TRAC
Interview Transcript

Paul Pozner     (cont)

If you would ask myself, of course, of myself is much better today.  Of course.  But I never was an ordinary person from the society, nor the Soviet time, nor today.  That, that what, that what I think.  A Joseph Golden was needed at the Soviet time.  A Joseph Golden, even being a couple of time in the psychiatric hospital, still had connections to anybody in the society, and succeeded to go through with his projects and very interesting and very good people, even from another culture supported Joseph Golden.  Okay, Joseph once told me this, in the new Russia, nobody needs a Joseph Golden.  Forget about him.  That's why he there, he's there.  He couldn't do anything.  He came with his projects; give me money.  Come on, it's my money.  Go away.  The state has no money to support him.  It's, Joseph Golden is finished.  A Joseph Golden was a person of the Soviet time.  It was not a person of this time.  Like, a movie maker like Tarkovsky, all his films were economically a disaster.  Politically, socially, as a movie, beautiful.  Commercial disasters.  So, Soviet state gave him the money; although, he was Tarkovsky.  His film was.  .  .he gave the money.  The film was prohibited.  He shot the film.  The film was prohibited.  Put away.  In five years, got out, but the state gave him the money.  Today, anybody could do any movie he wants to, nobody would give him a penny if he ruins one of his films.  So the pluses and minuses for the culture for the, a lot of people in the culture regret. In Soviet times they had the possibility to say what they wanted and when they said it, they were heroes, in the eyes of people, in the eyes of the West.  Today you say what you want.  Nobody cares about you, but nobody gives you the money.  And at that time, even if you were somebody's relative, somebody against something, the state gave you, give you the money.  The state gave you the money to publish your books.  So that's it.  It's not so unilateral, that what I want to say.  

Question:  Just, tell us, do you have any hopes for the movie industry?  How will movies ever be paid for over here?

Pozner:  No, it will go back the same.  I'm sure there will be a normal development, and we will arrive to the Western standards because this period, we are in mentality, in the wild capitalism, nineteenth century, end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth.  Money, only money, and but to understand it, money doesn't mean everything.  And this is the society.  You need a development, and you need a few generations going through this wealth.  And then it comes back.  But that takes time, not ten years, but much more.  That's it.

END of interview.