7 cult adaptations that have gone down in the history of Russian cinema

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The history of Russian cinema dates back to the 19th century. However, the Russian filmmakers of that time did not manage to comprehend all the secrets of the new art form at once. At first, only short documentaries were filmed, but then artistic films began to appear. Many of them were screen versions of famous works, and then went down in the history of Russian cinema.

"Ponizovaya Liberty" ("Stenka Razin")

This film was first shown on the screen on October 28, 1908. It was a screen adaptation of a small fragment of Vasily Goncharov's play "The Lowest Freeman". At some point, the author decided that theatrical production of a historical epic requires the decoration with illustrations that must be alive, that is, move. But Alexander Drankov, who undertook to help the playwright, convinced the latter of the need to create a short film.

The show at the Aquarium Theater created a real sensation, because by those standards the films were still a wonder, and in this case the scale was also impressive. Alexander Drankov involved 150 people in the filming of the extras. This was a real achievement.

Portrait

Surprisingly, in pre-revolutionary times, Russian filmmakers gravitated most to melodramas, which enjoyed success even abroad. True, a completely different ending was filmed for a foreign viewer. If the Russians watched films with a difficult ending, then foreign movie lovers were offered to watch films with the same plot, but a happy ending.

In the mid-1910s, films of other genres began to appear. One of them was The Portrait, released in 1915, based on the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. It is called the first Russian horror film, although in the "Kino-Bulletin" for 1918, critics noted that the filmmakers failed to fully reflect the complex psychological plot of the story.

The Queen of Spades

The 1916 adaptation of Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades" became virtually a classic. The director did not deviate from the plot, however, during the filming, technologies that were completely new for that time were used. One of them was night photography, which was a rarity at that time, and the cameraman Yevgeny Slavinsky decided to use a moving camera. Then there were no special carts for movie cameras, but her role was played by the most ordinary cab, which belonged to producer Joseph Ermolaev.

Aelita

Yakov Protazanov opened the era of science fiction in Soviet cinema by filming Alexei Tolstoy's novel Aelita in 1924. The audience took the picture with enthusiasm, but the critics reacted to "Aelita" with noticeable coolness. They noted the failed attempts by the filmmakers to correct the ideological component of the novel, which made the film as a whole completely incomprehensible. But even critics admitted that the film was “an outstanding phenomenon,” though it had strayed too far from the plot of the novel itself.

Elusive Avengers

One of the most recognizable film adaptations in the Eastern genre is "The Elusive Avengers" based on the story "Red Devils" by Pavel Blyakhin. Eastern had all the stylistic features of a Western, but it usually took place in the south of the Soviet Union during the Civil War.

Cranes are Flying

The screen version of Viktor Rozov's play Forever Alive was the only Soviet film that won the Golden Palm. The jury of the Cannes Film Festival noted the skills of director Mikhail Kalatozov and screenwriter Viktor Rozov. In the film "The Cranes Are Flying," the actors were able to convey not only the horrors of war, but also tell an incredibly lyrical and touching life story. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union at that time reacted to the award received very restrainedly, not even mentioning the creators of the epoch-making picture.

War and Peace

The adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epoch-making novel has become an event not only in domestic but also in world cinema. First of all, the scale of the filming was impressive. In some scenes, about 3,000 people were filmed at the same time, good fabrics were used for sewing costumes, furniture and accessories were provided from their funds by museums to reproduce the situation, and a large dinner service was specially made at the Lomonosov plant according to drawings XVIII.

The number of locations was simply huge, the geography of filming stretched from Leningrad to Transcarpathia. During the filming of the Battle of Borodino, only 23 tons of explosives were used up, and this is in addition to hand grenades, smoke bombs, kerosene and shells.

As a result, the epic "War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk for the first time in the history of Soviet cinema won an Oscar.

The works of the classics of world literature always attract the attention of directors. Some paintings become real masterpieces of cinema, however it is not uncommon for a film based on a book to disappoint the viewer. Along with successful films, there are too often film adaptations, where the director's vision spoils the whole impression of reading the work itself.