In early June, the film “The Christophers” by British director Steven Soderbergh was released in Europe. The main role of the brilliant artist, who stopped writing long ago, was played by 87-year-old Sir Ian McKellen. His assistant (also an artist), who was in cahoots with the master’s heirs, was played by Mikayla Cole. The creators of a multi-layered story of fraud ultimately raise questions about the nature of creativity. Film critic Anton Dolin tells how the collective image of the 20th-century genius created by McKellen will remain in world cinema - in days when the prototypes of the character (for example, the British artist David Hockney) are beginning to leave us.