Oleg Borisov Movies
Whether involved in a classical stage drama or a contemporary film comedy, Oleg Borisov consistently and sometimes brilliantly imbued his roles with rare intelligence and depth that made it easy to see why he was one of Russia's most acclaimed and popular leading men for nearly 40 years.Borisov launched his career on stage at Kiev's Dramatic Theatre in the early '50s following his graduation from the Moscow Arts Theatre School. In 1964, he moved to the prestigious Leningrad Dramatic Theatre and worked closely with renowned stage director Georgi Tovstonogov. He left the troupe in 1983 and became part of Moscow's Dramatic Theatre, where he remained for the rest of his stage career. While he attained an enviable reputation on stage, he was best known for his film work. He made his film debut in Mat/Mother (1956). Though he played a wide variety of roles, Borisov was especially adept at playing crooks, con men, and adventurers; he frequently worked with director Vadim Abdrashitov. The allegorical Sluga/Servant (1989) represented one of his best collaborations with the acclaimed filmmaker. Other films for which the great actor was particularly known include the satirical comedy Za Dvumya Zaitsami (1961), which was filmed on location in Kiev, and a made-for-television adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Podrostok/Adolescent (1983), in which Borisov played Versilov. His last important role was that of a mild-mannered elderly Jew thrown into turmoil when a bigoted Russian skinhead shows up claiming to be his illegitimate son in Luna-Park (1991). For his many accomplishments and contributions to Russian/Soviet theater and cinema, Oleg Borisov received one of his country's highest civilian honors when he was designated People's Artist of the USSR in 1978. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Andrei is buff, he is muscular, he is ready to bash heads whenever and wherever his much-worshipped mother directs, and his gang is similarly buff, similarly ready to follow the lead of Andre's mother. He has lived a life of competition and conflict with true Russian heroes like his father, who he believed died in Afghanistan, and enemies like Jews and foreigners. For him, after his lounge-singing mother, the muscular movie-star Arnold Schwarzenegger is a god. His mother is a piece of work, using her incestuous relationship with her son to motivate him to go off on rampages to satisfy her bile against all "non-Russians." One day she gets drunk and reveals that Andrei's father is not the soldier he always thought he was, but a Jewish composer and conductor. Thinking she has fashioned her son into the perfect instrument for revenge, she tells him how his father seduced her (making her pregnant) and then did not cast her as a singer for an important role, which blighted her career after that. When Andrei looks up his newly revealed father, he finds an impoverished, gentle man who lives in such chaos that a few new holes in the wall, put there in an anti-Semitic rage by the boy, have no effect on him. Instead, he is proud of his newfound son. Before long, the charms of gentleness and civility have won him over, and he realizes that he must protect his father against his mother and his former gang, still loyal to her wishes. In a film-making note, industry insiders said that many of the skinheads in the gangs in this movie were the genuine article, which lent a specially chilling realism to their anti-everybody performances. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Borisov, Andrei Gutin, (more)
- 1990
When a tired factory worker Christo Panov (Oleg Borisov) going home from work gets embroiled with a dispute with a bus driver, leading to threats of assault by the driver, that's bad enough. Then an irate passenger files charges against the driver. After the driver appears on the factory worker's doorstep with his wife and three children, pleading with him not to testify, he easily agrees. However, soon he learns that the woman who brought charges against the driver is now being charged by with slander. No matter what he does, someone will suffer unneccessarily. Oleg Borisov won an acting award for his role as the factory worker from the 1988 Venice film festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Borisov
- 1988
Loyalty is an odd thing which, once earned, is not readily discarded. In this late Soviet-era Russian drama, Andrei Gudionov (Oleg Borisov), was once a powerful man. During his heyday, he had impressed into his service as a driver the talented young musician Pavel Kljuev (Yuri Beljaev). As his driver, Kljuev was required to demonstrate unquestioning loyalty to him, despite any unorthodox goings-on he might observe. Gudionov has long since retired, but seeks out his former driver (now a famous conductor) to help him in settling an old score. Despite their changed circumstances and the risks involved, Kljuev feels compelled to help him out. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yuri Belyaev, Oleg Borisov, (more)
- 1988
Liosha (Oleg Borisov) is a veteran gardener who cares for the apple orchard like his late father before him, and he receives letters from all over the country requesting seeds from the ancient orchard. Local authorities question Liosha who willingly sends the seeds at his own expense. His years of dedication to the garden and orchard have turned him into a hermit after he loses his best friend and his wife. When a local commission makes plans to destroy his beloved orchard in favor of a chicken coop, Liosha wages a successful battle against the bureaucracy to save the land. The feature has a definite message of the importance of ecological conservation. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Borisov, Lev Borisov, (more)
- 1984
In a surreal puzzler, this story of a fantasy lived by a disparate group of four men captures the visual imagination with its images and leaves a large question mark in the meantime. The men first get together when called up for military maneuvers in the equivalent of a civilian reserve corps. Since their training is only periodical, two years go by before they are called up again. During this season's maneuvers, they end up being "killed," and so get some time off before they have to go home, and that is when the strange occurrences start. First the men visit a town of beautiful women and go swimming in the buff, then they land on a deserted island, and later, they find themselves with a group of elderly people, one of whom may -- or may not -- have a connection to one of the men. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Borisov, Sergei Shakurov, (more)
- 1983
In this drama with socio-political nuances, a heroic engineer is able to save the passengers on his train from injury or death by sacrificing his own life when his locomotive crashes. An investigator (Oleg Borisov) and Malinin, a journalist (Anatoli Solonitsin) are both involved in the story of the crash but from two different angles: the investigator wants to find out why it happened, the journalist wants to laud the heroism of the dead engineer. In the end, the investigator discovers that the responsibility for the disaster lies with a series of people, officials and others, who made significant errors that added up to a fatality. The question is in the end, whose story will see the light of day -- the investigator's or the journalist's? This was Anatoli Solonitsin's last film, as the actor died of cancer in June of 1982. He was the favorite actor of the critically-acclaimed director Andrei Tarkovsky, who had been hoping to cast Solonitsin in his next work, Nostalghia. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Borisov, Anatoli Solonitsin, (more)
