nobelin rauhanpalkinnon.

Syrjäisestä kylästä suureksi johtajaksi

Saksalainen ohjaajalegenda Werner Herzog tapaa ihailemansa ja nyt jo ikääntyneen Mihail Gorbatšovin, miehen, jonka aikana kylmä sota päättyi, Neuvostoliitto ja itäblokki hajosivat ja Saksat yhdistyvät.

Herzogin ja André Singerin ohjaama dokumenttielokuva Ystäväni Gorbatshov kertoo Pohjois-Kaukasiassa talonpoikaisperheeseen syntyneen Mihail Gorbatšovin elämäntarinan. Miten jumalan selän takana sijaitsevasta kylästä nousi yksi 1900-luvun suurimmista johtajista?

Gorbatshov ja Reagan istuvat pöydän takana ja allekirjoittavat sopimusasiakirjan kappaleita. Miehillä on mustat puvut ja kravatit. Taustalla seinällä ovat maiden liput. Presidentit Mihail Gorbatšov ja Ronald Reagan allekirjoittivat vuonna 1987 INF-sopimuksen, joka kielsi maasta laukaistavat lyhyen ja keskipitkän matkan ohjukset. Kuva: Everett Collection / Shutterstock / Rex Features / All Over Press

Herzog tapasi dokumenttiaan varten Gorbatšovin kolme kertaa puolen vuoden aikana. Puolentoista tunnin mittaisessa ohjelmassa nähdään runsaasti ainutlaatuista kuvamateriaalia.

Gorbatšov muistelee haastattelussa elämäänsä, ainutlaatuista uraansa ja sen päättymistä Neuvostoliiton hajottua vuonna 1991. Neuvostojohtaja kertoo myös elämänsä rakkaudesta ja tukijastaan, puoliso Raisa Gorbatšovasta, joka menehtyi 1999.

Politiikka vetosi jo nuorena poikana

Dokumentissa Gorbatšovin työtä ja vaikutusta arvioivat muun muassa Unkarin entinen pääministeri Miklós Németh, Yhdysvaltain entiset ulkoministerit George P. Schultz ja James Baker sekä Puolan Solidaarisuus-liikkeen perustaja, entinen presidentti Lech Wałęsa.

Neuvostoliiton entinen presidentti Mihail Gorbatšov liittyi jo nuorena poikana kommunistiseen puolueeseen. Siitä lähtien hän on ollut aina mukana politiikassa ja haluaa edelleen vaikuttaa. Kylmän sodan vuosina Gorbatšov ehti kuudessa vuodessa saada aikaan suuria käänteitä. Nyt tahti on rauhallisempi, mutta ote yhtä päättäväinen.

Meeting Gorbachev. Ohjaus: Werner Herzog ja André Singer. Tuotanto: History Films / Werner Herzog Film Production, Saksa, 2018.