The women behind the great minds (Tchaikovsky's Wife)

Award-winning director Kirill Serebrennikov’s illuminating biopic Tchaikovsky’s Wife will be in UK cinemas later this month. It shows how the extraordinary music by the most famous Russian composer of all time wasn’t just conjured out of thin air. Arguably, he couldn’t have produced his masterpieces without the , financial and otherwise, of his wife, who believed in him from the outset and sacrificed her own musical aspirations to help his career. Starring Odin Lund Biron (Petropolis) as Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Alyina Mikhailova (Love Them All) as Antonina Miliukova, Tchaikovsky’s Wife is the latest in a long and esteemed line of films that show the often long-suffering women that stood behind a great men.

Oppenheimer (2023)
In Christopher Nolan’s box office hit, Florence Pugh plays Jean Tatlock, the lover of Robert Oppenhiemer (Cillian Murphy), inventor of the atomic bomb. Tatlock, a psychiatrist and devoted Communist, played a key role in Oppenheimer’s political and personal life – Oppenheimer even named the first atomic bomb test ‘Trinity’, inspired by the poetry of John Donne that Tatlock introduced him to.

Surviving Picasso (1996)
Natascha McElhone is Françoise Gilot, one of the lovers of legendary artist Pablo Picasso (Anthony Hopkins), but arguably the only one to survive a relationship with the notoriously tempestuous and difficult man. Gilot met Picasso when he was 61, and she was 21 – they stayed together for ten years, and had children, and after they separated she went on to have a successful career as a painter in her own right.

The Theory of Everything (2014)
This touching, award winning biopic tells the love story of Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) and Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), who met when they were students at Cambridge. After Hawkings is diagnosed with motor neuron disease, and his condition worsens, Wilde tells him she loves him, and they get married. His great mind undimmed by the disease, Hawking goes on to become a world famous astrophysicist, while his wife feels neglected, and cracks begin to appear in the marriage.

Napoleon (2023)
Napoleon, a military strategist of rare genius (played here by Joaquin Phoenix), is seen in Ridley Scott’s epic as being driven to his audacious bellicose manoeuvres by his wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). Or rather, Josephine’s behaviour, driving him into jealous rages, causes Napoleon to attempt to prove his manhood in the only way he knows how – on the battlefield! “You want to be great, but you are nothing without me,” she tells him, throwing down the gauntlet,

Hitchcock (2012)
Detailing the making of the groundbreaking horror classic Psycho, Anthony Hopkins stars as director Alfred Hitchock, who is ed by his wife and collaborator Alma (Helen Mirren) when he decides to risk his own money on the potentially risky venture – which turned out to be a box office hit, and reignited Hitchcock’s career. Alma helps oversee the production every step of the way – including the editing of the infamous shower sequence,

The Last Station (2009)
Helen Mirren plays Sofya, the wife of one of the greatest writers of all time, Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). Set at the end of his life, it documents her attempts to prevent her idealistic husband from g away all of his work into the public domain, thus robbing his family of an income. Tolstoy’s disciples are naturally eager to see their idol’s wishes granted – but have reckoned without the formidable Sofya.