Sasha Isn’t Coming Out. From the Production History of Mikhail Shveitser’s film Sasha Enters Life / The Tight Knot (1957/1988)

Abstract

This article prefaces the transcript of a meeting of the Mosfilm Studio’s Artistic Council on January 22, 1957, where it was screened and discussed Mikhail Schveitser’s film The Tight Knot (Sasha Enters Life, 1957/1988). This first “shelved” picture of the Thaw was also the first one in which the actor Oleg Tabakov took part. The Tight Knot was the initial film which underwent considerable reediting at the time when it seemed that this practice, just like the practice of shelving films, had become a thing of the past. Perhaps that is why many myths have emerged around it, including the myth of its shelved status as such. It became one of the embodiments of the Thaw’s hopes, suddenly and resoundingly dashed. The transcript published here in its entirety for the first time, and its analysis reveals that several versions of the editing of The Tight Knot existed in 1956–1957, before it was released as Sasha Enters Life and then again remade and released as The Tight Knot in 1988. The full publication of the transcript also allows us to clear the film’s history of later mythologization, with the participation of its director, Mikhail Shveitser, and to reveal a more complex picture of censorship and self-censorship in cinema at the beginning of the Thaw. It turns out that despite later memoire accounts the film’s production life did not include the initial unequivocal acceptance by the studio and then a sudden and categorical rejection by Goskino and the party leadership. On the contrary, from the very first screenings of the finished picture its authors faced misgivings and objections which led to a series of alterations even before The Tight Know was submitted to Goskino.

Keywords

Cinema of the Thaw, film censorship, Oleg Tabakov, Mikhail Shveitser, The Tight Knot, Sasha Enters Life, director’s cut, Mosfilm, artistic council.

For citation

Ryabchikova N. S. Sasha Isn’t Coming Out. From the Production History of Mikhail Shveitser’s film Sasha Enters Life / The Tight Knot (1957/1988). Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2025, no. 4, pp. 92–123.

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2024-4-92-123

EDN UJBYIU

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Received: 23.09.2025

Revised: 12.10.2025

Accepted: 17.10.2025