An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano

1977 film

September 5, 1977 (1977-09-05)

Running time

103 minutesCountrySoviet UnionLanguageRussian

An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Russian: Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино, romanized: Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino) is a 1977 Soviet drama film directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, who also co-stars. It is based on Anton Chekhov's Platonov,^[1] as well as several of his other short stories. It was filmed at Pushchino-Na-Oke (Artsebashev Estate), Pushchino, Russia, which was dilapidated in the film and is now abandoned.

Plot

Some members of the gentry gather at a house in rural Russia in the early twentieth century. As the day progresses, relationships develop, and the question arises of where these new relationships will lead.

Cast

Aleksandr Kalyagin: Mikhail Vassilyevich Platonov^[2]
Elena Solovey: Sophia Yegorovna
Yevgeniya Glushenko: Sashenka
Antonina Shuranova: Anna Petrovna Voinitseva
Yuri Bogatyryov: Sergey Pavlovich Voinitsev
Oleg Tabakov: Pavel Petrovich Shcherbuk
Nikolai Pastukhov: Porfiry Semyonovich Glagolyev
Pavel Kadochnikov: Ivan Ivanovich Triletsky
Nikita Mikhalkov: Nikolai Ivanovich Triletsky
Anatoli Romashin: Gerasim Kuzmich Petrin
Natalya Nazarova: Verochka
Kseniya Minina: Lizochka
Sergey Nikonenko: Yakov
Sergei Guryev: Petechka (as Seryozha Guryev)

Reception

Critical response

An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano has an approval rating of 86% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 7 reviews, and an average rating of 8.00/10.^[3]

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited this movie as one of his 100 favorite films.^[4]

References

^ Обзор и критика фильма The New York Times
^ "Александр Калягин о работе с Никитой Михалковым в фильме «Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино»". Archived from the original on 2018-03-08. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
^ "An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)". Rotten Tomatoes.
^ Thomas-Mason, Lee. "From Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese: Akira Kurosawa once named his top 100 favourite films of all time". Far Out Magazine. Retrieved 23 January 2023.

External links

An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano at IMDb

Anton Chekhov

Bibliography

Plays

Platonov (1881)
On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco (1886, 1902)
Swansong (1887)
Ivanov (1887)
The Bear (1888)
A Tragedian in Spite of Himself (1889)
The Wedding (1889)
Tatiana Repina (1889)
The Wood Demon (1889)
A Marriage Proposal (1890)
The Festivities (1891)
The Seagull (1896)
Uncle Vanya (1897)
Three Sisters (1901)
The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Novel

The Shooting Party (1884)

Novellas

The Steppe (1888)
The Duel (1891)
The Story of an Unknown Man (1893)
Three Years (1895)
My Life (1896)

Short stories

Motley Stories (1886)	"An Enigmatic Nature" (1883) "The Death of a Government Clerk" (1883) "Fat and Thin" (1883) "Surgery" (1884) "The Chameleon (1884) "Oysters" (1884) "A Living Chronology" (1885) "Small Fry" (1885) "The Fish" (1885) "The Huntsman" (1885) "A Malefactor" (1885) "Children" (1886) "Misery" (1886) "Anyuta" (1886) "Ivan Matveyich" (1886)
In the Twilight (1887)	"The Requiem" (1886) "The Witch" (1886) "Agafya" (1886) "Easter Eve" (1886) "A Misfortune" (1886) "Home" (1887)
Stories (1888)	"The Privy Councillor" (1886) "Mire" (1886) "Vanka" (1886) "Happiness" (1887)
Gloomy People (1890)	"The Cattle-Dealers" (1887) "Sleepy" (1888) "A Dreary Story" (1889) "A Nervous Breakdown" (1889)
Ward No. 6 (1893)	"Gusev" (1890) "Peasant Wives" (1891) "Ward No. 6" (1892)
Novellas and Stories (1894)	"The Grasshopper" (1892) "In Exile" (1892) "The Black Monk" (1894) "Rothschild's Violin" (1894) "The Student" (1894) "The Teacher of Literature" (1894)
Little Trilogy (1898)	"The Man in the Case" (1898) "Gooseberries" (1898) "About Love" (1898)
Stories (1901)	"Anna on the Neck" (1895) "Ariadne" (1895) "The House with the Mezzanine" (1895) "Peasants" (1897) "The Petcheneg" (1897) "At Home" (1897) "In the Cart" (1897) "Ionych" (1898) "A Doctor's Visit" (1898) "On Official Duty" (1899) "The Darling" (1899)
Other stories	"The Complaints Book" (1884) "A Horsey Name" (1885) "Sergeant Prishibeyev" (1885) "Grisha" (1886) "A Gentleman Friend" (1886) "The Chorus Girl" (1886) "Shrove Tuesday" (1886) "First Aid" (1887) "The Runaway" (1887) "The Siren" (1887) "Boys" (1887) "Kashtanka" (1887) "A Story Without a Title" (1888) "The Bet" (1889) "Whitebrow" (1895) "The Lady with the Dog" (1899) "In the Ravine" (1900) "The Bishop" (1902) "Betrothed" (1903)

Non-fiction

Sakhalin Island (1893–1895)

Category

v t e Films directed by Nikita Mikhalkov
A Girl and Things (1967) And I Go Home (1968) A Quiet Day During the End of War (1970) At Home Among Strangers (1974) A Slave of Love (1976) An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977) Five Evenings (1978) Oblomov (1980) Family Relations (1981) Without Witness (1983) Dark Eyes (1987) Hitch-hiking (1990) Close to Eden (1992) Remembering Chekhov (1993) Anna: 6–18 (1993) Burnt by the Sun (1994) The Barber of Siberia (1998) Russians Deprived of Russia (2003) 12 (2007) Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010) Burnt by the Sun 3: The Citadel (2011) Sunstroke (2014) Chocolate Revolver (2019)

Films directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

A Girl and Things (1967)
And I Go Home (1968)
A Quiet Day During the End of War (1970)
At Home Among Strangers (1974)
A Slave of Love (1976)
An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)
Five Evenings (1978)
Oblomov (1980)
Family Relations (1981)
Without Witness (1983)
Dark Eyes (1987)
Hitch-hiking (1990)
Close to Eden (1992)
Remembering Chekhov (1993)
Anna: 6–18 (1993)
Burnt by the Sun (1994)
The Barber of Siberia (1998)
Russians Deprived of Russia (2003)
12 (2007)
Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010)
Burnt by the Sun 3: The Citadel (2011)
Sunstroke (2014)
Chocolate Revolver (2019)

v t e Golden Shell
1953–1975	I Was a Parish Priest (1953) Sierra maldita (1954) Days of Love (1955) The Railroad Man (1956) Oh! Sabella (1957) Ewa chce spac (1958) The Nun's Story (1959) Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (1960) One-Eyed Jacks (1961) Arturo's Island (1962) Mafioso (1963) America America (1964) Golden Queen / Mirage (1965) I Was Happy Here (1966) Two for the Road (1967) The Long Day's Dying (1968) The Rain People (1969) Dead of Summer (1970) Claire's Knee (1971) The Glass House (1972) The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) Badlands (1974) Furtivos (1975)
1976–2000	Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (1976) An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977) Alambrista! (1978) Autumn Marathon (1979) The Orchestra Conductor (1980) Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) Demons in the Garden (1982) Entre Nous (1983) Rumble Fish (1984) Yesterday (1985) Half of Heaven (1986) Wedding in Galilee (1987) On the Black Hill (1988) Homer and Eddie / La nación clandestina (1989) Letters from Alou (1990) Butterfly Wings (1991) A Place in the World (1992) The Beginning and the End / Sara (1993) Dias contados (1994) Margaret's Museum (1995) Bwana / Trojan Eddie (1996) The Swindle (1997) Wind with the Gone (1998) What's Life? (1999) The Ruination of Men (2000)
2001–present	A Cab for Three (2001) Mondays in the Sun (2002) Gun-shy (2003) Turtles Can Fly (2004) Something Like Happiness (2005) Half Moon / Mon fils à moi (2006) A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007) Pandora's Box (2008) City of Life and Death (2009) Neds (2010) Los pasos dobles (2011) In the House (2012) Bad Hair (2013) Magical Girl (2014) Sparrows (2015) I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016) The Disaster Artist (2017) Between Two Waters (2018) Pacified (2019) Beginning (2020) Blue Moon (2021) The Kings of the World (2022) The Rye Horn (2023)