No movie comments today, even though Alexander Sedov brought up some good topics, and even though I just learned that the great actress, Nonna Mordyukova, died two weeks ago. Her passing deserves more than I’m going to have time to write about tonight.
What I do have is a new YouTube link for learning Russian. It’s a series of videos produced by Viktor D. Huliganov. My wife says he’s like Garrison Keilor. Well, he does have a dry sense of humor and he sings well enough, too. I think he makes his living as an accountant.
I found him by starting with the movie Ostrov. That led me to YouTube clips of Dmitry Dyuzhev, who played Father Job in that movie. Most of the clips are his singing — usually together with Tamara Gverdtsiteli. I happen to like a lot of them, though I don’t know if that’s the kind of music that’s popular among the younger generation.
Some of the clips display the words. Those I find especially useful.
Here’s one of a song titled How Young We Were (Kak molodi mi bili). It led me to want to find a translation, and that’s how I found Huliganov.
Here’s a clip titled “RL 102 – Constructions using Dative”. Following the lesson Huliganov gives a translation of the song and then sings it in a chipmunk voice. I wasn’t sure where he got that, but in other videos I saw that he actually can sing. I hope he keeps producing those lessons. They’re fun to watch, and helpful, too.
Here’s another clip of Dmitry Dyuzhev and Tamara Gverdtsiteli — one that made me want to learn the words of some of their songs. It seems to be a sentimental one that got people all teary.
And is that Barbara Brylska of Irony of Fate who was in the audience, wiping her eyes? Why yes, it is! And after the song I got to hear her voice, too. I was curious about that, because according to Wikipedia her character’s voice was dubbed in the original movie, because she had too much of a Polish accent. She has a deeper voice here than her character in the movie had, but she’s older now, too. (I don’t know if her voice was also dubbed in the sequel that was made 30 years after the original.)