No dancin' but fishin'. No gamblin' but thinkin', No Smokin' but Rock 'N' Roll.
The Masquare is a verse play written in 1835 by the Russian Romantic writer Mikhail Lermontov. The four-act play, set in 1830s St. Petersburg aristocratic society, highlights the rebellious spirit and noble mind of the protagonist, Yevgeny Arbenin. It is often compared with Shakespeare's Othello in its essential story line.
Summary:
The play begins when beautiful Nina (Makarova) loses a bracelet during a masked ball.
Another woman finds it and without revealing who she is gives it to an ardent Calvary officer admirer at the ball. This officer had earlier spend the evening learning how to gamble from Nina's husband Arbenin (Mordvinov).
When the young officer shows the bracelet to Arbenin, the husband starts to suspect that he has been betrayed by his wife, Nina.
The film depicts the effects of Arbenin's jealousy on everyone around the couple, leading to a quarrel with and calculated humiliation of the officer, Arbenin poisoning his wife, and finishes with a strange out of left field "I told you so" from someone who Arbenin had injured a decade earlier.
The Play:
Not Available.
The Film:
1941, Soviet Union
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermantov:
Hw was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism.
His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also through his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel.
Interesting Death of Lermantov:
on 9 May 1841, Lermontov arrived to Stavropol, introduced himself to general Grabbe and asked for permission to stay in the town. Then, on a whim, he changed his course, found himself in Pyatigorsk and sent his seniors a letter informing them of his having fallen ill. T
he regiment's special commission recommended him treatment at Mineralnye Vody. What he did instead was embark upon the several weeks' spree. "In the mornings he was writing, but the more he worked, the more need he felt to unwind in the evenings," Skabichevsky wrote. "I feel I'm left with very little of my life," the poet confessed to his friend A. Merinsky on 8 July, a week before his death.
In Pyatigorsk Lermontov enjoyed himself, feeding on his notoriety of a social misfit, his fame as a poet second only to Pushkin and his success with A Hero of Our Time.
Meanwhile, in the same salons his Cadet school friend Nikolai Martynov, dressed as a native Circassian, wore a long sword, affected the manners of a romantic hero not unlike Lermontov's Grushnitsky character. Lermontov teased Martynov mercilessly until the latter couldn't stand it anymore.
On 25 July 1841, Martynov challenged his offender to a duel. The fight took place two days later at the foot of Mashuk mountain. Lermontov allegedly made it known that he was going to shoot into the air. Martynov was the first to shoot and he aimed straight into the heart, killing his opponent on the spot.
On 30 July Lermontov was buried, without military honours, thousands of people attended the ceremony.
In January 1842, the Tsar issued an order allowing the coffin to be transported to Tarkhany, where Lermontov was laid to rest at the family cemetery
Upon receiving the news his grandmother Elizaveta Arsenyeva suffered a minor stroke. She died in 1845. Many of Lermontov's verses were discovered posthumously in his notebooks.
Directed by Sergey Gerasimov
Writing Credits: Sergey Gerasimov, Vyacheslav Gordanov, Mikhail Lermontov (play)
Music by Venedikt Pushkov
Cinematography by V. Gardanov
Production Design by Semyon Mejnkin
Costume Design by P. Gorokhov, Yevgenia Slovtsova
Cast:
Nikolai Mordvinov as Arbenin
Tamara Makarova as Nina
Mikhail Sadovsky as Knyaz Zvezdich
Sofiya Magarill as Baroness Shtral
Antonin Pankryshev as Kazarin
Emil Gal as Shprikh
Sergey Gerasimov as Neizvestnyj
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