Ok I did it I finally watched Goncharov (1973) and oh boy…. I love it! The „Time Is Up, Goncharov“ line absolutely killed me though, its been echoing through my brain, it ties in so beautifully with the symbolism of clocks and fate and determinism…. Ugh! Go watch it, its amazing, I‘m in love.

Fanart made by me with a reference from Pinterest. Click for better quality! Comissions are open. Do not repost.

"You wasted time you never had."

– Goncharov (1973), Martin Scorsese

chronos

obsessed with this quote

i had to draw one of my favourite Katya Looks :tm:

 shes such a fascinating character - i think this outfit is super important (beyond being hot as fuck)  because up until this scene katya has treated luxury items (the mink fur coat, the jewelry) almost with reverence (and can you blame her, given her backstory???) unlike goncharov, who gets dirty and bloody in his expensive suits. and then in this scene she’s just - bathed in blood! that fur coat is ruined, but she doesn’t seem to care, even though she wouldn’t let goncharov touch her with bloody hands a few scenes ago (and what a metaphor THAT is) - i dont know if she’s just embraced the violence that will become their downfall, got accustomed to her role as the mob wife too late to matter, or if she’s realized none of this will matter tomorrow, or what!

OKAY, WHICH ONE OF YOU DID THIS

(Spotted on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.)

CYBILL SHEPHERD as KATYA GONCHAROVA from GONCHAROV (1973)

This is an original poster made by me, i hope captures the essence of “The Greatest Mafia Movie Ever Made.”

I love Sofia. I know the movie was made in the 70s and she was meant to be the very picture of the problematic lesbian character, seducing katya away from her heterosexual marriage and converting her to a life of sin, but I also believe that as much as she embodies this stereotype, she also subverts it by having her impact on katya be a positive one overall.

Goncharov and katyas marriage is shown to be a struggling one— I don’t think it’s loveless but circumstances have certainly had their effect on their relationship. Where Katya is tied down—by her marriage and by her involvement with the mafia and by her rigid adherence to societal norms, Sofia to her embodies freedom, and Sofia shows her that freedom by showing her that traditional values aren’t the only way. There’s always another option.

This is demonstrated in the scene where she asks katya to run away with her, showing again that there will always be another option, that she’s not limited to the frame that society has put her in. And to connect with someone so deeply, and to have them show you new meaning to life that you never thought possible— it’s everything. With Sofia, katya is no longer boxed in by her preconceived notions on what she thought life was and instead finds new richness in life with her.

And in the end, even after Sofia’s died, she’s still what gives katya the strength to go through with their plans and fake her own death, taking her life and death into her own hands and choosing freedom over all else.

it ties into the cyclical nature of the film and the film's whole thing about patterns/cycles and breaking them. goncharov tries (and ultimately fails) to break the cycle of violence but katya is such an interesting opposition to that bc through sofia she actually manages to get out of the life she's living. the idea of sofia as someone who was introduced as a throwaway side character, who was never meant to have such a big impact but instead ended up being the literal representation of the way out means so much to me

Is anyone else obsessed with how subtly important eye contact is in Goncharov?

Have you noticed how many times he says some form of “look at me” to katya? How, whenever andrey is in a scene his eyes seems to slowly maneuver from object to person to object, as if he’s scanning meaningless information, UNTIL goncharov is in the scene and suddenly his eyes follow him like he’s something worth studying? And what gets me most, how katya, the person who refuses to look at goncharov in the eye unless he all but begs, the woman who has never had the opportunity to yearn for a man because the men do all the yearning for her, looks at sofia like she’s hung the stars and moon, to the point sofia even says something!!! THE DIRECT PARALLELS BETWEEN GONCHAROV’S “look at me, why can’t you ever look at me” AND SOFIA’S “you can’t look at me like that, why do you insist on stopping my heart,” like yeah it was probably meant as a throwaway gag, the way it was said after sofia found katya drunk (don’t even get me STARTED on how katya hid the fact that she was prescribed medication for a preexisting condition from goncharov because she refused to be seen as weak but as soon as she sees sofia’s face in her weakest moment she collapses into her arms and sobs, like???) but that aside it paints such a lovely picture i can hardly stand it.

Heteronormative speculation in the film critic industry has always painted that scene as proof that katya really does care for goncharov because of the flashbacks to him in the middle of her talking to sofia and moments before The Kiss™️, i’ve seen the same take so many times “she was hallucinating that it was goncharov in front of her, not sofia,” but that makes literally no sense considering the way she acts around him for the rest of the film.

The flashbacks were all times that we’d already SEEN in the movie, except the beginning few which were of a younger goncharov, before the beginning of the movie, perhaps before they’d fled russia even. It showed a story, each change in memory was one of him mentioning her always being in her own head, or not paying attention, or even the one scene everyone knows and loves where he asks her what she’s thinking about. The way the first few were grouped together, then became broken up by glimpses of sofia, because the answer to the question “what are you thinking about,” changed as soon as sofia stepped into the picture. She used to dream of freedom from familial pressure, from her husbands line of work, from her countries political agenda, but recently freedom feels less like a pair of wings and more like long brown hair and warm eyes that she can’t help but stare into.

Katya’s character being so underdeveloped in favor of goncharov and andrey mentally fucking for a few more minutes is absolutely deplorable, all i want is for her to find gay peace!

(Btw if you remember any scenes that have to do with the importance of eye contact in the movie that i forgot to mention here, feel free to add on!)

Jesus christ I'm begging everyone to please tag their Goncharov posts with an unreality tw. this shit has been extremely triggering

we did it everyone, we got an article about goncharov published in empire magazine. this is a very proud day to be a tumblr user

„Temptation, Sofia, is the one sin worth dying for.“

Katya my beloved.

Time taken: 7h 8m

I'm usually not into this kind of movies but damn if "Goncharov" did not have so many great quotes....

Goncharov is easily one of Scorsese best films, but the one thing that bothers me is that scene where Audrey and Mario are having two separate conversations at the same time overtop each other. I guess yeah if you're going for realism he hit the mark but I had to watch it like three times over to fully get what both conversations were saying. Idk how people watched that scene in theaters when it first came out without struggling

this movie hit hard, goddamn. just had to draw some fanart!

we don't have any of the streaming services with Goncharov (1973), but I did find a PDF of the script and I

I would do anything for these women omg