We have long been accustomed to the fact that a certain book is often behind the film, we are even beginning to get used to screen adaptations of books of modern Ukrainian literature, which has recently become quite popular. But it is extremely rare that we can trace the connection between Ukraine and world masterpieces of cinematography, and it is simply necessary to do so, because the lion’s share of books by writers of Ukrainian origin have long been turned into masterpieces of world cinema.
Fight Club (1999)
In 1999, director David Fincher adapted the novel Fight Club into a film of the same name, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The tape became a cult, despite lower than expected box office results. The release of the film contributed to the popularity of the novel and Palahniuk himself.
“Fight Club” is the author’s debut novel, which Palahniuk was inspired to write by a fight in which he participated during a trip to summer camp. His colleagues preferred not to ask what happened to him during the trip, where the boy’s bruises and bruises came from. It was their reluctance to know what happened that inspired the writer to write the novel.
The plot revolves around an unnamed protagonist who struggles with his growing discomfort with consumerism and society’s perception of masculinity. In an attempt to overcome this, he creates an underground fight club as a radical form of psychotherapy.
Chuck Palahniuk is a writer, journalist, provocateur of Ukrainian origin. Palahniuk’s grandfather was a Ukrainian who emigrated to the West through Canada, the southern states to North Dakota, and settled in New York in 1907. Chuck Palahniuk wrote that he transformed his last name when he visited the grave of his grandmother and grandfather, whose names were Pavlyna and Mykola. In all official documents, his name is spelled in English as Palahniuk. And Chuck calls himself “Palanik”.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. The novel tells about the Englishman Marlow, who is sent by a Belgian trading company to Africa, where he becomes the captain of a river steamer. Marlowe has the important task of bringing the ivory miner Kurtz back to civilization.
The most famous adaptation of the novel, Apocalypse Now in 1979, used the main plot, main characters, some dialogue, but moved the setting from the Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Coppola significantly revised the script according to his vision of the subject, removing a lot of dialogue from it and changing the ending.
The world-famous English classicist Joseph Conrad is actually Theodore Joseph Konrad Kozenowski. And he was born in Ukraine, in a family estate near Berdychev. In addition, he lived for some time in Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Lviv.
A Young Doctor’s Notebook (2012)
The 2012 British television series starring Daniel Radcliffe and Jon Hamm is an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s short story series of the same name.
The plot of the film as a whole is based on stories from the series “Notes of a Young Doctor”. The year 1917 is turbulent in the yard, the revolution is in full swing. Young doctor Volodymyr Bomgard (Daniel Radcliffe), who graduated with honors from a medical institute, is sent to the Russian hinterland. There he begins to treat local residents.
However, it is not so easy, he has to face difficulties, because the villagers are superstitious people. In addition to everything else, Bomgard is still not sure of himself. To overcome doubts, he constantly turns to himself, only an already mature one, for advice. The young doctor will also be helped by the strict nurse Hanna (Vicky Pepperdine), the young midwife Pelageya (Rosy Cavaliero) and the cheerful paramedic Lukich (Adam Godley).
“Notes of a Young Doctor” is a cycle of stories by Bulgakov, which includes seven stories that were first published in medical journals. In the cycle, in a slightly modified form, real cases that happened to Bulgakov during his work as a doctor are depicted.
Bulgakov’s roots are from the Oryol region. Once Orel was a part of Kyiv province. Mykhailo Bulgakov was born in the city of Kyiv in the family of a teacher of the Kyiv Theological Academy. He was the godson of the famous Ukrainian scientist M. Petrov. He spent his childhood and youth in Kyiv.
Taras Boulba (1936)
This is a 1936 French historical drama directed by Alexis Granovsky based on the novel of the same name by Mykola Gogol. This story of the writer from the cycle of stories “Myrhorod” is the longest. The central characters of the work are Zaporozhian Cossacks, and the setting is Ukraine of the first half of the 17th century. The main character is the Cossack colonel Taras Bulba.
The work was based on the story of the Cossack uprising of 1637-1638, suppressed by Hetman M. Pototsky, “Taras Bulba” and gave concrete examples of the dramatic fates of the heroes. One of the prototypes of Taras Bulba is the ancestor of the famous traveler N.N. Mykluho-Maklai, the chief of the Zaporizhzhya Army Okhrim Makuha, a companion of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, who had three sons: Nazar, Khoma and Omelko.
Mykola Gogol was born in the town of Velyki Sorochyntsi, Poltava province. According to family traditions, he came from an ancient Ukrainian Cossack family and was a descendant of the famous Cossack Ostap Gogol, who was the hetman of Right Bank Ukraine at the end of the 17th century.
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
This is an American musical film, which takes place in Ukraine, in a village called Anativka, in 1905. A representative of the Jewish half of the village, Tevye, a milkman, lives in poverty, while having five daughters with his wife Golda. The middle daughter of a milkman falls in love with a Russian boy, Fedko, and wants to marry him. Soon, the tsarist authorities ordered the Jews to leave the village and Tevye’s family left – some to America, some to Kharkiv.
“Fiddler on the Roof” is an adaptation of Sholom Aleichem’s work about the milkman-philosopher Tevye. The film won three Oscars for best screenplay, best sound and best music.
The author of the work, Rabynovych Solom, who wrote under the pseudonym Sholom-Aleichem, is a Jewish writer of Ukrainian origin. He was born in the city of Pereyaslav in the Poltava region in the family of a small shopkeeper. He spent his childhood in the small town of Voronkiv, Poltava province. He lived for a long time in Kyiv and Lviv, and only at the age of 56 he moved to New York.
https://youtu.be/PjfTNnznJXw
Solaris (2002)
This is an American science fiction drama directed by Steven Soderbergh, released in 2002. Starring George Clooney, Natasha McElhone.
The film tells the story of clinical psychologist Chris Calvin, who, at the invitation of his friend, arrives at the DBA space station orbiting the planet Solaris in order to find out what is happening on the station. Only two of the crew remained, his friend committed suicide. After some time, he begins to see his dead wife.
The tape was created on the basis of the novel of the same name by the writer Stanislav Lem. The novel is devoted to the search for contact with the thinking Ocean of the exoplanet Solaris. At the same time, the novel raises philosophical and ethical problems of knowledge of the world, anthropocentrism, humanity, and, in fact, responsibility for everything that a person does, both on Earth and beyond.
Stanislav Lem is a Polish writer of Ukrainian origin. The writer’s parents were considered Poles of Jewish origin. They got married in a synagogue and participated in the life of the Jewish community of Lviv. Stanislav Lem spent his childhood and youth in Lviv, as he told in his autobiographical book “High Castle”. In 1945, the Lem family repatriated to Krakow.
Pride of the Yankees (1942)
This is an American biographical film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper. It came out in 1942.
This is a chronicle of the life and career of the legendary first baseman of the New York Yankees and multiple champion Lou Gehrig. He made history by playing in 2,130 games over 14 years without ever taking a day off, thus setting the most famous baseball record and earning the nickname “Iron Man”.
The adapted screenplay for the film was created by the American writer and screenwriter of Ukrainian origin, Joe Swerling, who was nominated for an Oscar. He was born in Berdychev, Kyiv province, in a Jewish family, and later moved to the USA with his family.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
This is a gangster film by Sergio Leone, which was released in 1984 and is partially based on the autobiographical work of Harry Gray. The audience is presented with the story of friendship and betrayal of several gangsters who met at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Jewish quarter of New York and became rich during the time of Prohibition in the USA, which is demonstrated through an intricate interweaving of memories, dreams and opium dreams of the main character.
The main events are shown through the eyes of David Aaronson, nicknamed “Noodles”. In the pursuit of the “American dream” during the operation of the “dry law”, Aaronson becomes a great criminal authority. For the best reasons, he betrays his comrades and becomes the culprit of their death. His dreams of happiness with his beloved woman dissipate like smoke in an opium smoking room.
Harry Gray’s first book “Bandits” was taken as the basis for the film. It was one of the few autobiographies of real gangsters. His memoirs, partly true, partly subconsciously altered and partly invented, are believed to have been written while Gray was in Sing Sing Prison.
Gray’s real name is Herschel Goldberg. He was born in Odesa, from where his family emigrated to the USA after some time.
The French Suite (2014)
This is a film directed by Saul Dibb, released in 2014. In the center of the romantic story of the Second World War is a young girl who lives with her mother-in-law in France occupied by the fascists. The unloved man went to the battlefield, and the heroine falls in love with a German officer. They share a love of music: she plays the piano, and the German is a former composer.
The script is based on the novel of the same name by Irene Nemyrivska. The novel was published in 2004 and was a great success. He was awarded the Renaud Literary Prize, which was a unique event, since this prize, like the Nobel Prize, is given only to living authors. Roman Irene mercilessly exposes the psychology of people under occupation, resurrects a tragic page of French history.
The writer herself was born in a wealthy Kyiv family, which was forced to emigrate from Ukraine after the Bolshevik coup in St. Petersburg.
Twelve Chairs (1970)
This is a comedy film – buffoonery directed by Mel Brooks, which is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by I. Ilf and Ye. Petrov. The plot of the film, in comparison with the text of the novel, is significantly shortened and changed in places.
Former nobleman, and after the Revolution, office rat Ippolit Matviyovych Vorobyaninov learns from his mother-in-law the secret of her pre-revolutionary diamonds, hidden in one chair out of twelve. The local priest, Father Fedir, who came to Klaudia Ivanovna to confess her, also becomes the owner of this secret. A priest and a nobleman rush to find furniture with jewels.
A novel by I. Ilf and E. Petrov, published in 1928 in the illustrated monthly “30 Days”, which satirically depicts life in Ukraine during the NEP.
The author of the novel is Ilya Ilf – a writer of Ukrainian origin. He was born in the town of Boguslav, Kyiv province, from where the family moved to Odesa.
There are weapons – there will be trips (1957 – 1963)
This is an American western series about a graduate of the Army Academy and a veteran of the Civil War, a professional shooter who takes up residence in the Carlton Hotel in San Francisco and earns a living by offering his services to travelers who need protection.
The script for the series was based on the story of the writer of Ukrainian origin, Fanny Foss-Lawrence. She was born in Odessa. Later, she emigrated to the USA and married actor Mark Lawrence.