[Image description Movie poster for Goncharov edited to read Gorncharov. All characters have been replaced by the Gorn from Star Trek, except for one in a tuxedo who is now Captain Kirk]

Something that really gets me about Goncharov and Katya’s relationship is that they really do love each other. They’re just not IN love.

These are two people with troubled and violent pasts, who found in each other some semblance of stability, someone to talk to and be comfortable around, who they find some kind of safety in. The two of them making jokes at the poker table, the way Katya almost immediately goes to hold Gonacharovs hand after he tells her about the initial meeting with Andrey, how Goncharov actually LISTENS when Katya is reminiscing about her father.

And that makes the growing distance between them and the eventual betrayal SO heartbreaking! Because these are two people who cared about each other!!! but through selfish or misguided actions they become distrustful and paranoid over what the other is doing!

I just UGH it really is a tragedy, how it shows that you can have heartbreak through love while not being the romantic kind

being on goncharov tumblr and dabloon tiktok simultaneously is like living in an alternate reality

Scorcese was so real for having Katya wear this outfit during the final shootout scene:

Truly an unparalleled cinematic masterpiece.

Goncharov (1973)

“I often find myself thinking back to her. Katya Goncharova finds her way in to my other work, but I guess that’s her way of living. Not through the movie, but within me.”

- Cybill Shepherd on Goncharov (1973)

Source: Variety

Reflections (on watching Goncharov for the first time)

the first time i watched goncharov, i was seventeen. the then-great love of my life caught this late night screening at an indie theatre in my home city where they play cult classics on a monday night. i’ll never forget how beautiful the colours were, or how it felt to come out the theatre so full of hope and smiling.  And if I were to forget the rest, I would remember Goncharov;

The bleed of Neapolitan lights into an empty theatre, you and I still young and unknowing; there is a trace of the smoke then. It hangs at the edge of the story. Katya smiles at me, her lips hallowed and tired, that is what loving does to you. We do not know, yet. We are just children enamoured; in love with film and each other, childhood crushed we each fall in love alone. The ticking of clocks echoes, we cannot hear it. I look to you, your silhouette a kiss of refracted light on hope. The light languishes like a mob boss chain smoking in a lounge beneath metropolis. There is history here; Herculaneum ruins and first loves. Chekhov’s gun buried in Pompeii and ash.

And if I were to forget the rest, I would remember Goncharov;

The film dances; a flirtation between east and west, the past and future; it becomes the meeting of real and unreal, what could be and what is. Years later, I will hold you the same. Tonight, we laugh with Goncharov; a heist of smoke and mirrors turned mirrorball and incense, the last gasp of magic as characters play out a new world. You, your hand old phoenix sings and burns me. There is no rebirth after the bushfire without ash, ash and burning. Can you smell smoke? The gaslight sputters, breathes deep of itself. I need the bluelight to sleep. Scorcese’s spit trickles down my face as Audrey howls, and off-screen Katya falls out of love. It is that easy.

 And if I were to forget the rest, I would remember Goncharov;

The rain falls, and the loneliness hits. Goncharov holds his cat the first last time. There are too few goodbyes we take time to remember. The poem goes wrong, Ice Pick Joe smiles for ten minutes at a woman who knows nothing is real. The ticking is louder now, I can’t hold on to your hand any longer; fever pitch, my hands full of sweat. Pompeii coughs, Goncharov chokes on bullet wound plot holes; his brother hanging behind him. We are all these heliocentric circles saved as mandelas by angels who love us. I don’t know what is real anymore, Here, we sit a little while; in the eye of the needle. The screen tilts. Goncharov’s last look is to the moon. Hollowed ghosts of buildings frame this, the last goodbye. They too are empty. There are no more dukes in Naples. 

If I were to lose the rest of my mind, I would remember Goncharov.

I’m so happy that Goncharov (1973) is getting attention it deserves, bur can’t help myself and get a little bit sad, that conversation mostly consists of shipping two men and discussion of their struggles and analysis of scenes with homoerotic context, but ignore a very significant Katya scene, that I just can’t get out of my head since the first time I saw the movie.

The scene I’m talking about is the boat scene, when Andrey pulls Katya out of the water and Goncharov seems to ignore that his wife just almost drowned. In my opinion of an art hoe, who loves Pre-raphaelites and Shakespeare, this scene was a reference to Ophelia, a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed in 1851 and 1852 and a character from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. 

The imagery of Katya, filmed from above, only calm, but sad music playing, we can see her floating on the water in her white gown and fur coat, her neck and hair adored with jewelry, her face of acceptance of the fact, that she will drown now and no one is coming to help (also, it's only scene with her, where we don't see any red, the color, that is associated with her character). And then sudden hand appearing from off screen, grabbing onto her shoulder, pulling her and us out of this moment.

This beautiful scene is what pushes Katya to betray Goncharov at the end of the movie. The way Goncharov and Andrey are acting in the scene, the way she looks at her husband, the tears in her eyes, when she gets pulled out the water in realization, that it wasn't him, who pulled her, but Andrey.

I also cannot ignore the fact, that Ii almost seems like Andrey is pulling her out of the metaphorical death in the water, pulling her to his side, not only to push her towards the betrayal, but also to prove to himself, that what he's going to do is right.

Basically, I just wanted to scream a little bit about this scene, I'm really sorry about any typos or if it doesn't make any sense and so long or seems like I'm trying to attack people, who are more focused on male characters. I just really love Katya and the way she was written. All the scenes with her are really beautiful and full of different imagery, that I can talk about for hours.

objectively goncharov would have been better if it wasnt directed by scorsleezy and was instead created by my mutuals. nobody understands the powerful spell of themes and imagery like the gorlbloggers

Mr. Goncharov, tear down this wall

Goncharov...dear

I love a m/f gay couple almost as much as I love a divorce couple

Okay but with the goncharov making a come back why don't we have a goncharov con? we could invite the Kill James Bond cast, Cecil Baldwin, Neil Gaiman and other well known tumblr celebrities involved to like have pannels and stuff!!!

fuck it we could have goncharov themed prom in the thing!!!

Goncharov’s missing hour

Since Goncharov’s missing hour is generally regarded to be important for sealing his fate, yet the viewer misses all of it, I thought I’d try to fill in one 15-minute gap, based on clues from before and after the betrayal ⬇️

It’s safe to assume Goncharov was with Icepick that day, and probably some of the hour. That shot of Morelli looking at his hands after he gets the news (when we know he’s completely innocent) leads me to believe Goncharov might have atoned for the last action he felt guilty for: the destruction of the foreign prince’s gift to Icepick for an ultimately pointless mission (you could literally see the moment he “[ran] out of sorrow and guilt”)

So Icepick wasn’t looking at his hands— he was looking at the gloves! Plus there was a lot of foreshadowing with the department store lady and while it’s a popular theory that Andrey himself or Icepick warned Goncharov, the problem is that he would listen to them.

Goncharov’s a little outdated, but he not especially reckless. I think the sales lady is the one who “didn’t save him” that day. He just wasn’t expecting to hear that from her. And she’s not especially close to him so why would she go the extra mile? Considering she and Katya talked that one time and she saw how unhappy Katya was, she might not even like Goncharov. If someone liked Goncharov, I don’t think they’d let him get betrayed like that*

*except for Andrey lol

i just fucking realized, holy shit im a fucking idiot.

i, as well as other people i talked to, found the shaving scene to be weirdly graphical and off putting, because while yes there is a lot of violence in the movie is all weirdly muted, or one step removed and then, out of fucking nowhere we dedicate just one whole scene in the middle of the movie to goncharov shaving and it gets strangely visceral and it always seemed out of step with the rest of the film

it was a reference to scorcese’s student film the big shave, it was a metatextual nod to his own begginings as a way to signify goncharov own ending, because as everyone knows, is immediatly after the shaving scene that goncharov breaks the glass and we see his broken reflection

i just love it when artists make these little private nods to their own ouvre that work not just as a cute reference but also on a metanarrative level