#in which I made up a whole other movie as a way to reference Goncharov

[doctorbluesmanreturns]

The 1980 heist comedy Wyatt was one of the first to actively reference Goncharov; director Mel Brooks was a fan and inserted a set piece where the band of thieves led by Wyatt Leigh (Burt Reynolds) and F.C. Jackson (Madeline Kahn) have to steal the priceless Portrait of Katya Goncharova so that master forger Simon Petheridge (Marty Feldman) can make a perfect copy of it to replace it with; Cybil Shepherd cameos as his assistant, whose resemblance to the painting’s subject ends up making the extremely difficult heist well-nigh pointless. Brooks had wanted to get Robert De Niro involved as well, but he was ironically enough filming his then-latest collaboration with Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull, at the time.

[sunsetconcert]

In 1994, the Muppets made one of their most bizarre films to date.

An adaptation of Goncharov, a cult classic that languished in obscurity until the 2020s. While the film was referred to internally and in public reviews of the film as "The Muppets of Naples", the actual marketing of the movie instead titled it after its main lead: "Gonzorov". This was one of many enigmatic choices made by the production crew, and has never been elaborated on by the cast or crew. The film was a gigantic flop for multiple reasons, but most agree that the source of the troubles stems from the nature of Goncharov as a tragedy and a generally depressing movie to watch.

Reportedly, conflicts among the writing staff began almost immediately due to being unable to decide on which cut of Goncharov to base the film on. Eventually, however, director Brian Henson put his foot down and forced the writers to adapt the Ambrosini Cut. Generally agreed to be a less depressing movie than the Morelli Cut, it was expected that "Gonzorov" should have been a much more entertaining and narratively adept movie than it was. As the Muppets proved just two years later in "Muppet Treasure Island", they are very capable of handling otherwise dramatic material with aplomb. This leaves the question of why this movie was such a flop.

To quote Kermit the Frog during the interviews after the cinema debut, the movie was allegedly emotionally draining for the crew to adapt. "You know, we have a script. Mostly. But we do a lot of improv too. I'd wager it's about 60% script, 40% improv on a good day of filming. But, uh… We just weren't feeling it with this one, you know? We watched the original, and… Boy, it's really sad. Goncharov's just kind of a lonely guy trying to make himself a life. And it's not a good life, but it's his to own, and it ultimately kinda falls apart. Gonzo tried to make the role his own, but I think we all realised that we couldn't really make a joke out of the movie in the way that we wanted to."

The Muppets were skillful enough to change the genre to an absurdist tragicomedy, a film where the tragic and meaningless cycle of violence is paradoxically played for laughter. However, despite this, the film is well-known for its bizarrely melancholy air and almost hopeless atmosphere. Everybody seems thoroughly certain that their improv will have little to no impact on the film as a whole, creating a strange and compelling meta-narrative where not even the actors themselves can escape the almost gravitational pull of the ticking clock. Their characters will die, and any attempts to joke their way out of it comes off as desperate, almost deluded in a sense.

The original Goncharov held a deep fascination with inevitability. Clocks are the primary theme, though it appears in other forms. It is this same inevitability that strangles the Muppets, their impressive comedic skills held captive by their own belief that the narrative is inescapable.

Of particular note is the bridge scene, wherein Gonzorov and Katya (played by the dazzling Miss Piggy) discuss the slow collapse of the Italian mafia. The original Goncharov scene had Goncharov desperately trying to hold things together, even as they slipped through his fingers, but here… Gonzorov realises that it's pointless. He can't fix it, but at the same time he can't let it go. He begs Katya to shoot him. Cut to the chase. She's going to shoot him anyway, that's how the movie ends, right? Might as well go out on his own terms. But this horrifies Katya, and she throws her gun away, accidentally saving Gonzorov in the process.

This adds a new layer to the themes of inevitability that Goncharov is wrapped up in, and it's this: Inevitability goes both ways. You're going to die, but only when you're meant to. You don't get lucky. You don't have accidents. Inevitability is a ticking clock, but that countdown is a safety net. As long as you can still hear that clock ticking down, it means you've stitll got time to burn. When a bomb is counting down, just five minutes until it detonates, you do everything you can to buy yourself more time on the clock. Even if all your effort only gains you an extra second, that's what you have to do, right? A single second is worth the blood of innocent men.

But again, inevitability. That second you earned cost you minutes, cost hours days weeks months years. The clock WILL run out.

[read more]

[alwaysalreadyangry]

Seeing a lot of Goncharov content but only real 70s movie heads will know that Spanish director Pere Portabella was meant to be making a behind-the-scenes documentary of the film which turned into a whole other thing. It's called GOMORRA CALLS.

Scorsese is in it and so are his parents, for some reason. At first you're just like oh this is cute, they're bringing food to the set, taking an interest in what's going on. But it becomes this quite... Creepy reality-bending thing? His mother keeps cryptically referring to weird telephone calls they've been getting at home, and his dad keeps moving things on the set, you can only see what he's doing if you spend a lot of time watching him at the edge of the frame while someone else is talking. And sometimes they'll get to the set in the morning and find things left in the wrong place, there's a weird smear on a camera lenses, one of the actors has lost half the pages from the copy of the script they've been learning from.

I think the idea was meant to be that they're being hounded by the realfe mafia for making the movie. But it almost seems like they're being haunted by the ghosts of mafia members at times. Like, Scorsese's hotel room will be freezing cold, and he's being sent anonymous messages at the front desk in a way that just doesn't make sense. He says, "I'm not sure if someone is trying to stop this movie... Or if they just want to be part of it. If they want to look at a prop in the wrong place and just say, hey, that was me."

At the time of its limited run in the US, Scorsese said he didn't really know what Portabella was making, fueling theories that the film was true documentary and not fictionalised. But it's listed as fiction on Portabella's Wikipedia page now, and the prevaing theory is that it must be made up. It's not been included on any of the Goncharov DVD or Blu-Ray packages but it was supposed to be a Criterion Channel exclusive last year... It never showed up, and there are rumours it's to do with audio licensing issues. But there's a VHS rip floating around out there if you know where to look.

[herora-nuva]

Goncharov references in BIONICLE

With people on here finally coming around to the cinematic masterpiece that is Goncharov (1973, dir. Marton Scorsese) I wanted to discuss how the film's influence actually weaved its way into Bionicle, because there are actually a TON of niche references to it, especially in the Piraka in the Voya Nui arc.

Little known fact, while Goncharov (1973) had an extremely limited release in the U.S., it actually saw a small theatrical release in Denmark due to different film distribution laws there enabling a few screenings where it became a cult classic. Because of this, many of the people working in Lego actually saw the movie and were huge fans, particularly several members of the story team. This included Bionicle author Greg Farshtey, who despite being American was actually shown the film by another Bionicle team member while on a business trip to Billund, Denmark in 2005. Greg was immediately enamored by the brilliant storytelling, and he and a few other team members decided to incorperate references to it in the 2006 Voya Nui arc that they were writing at the time. And BOY does it show.

Now obviously you've got the surface level references, such as Thok's Ice-Gun/Pick weapon being a reference to Ice Pick Joe.

(Ice Pick Joe art by @sleepymccoy)

But there's also much deeper parallels in the story beats and themes. So much of the backstory of the Piraka feels like an attempt to fill in the deliberately ambiguous details of the characters' pasts.

Goncharov and Katya coming from a life of both crime and oppression only to flee to a new land in order to make a name for themselves in a criminal empire is paralleled by how the Piraka fled to Voya Nui to form their own criminal gang after breaking off from the Dark Hunters.

The short flashback sequences where Kayta talks about her past, her abusive father is always framed in shadow, he is The Shadowed One.

Hakann and Thok's dynamic is lifted directly from Goncharov and Andrey, how they schemed to share power together, and were drawn to each other, but inevitably tore each other apart through betrayal.

Meanwhile, Vezok is Katya to Hakann's Goncharov. Hakkan and Vezok arrived in the Dark Hunter's together, much as Goncharov and Katya arrived in Naples together. And despite the underlying resentment that fueled their relationship, they are undeniably bound to each other. One of the most brilliantly niche references was when Hakann hit Vezok with the Spear of Fusion, which result in him being split apart to form Vezon. This is almost certainly a reference to the conversation between Katya and Sofia where Katya describes a fight she had with Goncharov when they first were traveling to Napels where she says "his words were like spear that pierced me, split me in two, and I haven't felt whole since. I sometimes wonder where the part of me I left behind went, and if she found happiness". It is implied that Katya's more violent tendencies became more apparent after this, much like Vezok became much more angry and violent after being split from Vezon.

Anyways these are just some of the subtle references to Goncharov in Bionicle. One masterpiece influences another, as is the way with art.

(I've really loved this collective storytelling meme we've made here. Making up references and analysis to something we're all just making up satisfies both the analytical and little shit parts of me. The Goncharov references are fake, but the Bionicle ones are Real!)