I'm one of those people who do not read gossip about actors. I do not know who with whom and when, how much their houses are worth, how much money they received for this or that film, I have always been more or less indifferent to the peculiarities of their private life. I perceive the actor as a performer in a movie or on a stage, I like the actor or do not like it, that is, I treat him "professionally," writes Natalia Gevorkyan in a column on "Radio Liberty".

Sometimes actors attract my attention outside the context of their immediate work, if they somehow manifest themselves in politics. Conditionally, here Vladimir Mashkov publicly supported Putin, many actors supported Kirill Serebrennikov, Meryl Streep publicly supported Hilary Clinton, and Susan Sarandon, on the contrary, did not support. This does not change my attitude to the professionalism of the actor or actress. But simply because I write about politics, I draw attention to such public manifestations on the part of people who are "familiar" to me on the screen, for example.

This is a "screen acquaintance" and plays with us a strange joke. You know the character, but you get the full feeling that you know the person. Illusion illusion. Cinema or tele-messengers merge with actors who fill them with life, with which you grow up and grow old. They become part of your life, you use the quotes they say on the screen. They care about you. When they die, you are sad, you lose, you realize that you will not see this "friend".

I do not know if you noticed how many emotions are about the latest scandals related to the film industry? I think that not only the workshop, but also the public, reacts so sharply to unexpectedly revealed information not only because it shock, but precisely because the scandal participants are perceived in a sense as not strangers to each of us people from whom, that called, did not expect.

If they told us that a little-known boss of an institution behaved as disgustingly as Harvey Weinstein, then it would be a day. But the story that started with a man, under the brand Miramax released into the world "Sex, lies and video", "Mad Dogs", "Pulp Fiction", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "The English Patient", "Shakespeare in Love", "Chocolate "and many more beautiful movies, this story is likely to destroy not only Weinstein, but also established, complex, imperfect as the world relations, including between the sexes, and not only in Hollywood.

If the conditional unknown to anyone X. said that 20 years ago he woke up in bed to an unknown Y, while the conditional X. I was not at that moment an adult, few would have paid attention to this. But if everyone says the same about Kevin Spacey, then we risk losing forever the actor Kevin Spacey. Spacey, as you know, stopped shooting in the "House of Cards". Mention of him was cut from the last episode of the series "It's Us". Ridley Scott cut out from the already finished film "All the Money in the World" all the episodes in which Spacey is involved, and photographed them with Christopher Plummer. Many believe that Spacey's career ended.

If about some Z. told that he had cooperated with the KGB, then everyone would have shrugged: who had not cooperated with the KGB. But if Lithuania reveals that the deceased already famous actor Donatas Banionis has cooperated with the KGB, it causes an emotional explosion and sarcastic sarcasm: Well now, cut Banionis out of all the films he played? Let's get a little more. Lithuanian Donatas Banionis - a great actor of Soviet theater and cinema. Those of you who are young and have never seen the films with Banionis, I advise you to sit down and watch the films "Nobody Wanted to Die," "Dead Season," "Goya," "The Departure of Mr. McKinley," "Solaris," Finally.

The documents disclosed in the framework of lustration, according to Lithuanian historians, show that for several years, since 1970, Banionis, on his trips to the United States, on instructions from the KGB, collected information on Lithuanian emigrants living there and transferred it to the "office ". I think that in all countries where lustration is conducted, it happens more or less according to similar rules. In order to call a person an agent of the KGB (or any similar special service in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact), there must be a full dossier: that is, not only documents on recruitment and the person's signed consent to cooperate, but also reports on the work done. During lustration in the Czech Republic, for example, a person was not recognized as an agent if the second part of the dossier was not.

I do not know why the information about Banionis was made public only after the death of the actor. Perhaps, because only now they have found the documents and decided that they should do this, since Banionis was a notable public figure. Or it was the answer to someone's request. Apparently, in this regard in Lithuania there are some rules that no one could clearly explain to me could not. Many of my friends and I have upset this information. Just for the reason mentioned above - he was kind of "familiar", his roles were accompanied and pleased us for many years, he was as if from another life, it seemed, where does the KGB in general? "Upset", I note, does not mean condemnation. Who are we to condemn, especially if we ourselves were not in a similar situation and do not imagine how we would behave if we were?.

What difference does it make if you ask if it was a sin for him if you like the roles played by Banionis? The new information did not make him as an actor worse. And what's the difference, was Kevin Spacey's sin, albeit different, does this make him a less talented actor? At this point, two so different situations converge. In a certain sense, Banionis was luckier than Spacey, because he is dead. All of his films have already been filmed and all performances have been played. It is clear who he is now a judge. And, in fact, he does not care who treated new information. I am sure that nothing will happen with the films with the participation of Banionis, that no one in Lithuania will put them on the shelf, they will not remove it from the sale, and people will still watch them and rejoice at its roles, no matter whoever is related to Banionis. Not to mention Russia, where films with his participation will now show even more often.

I understand that the accusation of sexual aggression Welcome actor or a producer - it is a different situation, a sin, not cooperation, conventionally, with McCarthyists, it's about something else, though no less unpleasant. But like then, 70 years ago with McCarthy, in Hollywood, the "black list" of those who can no longer work, who should not be in the frame, in the studio, on the set, again appears. Whose name is crossed out. With whom contracts are broken, whose presence in the film or on the stage is fraught with the loss of box office fees (well, of course, this is about looting among others), because public opinion dictates so.

Public opinion is very important, but public opinion including Stalin's murders. Sometimes it turns into a merciless tool of destruction. Eliminate Kevin Spacey from the history of cinema, never again show films with his participation, burn his photos? Pure Orwell! I hate violence, use of official position, loud name and status for personal purposes. I'm on the side of the victims. As they say, I was there and I know what it's like. And I will be happy to live to see the beautiful new world that has outlived the sins of the past. I hope, without prejudice to joys, flirting, spontaneity and voluntary sex.

But while a person is alive, he has the right to repentance, an attempt to live differently, to forgiveness and a second chance. And the right to remain in the profession in which he was recognized and loved.

And public opinion can not substitute for a human court, let alone pretend to be a high court. Maybe it was necessary to grow up in the Soviet Union in order to understand the danger of sudden unanimity and collective condemnation, or maybe I just do not want to selfishly say goodbye to a beautiful "familiar" from the screen.

Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Join also the TSN group. Blogs on facebook and follow the updates of the section!.