Original subtitles

ROSSIYA TV CHANNEL

CENTRAL PARTNERSHIP

Presenting the film production «Studio 2-B-2 Entertainment»

The film was created with government support of the Federal Agency on Culture and Cinematography

Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita

Woland: Oleg Basilashvili

Pontius Pilate: Kirill Lavrov

Yeshua: Sergey Bezrukov

Ivan Bezdomny: Vladislav Galkin

Berlioz: Alexander Adabashyan

Koroviev: Alexander Abdulov

Mark Ratslayer: Oleg Sorokin

Penman: Stanislav Sokolov

Sound engineer: Mikhail Viktorov Visual Effects Supervisor: Oleg Kondratyev

Makeup artists: Irina Vasilyeva; Vadim Khalaimov

Costume designer: Nadezhda Vasilyeva

Editor: Leda Semyonova

Production designers: Vladimir Svyatozarov; Marina Nikolaeva

Composer: Igor Kornelyuk

Director of photography: Valery Mulgaut

Co-producer: Ruben Dishdishyan Producer: Vladimir Bortko

General Producers: Anton Zlatopolsky; Valery Todorovsky

Script writer and Director: Vladimir Bortko

EPISODE ONE

This is your mistake, Ivan. As for what is written in the Gospel, this never actually happened.

We commissioned from you a large anti-religious poem. You, Ivan, wrote this poem, and in a very short time.

But, unfortunately, you did not satisfy us with it at all. Your Jesus turned out to be… well, completely alive.

Although, granted, not an attractive character. And I want to prove to you that this Jesus, as a person, did not exist in the world at all.

Give us a Seltzer.

There is no seltzer.

Is there any beer?

The beer will be delivered in the evening.

Well, what is there?

Apricot drink, only it’s warm.

Well, let’s have it, let’s have it, let’s have it!..

Pah, the devil!

You know, Ivan, I almost had a stroke just now from the heat! There was even something like a hallucination.

Maybe it’s time to send it all to the devil and go to Kislovodsk.

Well, let’s continue...

I want to point your attention to ancient historians, for example, the famous Philo of Alexandria...

...the brilliantly educated Josephus Flavius, who never mentioned even a word about the existence of Jesus.

And the passage in the fifteenth book of Tacitus’s famous Annals, the forty-fourth chapter...

...where mention is made of the execution of Jesus, was nothing but a later spurious interpolation.

There’s not a single Eastern religion in which, as a rule, an immaculate virgin did not give birth to a god.

And in just the same way, without inventing anything new, the Christians created their Jesus, who in fact never lived.

Let us sit down!

It’s on this that the main emphasis should be placed...

I want to point your attention to the ancient Egyptian Osiris, the benevolent god, the son of Heaven and Earth...

...and to the Phoenician Fammuz, and to Marduk...

...and even to the lesser-known terrible god Vitzliputzli, who was once highly revered by the Aztecs in Mexico.

German.

Englishman. Huh, isn’t he hot in those gloves?

You, Ivan, very well and satirically portrayed, for example, the birth of Jesus, son of God...

...but the gist of it is that a whole series of sons of God were born before Jesus...

...like, say, the Phrygian Attis… to put it briefly, not one of them was born or ever existed, Jesus included...

And what’s necessary is that, instead of portraying his birth or, suppose, the coming of the Magi...

...you portray the absurd rumours about this birth…

Otherwise, according to your narrative, it turns out that he was actually born!..

Well, you must agree. It really is funny. Don’t be offended, but it really does.

Excuse me, please, if, not being your acquaintance, I allow myself...

But the subject of your learned conversation is so interesting that...

May I sit down?

Please.

Unless I heard wrong, you were pleased to say that Jesus never existed?

That is precisely what I was saying.

And you? Were you in agreeance with your interlocutor?

The full one hundred!

Astonishing!

Forgive my importunity, but am I correct in my assumption that you, among other things...

...also don’t believe in God? I swear I won’t tell anyone.

Yes, we don’t believe in God. And we can talk about this completely freely...

Permit me to thank you from the bottom of my heart!

And what is you’re thanking him for?

For a very important piece of information, which to me, as a traveler, is extremely interesting.

But, allow me to ask you, what’s to be done about the proofs of God’s existence, of which there are, as is well known, exactly five?

Not one of these proofs is worth a thing.

You must agree, after all, that in the realm of reason there are no proofs of God’s existence, nor can there be.

Bravo! Bravo! You’ve repeated in its entirety that restless old man Immanuel’s idea on that score.

But here’s the oddity of it: he thoroughly demolished all five proofs...

And then, as though in mockery over himself, concocted his own, sixth proof!

But Kant’s proof is also unconvincing.

They ought to take this Kant and give him a three-year stretch in the camps for such proof!

Ivan!

Precisely, precisely...

That’s the very place for him!

I said to him then over breakfast...

As you please, Professor, but you’ve come up with something incoherent!

It may indeed be clever, but it’s dreadfully incomprehensible.

You will be derided.

Over breakfast... with Kant?..

But... sending him to the camps is impossible!

For the reason that he, for over a hundred years, has been in parts significantly more remote than the most distant camps...

And there’s no possible way of extracting him from there.

Too bad!

Yes, it is too bad!

But this is the question that’s troubling me: if there’s no God, then who, one wonders, is governs human life?

It is man himself who governs.

I beg your pardon. In order to govern things, it is necessary, for all that, to have a definite plan...

...for a certain more or less respectable, period of time, well, at least for a thousand years or so.

Permit me to ask you then, how can man be governing things, if he cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?

And indeed, imagine that you, for example, start governing things, governing both other people and yourself...

Generally, so to speak, getting a taste for it...

And suddenly you have… heh… heh… a lung sarcoma…

Yes, a sarcoma, and there’s an end to your governing!

No one’s fate, apart from your own, interests you any more...

Your family begin lying to you. Sensing something wrong, you rush to learned doctors, then to charlatans...

...and sometimes to fortune-tellers too. Like the first and the second, so the third too is completely pointless: you yourself understand.

And it all ends tragically...

...the man who just recently supposed he was governing something...

...turns out suddenly to be lying motionless in a wooden box...

And those around him, realizing there’s no more use whatsoever in the man lying there, burn him up in a stove.

But it could be even worse: a man will have just decided to take a trip to Kislovodsk...

A trifling matter, it would have seemed...

But he can’t accomplish even that, since, for some unknown reason he’ll suddenly go and slip and fall under a tram!

Surely you won’t say it was he that governed himself that way?

Would it not be more correct to think that he was governed to this by someone else entirely?

Well...

You want to smoke, as I see? Which kind do you prefer?

You have various kinds, do you?

Which kind do you prefer?

Well, «Nasha marka».

«Nasha marka».

Well, the devil take it!

Mmyes.

Yes, man is mortal, it’s hard to argue with that. But the thing is...

Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble.

The worst of it is that he’s sometimes unexpectedly mortal... there’s the trick!

And generally, he’s unable to say what he’s going to do this same evening...

Well, that’s an exaggeration... Today’s evening is more or less clear to me.

It goes without saying, if a brick should fall on my head on Bronnaya...

No brick will ever fall on anyone’s head just out of the blue!

In this particular case, I assure you, you are not in danger of that at all. You will die a different death.

Perhaps you will tell me which one?

Willingly.

One, two... Mercury in the second house... the moon is gone...

Evening, six, seven... misfortune...

Your head will be cut off!

By whom? Enemies? Interventionists?

No, a Russian woman, a Komsomol member.

Hm... Well, that’s... hardly likely.

I beg you excuse me, but that’s how it is.

And I would like to ask you, what are you going to do tonight, if it’s not a secret?

It’s not a secret.

Right now I’ll stop by my place on Sadovaya...

And then at ten this evening there will be a meeting at Massolit, the Moscow Association of Writers...

...where I have the honour of being the chairman...

...a meeting is scheduled for ten o’clock, and I will preside over it.

No, that simply cannot be.

Why?

Because Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil...

And not only bought it, but even spilled it.

So, the meeting will not take place.

Excuse me, but what does sunflower oil have to do with it... and who is Annushka?

This is what sunflower oil has to do with it...

Have you ever happened, citizen, to be in a clinic for the mentally ill?

I have, I have, and more than once!

Where have I not been!

It’s just a pity that I didn’t get around to asking the professor what schizophrenia is...

So you yourself will find out from him, Ivan Nikolaevich!

How do you know my name?

Come, come, Ivan Nikolaevich, who doesn’t know the poet Ivan Bezdomny?

Excuse me, can you wait for just a moment? I want to have a quick word with my comrade.

Oh, with pleasure! It’s so nice here under the linden trees, and I, by the way, am in no hurry...

Listen here, Misha, he’s no foreign tourist, he’s a spy.

A Russian emigre who has crossed back over. Ask for his papers before he gets away...

You think?

Believe you me. He’s pretending to be a fool in order to get something out of us.

You hear the way he speaks Russian. Let’s go and detain him, or he’ll get away...

Excuse me for having forgotten, in the heat of our dispute, to introduce myself.

Here is my card.

My passport, and an invitation to come to Moscow for a consultation...

So you have been invited to us as a consultant, professor?

Yes... a consultant.

Are you German?

Me?.. Yes, perhaps a German...

What is your specialty?

I am a specialist in black magic...

Well, I’ll be!

And you have been invited to join us in that capacity?

Yes, in that capacity. In a state library here some original manuscripts of the tenth-century necromancer Gerbert of Aurillac have been found.

So it is necessary for me to sort them out. I am the only specialist in the world.

You are a historian!..

I am... a historian.

Today at the Patriarch’s there will be an interesting story!

Bear in mind that Christ did exist.

You see, professor, on this question we adhere to a different point of view.

There is no need in any points of view! He simply existed, and that’s it.

But there is need for some proof...

Nor is there any need in proofs. Everything is simple...

In a white cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a cavalryman...

...early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nissan, there came out to the covered colonnade...

...between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

The accused is from Galilee?

Yes.

Was the case sent to the tetrarch?

Yes, procurator.

And what then?

He refused to make a decision on the case and sent the Sanhedrin’s death sentence to you for confirmation.

Bring in the accused.

So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of Yershalaim?

Good man! Believe me...

Is it me you are calling a good man?

Centurion Ratslayer to me.

The criminal calls me «good man».

Take him outside for a moment, explain to him how I ought to be spoken to.

But no maiming!

Call the Roman procurator hegemon. Use no other words. Stand at attention. Do you understand me or should I hit you?

I understood you. Do not hit me!

Name?

Mine?

Mine I know.

Yeshua.

Do you have a last name?

Ha-Nozri.

Where are you from?

From the town of Gamala.

Who are you by blood?

I don’t know for sure, I don’t remember my parents. They told me that my father was Syrian...

Where do you live permanently?

I don’t have a permanent home. I travel from city to city.

That can be put more briefly, in a word... A vagrant. Any family?

None. I’m alone in the world.

Do you know any language other than Aramaic?

I do. Greek.

So it was you who persuaded the people to destroy the Yershalaim Temple?

I, goo...

I, hegemon, never in my life intended to destroy the temple building, nor did I incite anyone to this senseless act.

All sorts of people flock to this town for the feast.

Among them there are magicians, diviners… And occasionally also liars. You, for instance, are a liar.

It is written clearly: «Incited to destroy the temple». People have testified to it.

These good people, hegemon, took no learning and confused everything I said.

Actually, I am starting to worry that this confusion will continue for a very long time.

And this is all because he writes untruthfully after me.

Stop playing the madman!

There’s enough written on you to see you hanged.

No, no, hegemon, there is one who walks behind me, follows and follows, carrying a goatskin parchment, writing incessantly.

But once I took a look at this parchment and was horrified.

Resolutely nothing of what is written there was said by me.

I begged him: burn your parchment for God’s sake! But he snatched it from my hands and ran away.

Who is that?

Matthew Levi, he used to be a tax collector.

He treated me hostilely at first and even insulted me, that is, thought he insulted me by calling me a dog.

I personally see nothing bad in this creature, that I should be offended by this word...

However, after listening to me, he began to soften, finally, he threw the money down in the road and said he would go journeying with me...

A tax collector, mark you, throwing money on the road!

Yes... He said that henceforward money had become hateful to him. And since then he has been my companion.

Matthew Levi?

Yes, Matthew Levi.

And what was it in any case that you said about the temple to the crowd in the bazaar?

I said that the temple of the old faith would fall, and a new temple of truth would be built.

I said it that way so as to make it more understandable.

Why did you, vagrant, confuse the people by talking at the market about the truth, about which you have no idea?

What is truth?

The truth is, first of all, that your head aches, and it aches so badly that you faint-heartedly think about death.

Not only are you unable to speak to me, but it is difficult for you to even look at me.

And now it is that I am unwillingly your executioner, which saddens me.

You can’t even think about anything and dream only about the coming of your dog, the sole, apparently, creature to which you are attached.

But your torment will now end, and your headache will pass.

Well there, it’s all over, and I’m extremely glad about it.

I’d advise you, Hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and go for a stroll somewhere in the vicinity...

...say, in the gardens on the Mount of Olives. A storm will come... later on, towards evening.

A stroll would do you much good, and I would be glad to accompany you.

Certain new thoughts have occurred to me, which I think you might find interesting.

And I’d willingly share them with you, the more so as you give the impression of being a very intelligent man.

It seems to me that you are too closed off and have completely lost faith in people.

After all, you must admit, you can’t put all your affection in a dog. Your life is impoverished, Hegemon.

Unbind his hands.

How did you know that I wanted to call my dog?

It’s very simple, you were moving your hand in the air as if you wanted to stroke something, and your lips...

Confess, are you a great physician?

No, procurator, I am not a physician.

Very well, then. If you want to keep it a secret, do so.

It has no direct bearing on the case.

So you maintain that you did not incite anyone to destroy... or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?

I repeat, I did not incite anyone to such acts, Hegemon. Do I look like a halfwit?

Oh, no, you don’t look like a halfwit. Swear, then, that it wasn’t so.

By what do you want me to swear?

Well, at least by your life, and about time too, you swore by it, since it hangs by a thread, know that!

You don’t think, hegemon, that it is you who hung it? If that is so, then you are very mistaken.

I can cut this thread.

In this, too, you are mistaken, you will agree, that surely only the one who hung it can cut the thread?

Now I have no doubts that the idle loafers of Yershalaim followed at your heels.

I don’t know who hung such a tongue on you, but he hung it well.

Incidentally, tell me, is it true that you came to Yershalaim through the Susa gates on a donkey...

...accompanied by a crowd of rabble, shouting greetings to you as to some kind of prophet?

I don’t even have a donkey.

True, I came to Yershalaim through the Susa Gate, but on foot, accompanied by one Matthew Levi.

And no one shouted anything to me, since no one knew me then in Yershalaim.

Do you happen to know such men as Dysmas, Gestas, and Bar-Rabban?

No, I do not know these good people.

Tell me, why is it that you use me words «good people» all the time? Do you call everyone that, or what?

Everyone... There are no evil people in the world.

And you preach it?

Yes.

But take, for instance, the centurion Mark, the one known as Ratslayer, is he also a good man?

Yes. But he, it is true, is an unhappy man. Since the good people disfigured him, he has become cruel and hard.

I’d be curious to know who maimed him.

Good people. They fell on him like dogs on a bear. There were Germans fastened on his neck, his arms, his legs.

The infantry maniple was encircled, and if one flank hadn’t been cut by a cavalry turmae, of which I was the commander...

...you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to speak with the Ratslayer.

If I could speak with him, I’m sure he’d change sharply.

Well, this will not happen, fortunately for everyone, and the first one to make sure of this will be me.

Write: the hegemon has examined the case of Yeshua, last name Ha-Notsri, and has found in it no corpus delicti.

In view of this, the procurator does not approve the death sentence of Ha-Notsri, pronounced by the Lesser Sanhedrin.

But considering fact that Ha-Nozri’s insane utopian speeches could cause unrest in Yershalaim...

...the procurator removes Yeshua from Yershalaim and subjects him to imprisonment in Straton’s Caesarea...

...on the Mediterranean Sea, that is to say, precisely at the place of the procurator’s own residence.

Is that all on him?

No, unfortunately.

The law on lese-majesty... It is permitted to apply capital punishment on any day, including holidays.

Those accused under this law are convicted along with their children. In special cases, even the children of the children.

And the relatives of those executed are forbidden to mourn them.

Listen, Ha-Notsri, have you ever said anything about the great Caesar?

To speak the truth is light and pleasant.

I have no need to know whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for you to speak the truth.

You will have to speak it anyway. But, as you speak, weigh every word, unless you want a not only inevitable but also painful death.

Answer then, do you know a certain Judas from Kiriath?

And what exactly did you tell him about Caesar, if you said anything?

It was like this...

The evening before last, near the temple, I made the acquaintance of a young man who called himself Judas, from the town of Kiriath.

He invited me to his place in the Lower City and treated me to...

A good man?

A very good man and an inquisitive one.

He expressed the greatest interest in my thoughts and received me very cordially...

Lit the lamps...

Yes. He asked me to give my view of state authority. He was extremely interested in this question.

And what did you say? Or are you going to reply that you have forgotten what you said?

Among other things, I said that all authority is violence over people, and that the time will come...

...when there will be no authority of the Caesars, or any other authorities. Man will pass into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no authorities will be needed at all.

Further!

Nothing further, here men ran in, bound me, and took me away to prison.

There never has been, is not, and never will be any authority in this world greater or better for people than the authority of the emperor Tiberius!

And it is not for you, insane criminal, to reason about it!

Convoy, off the balcony!

Leave me alone with the criminal!.. This is a state matter!

I seem Hegemon, that some trouble has happened because I spoke to this young man from Kiriath.

I have a presentiment, hegemon, that misfortune is to be befall him, and I feel great pity for him.

I think that there is a certain someone else in the world whom you should pity more than Judas of Kiriath...

So, Mark Ratslayer, a cold and convinced executioner, people who, as I see beat you for your sermons...

The robbers Dismas and Gestas, who killed with their confrères four soldiers...

And finally, the dirty traitor Judas... All these are good people?

Yes.

And the kingdom of truth will come?

It will come, Hegemon.

It will never come! Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!

Yeshua Ha-Notsri, do you believe in any gods?

God is one, in Him I believe.

Then pray to him! Pray hard!

Although, this won’t help.

Hateful city. If they’d put a knife in you before your meeting with Judas of Kiriath, it really would have been better.

Why don’t you let me go, Hegemon? I see that they want to kill me.

Do you suppose, wretch, that the Roman procurator would release a man who has said what you have said?

Or do you think I’m ready to take your place?

I do not share your thoughts!

And listen to me: if from this moment you utter as much as a single word, try to speak to someone, beware of me! I repeat to you: beware!

Hegemon...

Silence!

To me!

I approve the death sentence of Yeshua Ha-Notsri.

Invite the head of the secret service, and after him the president of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Priest Joseph Caiaphas.

Then it was around ten o’clock in the morning, my esteemed Ivan Nikolaevich.

Your story is extremely interesting, Professor, though it does not coincide at all with the Gospel stories.

Good heavens, you of all people should know that precisely nothing of what is written in the Gospels...

...ever actually took place! And if we start referring to the Gospels as a historical source...

That’s so, but I’m afraid no one can confirm that what you’ve just told us actually took place either.

Oh, yes! There is one who can!

The thing is... that I was personally present at it all.

But only secretly, incognito, so to speak, and therefore I beg you: not a word to anyone, total secrecy, shh...!

How long have you been in Moscow?

I just arrived in Moscow this very minute.

Yes, yes, yes, incidentally it’s all possible... even very possible, Pontius Pilate, and the balcony, and so forth...

Did you come alone or with your wife?

Alone, alone, I’m always alone.

Where are your things, professor? At the Metropol? Where are you staying?

Me? Nowhere.

How’s that? And... where are you going to you live?

In your apartment.

No... I... I, of course, am very glad, but, really, it will be uncomfortable for you with me...

I have a neighbour... Comrade Likhodeev. And the Metropol has wonderful rooms, it’s a first-class hotel... and...

And is there no devil either?

And the devil...

Quiet, quiet!

Well, there isn’t any devil!

Well now, this is positively interesting, what is it with you, no matter what one asks for, there isn’t any!

So you mean there just simply isn’t any?

Calm down, calm down, calm down, professor!

You sit here for a little minute with comrade Bezdomny, and I’ll just run to the corner to make a phone call...

And then we’ll take you wherever you like. After all, you don’t know the city...

Alright then, call... But I implore you, before you go, at least believe that the devil exists!

I no longer ask you for anything more...

Very good, very good!

Mikhail Alexandrovich! Would you like me to have a telegram sent at once to your uncle in Kiev?

Looking for the turnstile, citizen? This way, please! Straight on and you’ll get where it’s needed.

How about a little pint pot for my information... To set up an ex-choirmaster!