Chekhov noted in a letter of 20 October 1888, shortly after he received the prestigious Pushkin Prize: ‘Everything I have written will be forgotten in 5–10 years, but the paths I have established will remain intact and secure, and this is my only merit.’ By the ‘paths’ he had ‘established’ Chekhov meant something very specific, namely his contribution to the genre of the short story and its reputation in the literary world and among readers. Yet over time, these words have acquired a much broader meaning, signifying the extent of Chekhov’s explicit and, most provocatively, implicit presence in the arts today, be it literature, theatre or cinema. This chapter offers three cases of contemporary American and Russian films – Michael Meredith’s Three Days of Rain (2002), Arthur Allan Seidelman’s The Sisters (2005), and Karen Shakhnazarov’s Ward No. 6 (Palata № 6, 2009) – which represent different models of adaptation and the transformation of Chekhov’s works on screen in the twenty-first century. Taken together, these diverse films demonstrate not only Chekhov’s pervasive presence in today’s cinema but also the complexity of cinematic adaptation where the filmmaker becomes both coauthor and interpreter of the original source.

CHEKHOV IN THE RHYTHM OF JAZZ

‘I love all films that start with rain.’ The poet Don Paterson, who wrote this line, would definitely admire Michael Meredith’s Three Days of Rain. This 97-minute film has few minutes free of rain. The rain’s transparent yet impenetrable walls separate characters from each other and the world around them. Different and yet somewhat similar in their misery, rich and poor, old and young, all of these characters are residents of Cleveland at the beginning of the twenty-first century. There is another feature that they have in common: almost all owe their existence to Chekhov, whose stories serve as the blueprint for the movie’s script. Some of these characters on screen are recognised immediately, others deviate more substantially from their literary antecedents.