The Last Supper

Producer Anna Buali
Light Design Ivan Vinogradov
Composer Kuzma Bodrov
Video Artist Elena Koptyaeva
Operator Ilya Galkin
Artists: Elizaveta Guseva, Grisha Rakhmilovich, Jane Rzheznikova
Starring: Anatoly Bely, Olga Voronina

Dmitry Krymov produced his installation based on Tintoretto’s Last Supper jointly with the team of the Pushkin Museum Department of Cinema and Media Art. The museum’s participation in film production has transformed its status from a simple witness to the initiator of creating the “new classics.”

In The Last Supper (1563–1564) from the church of San Trovaso, which formed the basis of the work by Dmitry Krymov, the topic of communion comes to the fore. The sympathy for ordinary people passes through the entire art of Tintoretto, who collaborated with the charitable confraternity Scuola di San Rocco for more than twenty years.

In the San Trovaso composition the artist placed the sacred scene in the basement with modest furnishings and portrayed its participants as ordinary people surrounded by everyday details. However, the scene is filled with dramatic energy due to compositional effects: the usual perspective is broken, and the participants are involved in the dynamic circulation of what is happening. Tintoretto’s experimental approach was so much ahead of his time that Jean-Paul Sartre called him the first film director in history.

For Dmitry Krymov, an important dimension of Tintoretto’s art is his attention to the details of everyday life, from which the miracle emerges. Krymov is fascinated by the way the Venetian master used the smallest everyday details to create compositions full of deep emotions that permeate the whole space and engage the viewer. This totality of Tintoretto’s compositions makes them close to theater. Krymov, in turn, develops the multi-layered spatial scenery of The Last Supper and combines cinema and performance in his work.

Following Tintoretto, Dmitry Krymov seeks to show the sublime in the ordinary. Interpreting The Last Supper, he creates another reality at the altar of San Fantin church, based on trompe-l’oeil (visual illusion), which makes the viewers doubt the accuracy of their perception. The scene of the supper is placed in contemporary setting, but it does not end there. Static figures turn into live characters and vice versa. Where our reality ends and where the storyline is played out — remains a mystery and breaks the regular rules of perception of a film narrative.

An important component of this dramatic work is the musical accompaniment. The composer Kuzma Bodrov wrote music specially for this work, drawing inspiration from both the storyline and the visual language of Tintoretto. In graduate school, Bodrov studied the works of Giovanni da Palestrina and the Renaissance music, and later he composed several pieces for the mass of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

They key parts were performed by Anatoly Bely, the Honored Artist of Russia, and Olga Voronina, actress of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. The expressive acting, music, light and the originality of director’s intention force the artwork out of the framework of the painting-projection to overwhelm the 16-meter vaults of the old church. During the preview days, the installation will have an additional performative dimension thanks to the work of Krymov’s students of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts – GITIS, who will also take part in this action.

DMITRY KRYMOV (born 1954, Moscow, Russia) is a film director, artist and stage designer. He graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School in 1976. His stage plays are performed at prestigious international theater festivals in Austria, the UK and Germany. Krymov’s plays were honored with the Golden Mask award six times. The Dmitry Krymov Laboratory tours around the world, including Brazil, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Since the 1990s Krymov has been involved in art: painting, graphic art and installations. He has had solo and group exhibitions both in Russia and abroad. His works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Vatican Museums, the World Bank. In 2004—2018 he was the artistic director in the art lab at the School of Dramatic Art theater. As a director, his focal point is the interaction of the actors with the stage spaces and the stage design. His most famous stage plays include The Death of a Giraffe, Opus No. 7, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tararabumbia, Honoré de Balzac. Notes about Berdichev, etc.