38 years ago, at the International Film Festival in Denmark, the first place was taken by the Soviet cartoon "A dog lived". And in 2012 at the Suzdal Festival of animated film this cartoon was recognized as the best of the last 100 years. On it grew up more than one generation of children, and the phrases of Dog and Wolf have long become winged. Many interesting moments remained behind the frame: viewers are unlikely to know that in the first version of the cartoon the wolf looked quite different, and the name did not miss the censorship.
The fairy tale "Sirko" the future cartoonist Eduard Nazarov read as a child, and 30 years later it again fell into his hands. At that time he was an artist at the All-Union animation studio "Sojuzmultfilm". He later told me:
At first glance, the story is completely unnoticeable. It is very short, only 15 lines. But there was only one expression: “I’m singing!” and I got caught up with it. I began to think about what life the wolf had, what the dog had when they were young... Well, and so things gradually unfolded.”
The preparation process was very serious and long. In the 1970s. Nazarov frequently visited his army friend in the small Ukrainian town of Tsurupinsk, which then resembled a large village. According to the director, the "mood and smell", which created the unique atmosphere in the cartoon, came from there. And to create drawings of clothes, household appliances, dishes and other important little things, Nazarov went to ethnographic museums, including the famous Pirogov.
The final strike in creating the atmosphere and colour of the Ukrainian village was music, which the director made at the Institute of Folklore and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Employees gave Nazarov a magnetophone coil with recordings of Ukrainian songs collected by ethnographs in the villages. The song "Oh there, on the mountain", which sounded in the cartoon, probably everyone remembers. But few people know about what it sounds like in the performance of the folklore collective "Tree". At the same time, its participants did not even suspect that this song was chosen for the cartoon, and that soon their voices will be heard by the whole Union.
One of the participants of the “Drevo” group, Nadezhda Rozdabar, said: “Even in 1958, the folklore collector Vladimir Matvijenko came to us from the Kiev Conservatory. We gathered in a local club with young families: I and my husband, Fedor, Zagorulki, Malyshenki. Under the guidance of Galina Popko, several songs were sung. Matvienko listened, and two years later he touched us again. From that moment on, we officially started acting as a collective.”
In 1982, they recorded 24 songs at the recording studio "Melody", and in the same year came out the cartoon "A dog lived", in which this composition sounded, which became a complete surprise for the participants of the musical team.
Initially, the timing of the film was 15 minutes. However, the material had to be reduced - due to disagreements with the head of the studio "Sojuzmultfilm" the director had to cut several scenes: "I wanted the story to be clearly told, but in the end, some things turned out to be short-talk. For example, a scene where a wolf and a dog are sitting on a mountain and crawling to the moon would like to be made longer. In general, a lot of things could be extended purely psychologically.” The original title of the animated film was changed - "Life of a Dog". It seemed too suspicious to the management – what does the author hint?
The appearance of the wolf has changed. Initially it was planned that he would be voiced by the famous actor Mikhail Ulyanov, but he at the time was busy shooting and refused. Then invited Armene Jigarhanyan, but here it turned out that the appearance of the character disharmonizes with his voice. The wolf had to be repaired. As a result, Wolf turned out to be so similar to Jigarhanyan that Nazarov even began to worry:
“When Jigarhanyan first entered the tone studio, sketches of the main characters were laid out on the piano. I see the dull Armene Borisovich – well, the real Gorbatchay from “The Meeting Place cannot be changed!” He approached the piano and looked at the same wolf I painted. I thought that Jigarhanyan would now offend and kill me. But he looked and cried, “What, nothing. A good wolf. Let us work!”
The dog was voiced by Georgy Burkov, who then again worked together with Jigarhanyan on the soundtrack of the cartoon "The Adventures of the Pig Funtik".
The premiere of the cartoon in 1982 produced a real furor. A year later, it was evaluated in Denmark, Poland, Yugoslavia and Australia. "A dog has lived" is still not losing its popularity among children and adults. When the director was asked what he sees as the secret of such a popularity of the cartoon, he replied:
“Cinema is madness. For yourself, write pictures or communicate using the computer. And when making a movie, you have to think that the viewer doesn’t fall asleep on your movie.”