October 29, 2019 (XXXIX:10) : THE ASCENT (1977, 111m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources.

DIRECTOR Larisa Shepitko WRITING Yuri Klepikov and Larisa Shepitko wrote the screenplay adapted from a novel by Vasiliy Bykov. Production Company MUSIC CINEMATOGRAPHY Vladimir Chukhnov and Pavel Lebeshev EDITING Valeriya Belova

CAST ...Sotnikov ...Rybak Sergey Yakovlev...Village elder Lyudmila Polyakova...Demchikha Viktoriya Goldentul...Basya Anatoliy Solonitsyn...Portnov, the Nazi interrogator Mariya Vinogradova...Village elder's wife Nikolai Sektimenko...Stas' She also adopted his motto, "Make every film as if it's your last." Shepitko graduated from VGIK in 1963 with LARISA SHEPITKO (b. January 6, 1938 in her prize winning diploma film Heat*, or Znoy made Artyomovsk, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Artemivsk, when she was 22 years old. The film was influenced by a Donetsk Oblast, ]—d. July 2, 1979 (age 41) in short story, ''The Camel's Eye'', by Chingiz Aitmatov. near Redkino, Kalinin Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR), Her 1967 short film, “Homeland of electricity,”* part of whose filmmaking career was tragically cut short by a car the omnibus Beginning of an Unknown Era, suffered accident, was on the verge of becoming a name censorship for its perceived negative portrayal of the synonymous with internationally renowned directors to Bolsheviks, despite its intention to commemorate the emerge from the . Abandoned by her father fiftieth anniversary of the . when she was very young, her work is often seen as Considering herself more of a humanist than a political evoking themes of isolation and loneliness. At sixteen, filmmaker, she was not deterred by political she began studying at the All-Russian State Institute of infringement on her work. In the 1970s, she made two Cinematography, and she “found herself part of a new more feature films, one which cemented her film legacy. generation of young filmmakers artistically encouraged The Ascent* (1977) was her last completed film and the by the freer atmosphere” under Khrushchev’s relaxing of one which garnered the most attention in the West. It Stalin’s uncompromising policies. As a student, she was the official submission of the Soviet Union for the acted in two films: Tavriya (1960) and Obyknovennaya ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category of the 50th istoriya (1962). At this time she began studying with Academy Awards in 1978. The film’s depiction of the (Criterion). She felt a kinship martyrdom of the Soviets owes much to Christian between their shared heritage and social realist imagery. iconography. Unlike her controversial short a decade Shepitko—THE ASCENT—2 prior, she faced little controversy this time around Firebird: The Firebird, Petrushka, Scheherazade (Video) because her narrative was very in line with nationalist (2002), Army of Valhalla (2003), and Rerberg and pride. Shepitko's growing international reputation led to Tarkovsky. The Reverse Side of 'Stalker' (Documentary) an invitation to serve (2009). on the jury at the 28th Berlin BORIS PLOTNIKOV International Film (b. April 2, 1949 in Festival in 1978. Nevyansk, Sverdlovsk These are the other Oblast, Russian SFSR, films she directed: USSR [now ]) is a Slepoy kukhar (1956), Soviet and Russian film Zhivaya voda actor (47 credits). His (1957), Wings film debut was as (1966), 13 PM (TV Sotnikov in The Ascent Movie) (1969), and (1977), the acclaimed You and Me* (1971). final film of Russian Her husband, the director , finished the director Larisa Shepitko. These are some of the films next film she was writing under the title Farewell (1983) and television series he acted in: The Ascent (1977), and also made a 25-minute tribute to her entitled Larisa Nakanune premiery (1978), Pugachev (1979), Savage (1980). Hunt of King Stakh (1980), The Stand-By Moves In *Also wrote (1984), Peter the Great (TV Mini-Series) (1986), Mikhaylo Lomonosov (TV Mini-Series) (1986), VLADIMIR CHUKHNOV (b. April 18, 1946—d. Lermontov (1986), Heart of a Dog (TV Movie) (1988), June 2, 1979 (age 33) in Kalinin Oblast, RSFSR, USSR Gambrinus (1990), Pushkin: Poslednyaya duel (2006), U [now Oblast, Russia]) was a Soviet kazhdogo svoya voyna (TV Series) (2010), Dar (TV cinematographer who worked throughout the 1970s on Series) (2011), Godunov (TV Series) (2018), and Krylya these films: Semeynoe schaste (1970), Nyurkina zhizn Imperii (TV Series) (2017-2019). (1972), Dom dlya Serafima (1974), Vylet zaderzhivayetsya (TV Movie) (1974), Rayskie yablochki (1974), Moyo delo VLADIMIR GOSTYUKHIN (b. March 10, 1946 in (TV Movie) (1976), Pobeditel (1976), The Ascent (1977), Sverdlovsk, Sverdlovskaya oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now V chetverg i bolshe nikogda (1978), and Stakan vody (TV Ekaterinburg, Russia]) is a Soviet and Russian, Movie) (1979). Belarusian film actor (88 credits). These are some of the films he has acted in: It Was in May (TV Movie) (1970), PAVEL LEBESHEV (b. February 15, 1940 in Vremya vybralo nas (TV Mini-Series) (1976), The Ascent , Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]—d. (1977), Chuzhaya kompaniya (1979), Starshina (1980), February 23, 2003 (age 63) in Moscow, Russia) was a Magistral (1983), Bereg (1984), Kontrakt veka (1985), Soviet and Russian cinematographer (49 credits). Pavel Levsha (1987), Ill Omen (1987), L'autostop (1991), Close Lebeshev graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of to Eden (1991), General (1992), Ameriken boy (1992), Cinematography in 1972 and worked with many famous Shlyaktich zavalna (1994), The Tale of Fedot, the Shooter Soviet and Russian directors, including Nikita (2002), War (2002), The Night Is Bright (2005), Prince Mikhalkov, Georgi Daneliya and Larisa Shepitko. Vladimir (2006), And Quiet Flows the Don (TV Mini- These are some of the films he worked on: A Slave of Series) (2006), I Remember (2006), Spies Must Die: The Love (1976), The Ascent (1977), An Unfinished Piece for Crimea (TV Series) (2008), In the Forests and the Mechanical Piano (1977), Kentavry (1979), Mountains (TV Series) (2010), 1812. Ulanskaya ballada (1979), Oblomov (1980), Family Relations (1982), Assa (2012), Sniper: Last Shot (TV Mini-Series) (2015), The (1987), Zapretnaya zona (1988), Die Reise von St. Code of Cain (2016), Potseluy oseni (2016), and Ded Petersburg nach Moskau (Documentary) (1992), Prisoner Moroz. Bitva Magov (2016). of the Mountains (1996), (1998), Mama (1999), The Gentle Age (2000), Cheque (2000), As ANATOLIY SOLONITSYN (b. August 30, 1934 in Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2001), Return of the Bogorodsk, Bogorodskiy rayon, Gorkovskaya oblast, Shepitko—THE ASCENT—3

RSFSR, USSR [now Nizhegorodskaya oblast, Russia]— fellow escapees. The soldiers’ perilous journey, however, d. June 11, 1982 (age 47) in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR leads to a series of fateful encounters, including their [now Russia]) was a Soviet actor (42 credits). Solonitsyn capture, interrogation, and torture by Nazi soldiers and is best known in the west for his roles in several of collaborators. As the narrative unfolds, complex moral 's films, including Dr. Sartorius in and existential dilemmas arise. The young and sickly Solaris (1972), the Writer in Stalker (1979), the Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and the physically stronger, physician in Mirror (1975), and the title role in Andrei experienced soldier Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) are Rublev (1966). Indeed, it was Tarkovsky who ultimately forced to choose between life and death, as "discovered" him in the casting process for Andrei survival will only become possible by betrayal. While Rublev. In his book , Tarkovsky calls Shepitko focuses on the extreme physical and him his "favorite" actor and that Solonitsyn was psychological experiences of war, the film raises intended to play the lead (1983) and The questions that interrogate human nature more broadly. Sacrifice (1986) but died before their production. In the The Ascent marks the highpoint of the former Soviet Union he is also well known for his roles Ukrainian-born filmmaker’s career, securing her critical in The Bodyguard (1979), acclaim both in the Soviet Union and abroad. Despite (1974) and many others. In 1981, he won the Silver limited distribution in Soviet cinemas, the film was Bear for Best Actor at the 31st Berlin International Film positively reviewed in major Soviet film magazines and Festival for his role in Aleksandr Zarkhi's film Twenty was generally well received by state Six Days from the Life of Dostoyevsky. These are some of officials.1 Moreover, The Ascent won the Golden Bear at the other films he acted in: Anyutyna doroga (1968), No the 1977 Berlin International Film Festival, after which Path Through Fire (1968), Under a Stone Sky (1974), Shepitko showed the work at film festivals in Telluride Posledniy den zimy (1974), Trust (1976), The Ascent and Toronto, and even returned to the Berlinale in 1978 (1977), Legenda o Tile (1977), Rasputin (1981), Scenes as a member of the international jury.2 from Life of People on Leave (1981), and The Hat (1982). Even though The Ascent and Shepitko’s other masterly films have since been praised by critics and scholars in both the East and the West, they remain far less known and exhibited than those of her contemporaries at the VGIK film school in Moscow – Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov, and her husband Elem Klimov.3 Like many female filmmakers’, Shepitko’s contribution to the history of cinema has often been downplayed or overlooked, but her extraordinary talent and the significance of her work have recently begun to receive greater recognition.4 Writing in 2014, for example, David C. Gillespie, declared The Ascent to be “perhaps the most important of the 1970s and one of the key films of the entire Brezhnev period.”5 With Brezhnev’s rise to power in 1964, a long period of cultural stagnation began, defined by a return to strict censorship and creative limitations that had Barbara Bartunkova: “Facing Death, Confronting been alleviated under . Khrushchev’s Human Nature: The Ascent (Larisa Shepitko, 1977)” Thaw had allowed filmmakers, for the first time, to (Senses of Cinema, December 2017) move away from heroic propaganda narratives about the Larisa Shepitko’s black-and-white feature Great Patriotic War and to explore more personal and film Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent, 1977) is based on the unsettling aspects of the war.6 Despite the shifting 1970 novella Sotnikov by the Belarussian writer Vasil political and cultural landscape under Brezhnev, which Bykov. Set in Nazi-occupied during World War saw for example Yuri Ozerov’s epic five-part war film II, The Ascent follows two Soviet partisans who brave series Osvobozhdenie (, 1971), The Ascent aligns harsh winter landscapes in search of food to sustain their itself with this earlier line of investigation into the Shepitko—THE ASCENT—4 psychological dimension of personal struggle and person who was hiding her – await punishment. As one suffering in war rather than of its battles. Notably, the of the partisans has shot and killed a German soldier, all only longer combat sequence between Germans and of the prisoners are condemned to be executed. Soviets plays out behind the opening credits. Although he had previously withheld all information, The Ascent is uncompromising in its Sotnikov decides to take on all responsibility to save the representation of the cruel realities of war. When Rybak others. When Portnov dismisses his plea, addressing and Sotnikov find shelter with Demchika (Lyudmila him by the false name the partisan used during the Polyakova), a young mother living with her three interrogation, Sotnikov retorts: children, they are discovered by a German patrol who No. Not Ivanov. My name’s Sotnikov. Commander, take them away to their headquarters in another village, Red Army. Born in 1917. Bolshevik. A Party member since leaving the small children behind with almost no hope 1935. Teacher by profession. At the start of the war, I of survival. Sotnikov is the first to be interrogated by the commanded a battery.It’s a shame I didn’t kill more of you Russian Nazi collaborator Portnov () bastards. My name is Sotnikov – Boris Andreevich. I have a but refuses to answer any father, a mother and a questions, even when he is motherland. submitted to brutal In this pivotal moment, torture, as a star is burnt Sotnikov’s defiant on his chest with a red-hot disclosure of identity is a branding iron. decidedly political act of Paradoxically, it is Rybak, resistance, displaying the stronger and more loyalty to his Bolshevik experienced soldier, who ideals and homeland, immediately answers all which is somewhat at odds questions in order to save with his Christ-like role. his life, ultimately On the other hand, Rybak becoming a police officer breaks under the pressure in the service of the Nazis. and joins the side of the By choosing to depict a occupiers, accompanying potential Soviet hero as a his former companion in traitor and collaborator, Shepitko ventures into the punitive procession ascending a Golgotha-like hill, dangerous territory. Alexei German’s Proverka na on top of which are improvised gallows. As Rybak Dorogakh (Trial on the Roads, 1971) was banned and kneels, holding onto the log on which Sotnikov stands released only under in 1987 due to its before being hanged, the camera cuts between close-ups controversial depiction of a Red Army soldier who of the face of Sotnikov and of a small boy wearing an became a Nazi collaborator but ultimately died in an act old budenovka, a Communist army hat.8 As a tear falls of redeeming heroism.7 As a counterpoint to Rybak, The down the boy’s face, their powerful exchange of gazes is Ascent casts Sotnikov first as an unlikely hero who turns emphasised by Alfred Schnittke’s dramatic musical into a Christ-like figure, sacrificing himself for higher score. They both smile faintly before Sotnikov’s death, ideals and his motherland. suggesting a deeper meaning of this act of martyrdom Shepitko’s film interweaves religious and for the new generation. political elements into its visual and narrative fabric in Yet the film does not end with this climactic often unexpected ways. Throughout the film, Christian scene, since it is interested in conveying the moral visual symbols and religious gestures are evoked, but implications and suffering Rybak endures as he realises most attention is paid to the transformation of Sotnikov, the unbearable burden of his treason and complicity in whose expression and demeanour change radically, along murder. After a village woman hisses “Judas” at him, he with the increasingly dramatic lighting and framing of fails to commit suicide, only to fall on his knees in agony his figure, lending him a nearly divine aura. This in the courtyard of the police headquarters. The critic heavenly light even illuminates the dark cellar where the Elena Stishova has remarked that “the film ‘states’ detainees – Sotnikov, Rybak, Demchika, a village elder Sotnikov, but ‘investigates’ Rybak,” arguing for a and a young Jewish girl who refused to denounce the nuanced understanding of his position and the Shepitko—THE ASCENT—5 complexity of a character who could otherwise simply be Furthermore, The Ascent emphasises a visceral dismissed as a traitor.9 engagement with the natural world, with close-ups of Shepitko offered an explanation for her Christ figures covered in snow and ice and shots of brittle tree and Judas parable of betrayal, saying that “there have branches coated in crystalline frost. These elements always been Sotnikovs and Rybaks, just as there were heighten the physicality of experience in moments of Jesus and Judas. I am not religious, but since this legend heightened emotional tension. For example, after is so prevalent in the world it means that it’s alive, that it Sotnikov has been shot in the leg by a Nazi patrol and lives on inside each of us.”10 Not only does this view help attempts to commit suicide in order to avoid capture, illuminate the seeming discrepancy between Soviet Rybak courageously drags his body into hiding through communist and Christian values, it also foregrounds the heavy snow. During this long sequence, one can feel Shepitko’s insistence on the universal importance of the heaviness of the wounded, snow-covered body, the moral integrity in the difficulty of the bare face of evil. Here, the struggle for survival. influence of Fyodor The hostile Dostoyevsky on natural setting is not a Shepitko’s work mere backdrop to the becomes evident, as film’s action. From its voiced elsewhere by the opening images, the filmmaker herself as well viewer is immersed in as by critics and the blinding whiteness scholars. 11 The of vast snowfields. In a Ascent thus both series of establishing profoundly engages with shots depicting the and transcends its winter landscape, a historical subject and the dense snow haze post-Stalinist context of saturates the air, its production, strongly reducing the visibility of denouncing war and the terrain, electricity abuses of power. poles, and a village church. Howling winds, interspersed In an article exploring the relationship between with machine gun fire and distant shouts establish an photography and war, Susan Sontag asks whether an atmosphere of hostility and fear, which foreshadows the image or a series of images can have the power to desperate attempts of the occupied people to escape mobilise opposition to war. 12 She argues that “a Nazi persecution. When the two partisans traverse the narrative seems likely to be more effective than an winter landscape, their figures are juxtaposed with the image,” partly due to the “length of time one is obliged vast expanse of the snow. At times, its whiteness even to look, and to feel.”13 Sontag continues: “No seems to partially dissolve the image in reducing the photograph, or portfolio of photographs, can unfold, go cinematic space to a white flat surface where frail human further, and further still, as does The Ascent[…], the figures are at the mercy of the elements, occupying a most affecting film about the horror of war I space of liminality.16 The film’s final images take the know.”14 Indeed, each shot in Shepitko’s film forces the viewer back to the opening sequence, to the same long viewer to continue looking and experiencing the shots of electricity poles, of a church, of the almost suffering of the protagonists. Vladimir Chukhnov’s unbearable whiteness of the snow. As snowfall and camera follows the characters intimately, frequently strong winds continually efface human traces in the using close-ups and unusual framing, focusing “on the snow, what are the marks of human existence that can human face as a terrain to be explored.”15 More detached not be erased? views are juxtaposed with expressive point-of-view shots, The Ascent would unfortunately become letting the viewer imagine how it would feel to be there Shepitko’s last completed film. She was tragically killed – nearly left to die in a frozen forest or facing the barrel in a car accident in 1979 at age 41, along with of a gun while hiding behind a few straws of hay. cinematographer Chukhnov, production designer Yuri Fomenko, and three other film crew members.17 This Shepitko—THE ASCENT—6 tragic event occurred while they were location scouting outlines of village roofs and tilted telegraph poles – a for Shepitko’s next project, based on Valetin Rasputin’s direct quotation from Zemlya (Earth, 1930), directed by 1976 novel Proshchaniye s Matyoroy (Farewell to Shepitko’s mentor and fellow Ukrainian filmmaker Matyora), an elegiac story about villagers faced with the Aleksandr Dovzhenko, who punctuated undulating imminent destruction of wheatfields with a similar their community due to the row of off-kilter poles. The construction of a new Ascent’s world, however, is hydroelectric dam. not bounty but desolation, Shepitko’s husband Klimov “a minimalist study in created Larisa (1980), a white on white,” as Jane short film in her memory, Costlow aptly describes combining visual archival the film’s material – photographs, cinematography.1 When fragments of Shepitko’s human beings finally films, and shots from the appear in the black-and- unfinished project – with white winterscape, it jolts recordings of Shepitko’s the eye and quickens the voice and interviews with heart. her colleagues. In this cinematic tribute to Shepitko, An urgent handheld camera takes over as Klimov praises The Ascent as her ultimate achievement. partisans and villagers fleeing from Nazis emerge from He also set himself the task of completing folds in the snow banks to take cover in a nearby wood. Shepitko’s last project, imbuing the resulting Exhausted, wounded, starving, frost-covered and out of film Proshchaniye (Farewell, 1981) with an acute sense of ammunition, they send out roughened soldier Rybak mourning and loss. 18 In his arguably best-known and (Vladimir Gostyukhin) and pale former teacher Sotnikov widely praised film Idi i smotri(, 1985), (Boris Plotnikov) to secure supplies from the nearest Klimov returns to the subject and site of Shepitko’s The farm. We think we know these men, can predict their Ascent, addressing the Nazi occupation of Belarus. Yet fates, one in a warm shearling hat and high leather their cinematic visions are strikingly different. Klimov’s boots, the other in army-issue infantry cap and woolen haunting color film, conveyed from the perspective of a shoes. As their mission is stymied in episode after teenage boy who joins Soviet partisans and becomes a episode, they face the kind of desperate decisions a witness to Nazi atrocities, is characterised by an humane world would never require but that war emphasis on the raw brutality of the horrors of war, demands as a constant. Soon, the soldier’s and the whereas Shepitko’s psychological and spiritual teacher’s fates are oddly reversed. exploration offers a more transcendent vision of “We deliberately tried to approximate these suffering and death. As such, The Ascent leaves an conditions to the ones which our characters had to important trace on Soviet cinema and marks a endure,” Shepitko later said of the production’s location significant contribution to the history of film. shoot in sub-zero temperatures in and around the ancient city of Murom. To prepare the story, she pored Shari Kizirian: “The Ascent (1977): Larisa Shepitko’s over hours of newsreel footage and audio recordings of Final Word Belarusian survivors. “The annals of the war made us The breathless immediacy realize that our most horrible ideas of what it was like … of Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent, Larisa Shepitko, 1977), paled before the inhuman realities. With the years, our adapted from a novella by Vasily Bykov about two memory spares our nerves and blunts our pain. We have Belarusian partisans during World War II, combines tried not only to understand the pain, but to relive with a profound understanding of human vulnerability it.”2 Shepitko, who was just old enough to remember the to make the film, Shepitko’s last, a masterpiece of war war’s horrible lingering end, succeeds in conveying not cinema. just the physical wreckage but also the assaults that Shot almost entirely outdoors at the height of wreck the soul. She does this nowhere better than in the the Russian winter, The Ascent opens with long shots of pivotal farmhouse sequence. a blizzard-battered world, broken only by sketchbook Shepitko—THE ASCENT—7

Rybak and Sotnikov, who is bleeding, stumble everything I want, in full measure as a creative person upon a long-sought refuge only to realise that there are should, as an artist, as a citizen. I’ll tell it all.’ It’s a lie. It’s three unattended children inside. There’s barely time to impossible. It’s hopeless to deceive yourself by this illusion. If properly dress the wound, never mind get provisions and you stumble once you’ll forget the way there. move on, when the mother (Lyudmila Polyakova, in a If Shepitko had lived, she’d be 81 this year and bravura performance) returns home, suppressing furious could still be having a career. She could have finished panic at this awful choice she must make, with Nazis the film Klimov directed in her already spilling out of a vehicle at the fence line. By now, stead, Proshchanie (Farewell, 1983), and have even Sotnikov is resigned to die, has in fact already tried to, directed her version of Idi i smotri (Come and See, 1985), out in the icy field, his bare toe on the rifle trigger a which Klimov turned into his own harrowing war- welcome alternative to capture by Nazis. Hidden now in themed masterpiece from an idea of hers. At the time of the hayloft, he awaits a machine-gunning – prefers it, in her death, just 41 years old, Soviet control probably felt fact, to causing anyone else such anguish. But Rybak infinite, and while The Ascent is a remarkable final word, decides for them both, as he so often does it’s tantalising to think what a maturing Shepitko might throughout The Ascent, and bellows his cri de have done to further test the durability of her manifesto. coeur directly at the camera like an Eisensteinian type. His fitness for survival, his will to live, that has so far been an advantage, has become a great flaw; and, by the end of the film, the strong man has become weak, and the weak, strong. Shepitko eventually completes the biblical metaphor by turning the gaunt Sotnikov into a beatified Jesus and Rybak into a remorseful Judas Iscariot. While you cannot miss it, she accomplishes this feat by using such restraint – and by always grounding it in the physical realm – that it exerts an incredible power no matter your beliefs. The Germans, perpetrators of this whole horror, are barely present in the film, a distant, often smirking devil whose evil is largely carried out close-hand by Belarusians themselves – a subtle reminder that wickedness requires willing footmen to succeed. The ascent of the title refers to one man’s martyrdom, but the film is a Garden of Gethsemane for an array of other characters: the reluctant collaborator, the mother who only wants to save her children, the young Jewish girl who wants to save everyone, all negotiating the same temptation. In audio interviews from the short documentary Larisa (1980) – made by her husband, the director Elem Klimov, after Shepitko’s death on location in 1979 – she speaks an artist’s manifesto that sounds like Sotnikov, yet recognises the Rybak inside us all, wanting to go on: Alex Williams: “Psychological Realism and Subjectivity To declare them is one thing … every day, every in ‘The Ascent’” (Screen Queens) second prompts us to a practical necessity to make a Ukrainian-born Soviet director Larisa Shepitko’s compromise to manoeuvre, keep silent sometimes, make a fifth and final film, The Ascent, is a war narrative unlike concession in hopes of making up for it later … ‘I’ll say what any other. Shepitko was not interested in battle they want there, I’ll try to please them here, and avoid saying sequences and displays of gallantry – which, in other it there, here I’ll tell only a half-truth, there I’ll hush it up films, often serve to glorify war and bypass its true costs altogether. But in my next film I’ll make up for it, I’ll tell – but rather in the extreme physical and psychological Shepitko—THE ASCENT—8 traumas endured by individuals in World War II. In The in a complex world of experience that eschews the easy Ascent, this is filtered through the subjective lens of two rhetoric of the fable’, possessing rich inner lives and Soviet soldiers. Upon its release in 1977, the film often failing to take what would be considered the most received notable acclaim, winning the Golden Bear honourable course of action. By radically distilling the award at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. historical period of World War II down to the Since then, however, it has receded into obscurity, experiences of two main individuals, Shepitko intended remaining hugely to, in her own words, under-seen even explore “the spirituality amongst avid film of the Soviet man” and fans. This is not examine the least a consequence psychological of Shepitko’s gender motivators behind (consider the human behaviour more relative fame of her widely. contemporary The first scene Andrei Tarkovsky); after the opening audiences and critics credits of The Ascent – struggled to during which the only reconcile the battle scene in the film filmmaker’s gender occurs – announces with the ‘masculine’ Shepitko’s refusal to characters of her romanticise war. As a films. This unit trudges through supposed mismatch, the deep snow, the however, was merely an external creation – Shepitko sounds of their laboured breathing are amplified, already took ownership and pride in her identity, emphasising the physical toll of their situation. Yet this saying: “there’s…no frame in my film, not a single one, does not mean that Shepitko’s direction is not poetic that doesn’t come from me as a woman”, and the and evocative – on the contrary. As the unit stops to rest brutality of her films were a manifestation of her own and a single spoon of rationed grain is given to each thematic interests and concerns. individual, Shepitko cuts to a stunning series of arresting Shepitko’s unique approach to The Ascent was close-ups of unit members’ faces. We can see every informed by her own life experiences. In 1973, she wrinkle on an elderly woman’s face, the droplets of suffered spinal damage after a fall and was required to condensation on the cheeks and upper lip of a young remain in hospital for seven months, a period in her life man. Their eyes burn with helplessness, anger and she recounted as “a long journey into myself”. Soon after determination. Though we have only just met them, we she gave birth to her son which, because of her injury, can already feel their struggle. We are introduced to their was a jeopardisation of her life. Shepitko described this world and their circumstances not analytically, but experience as “facing death for the first time”, after sensually. which she began to make her first preparations for The The intimacy Shepitko cultivates in this scene is Ascent. These experiences undoubtedly influenced her something she continues to build upon throughout the decision to film The Ascent in a way which foregrounds film. Guynn notes that The Ascent ‘calls on the most the individual embodied experiences of the characters, as emotional kind of identification’ with its characters. she now had her own brushes with death to draw from. After being sent out to search for food for their starving This visceral style was something of a departure unit, soldiers Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) and from the social realism prescribed in typical Soviet war Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) are spotted by German films, whose characters were, as William Guynn writes soldiers, and Sotnikov is shot in the leg from afar. As in his book Unspeakable Histories: Film and the Experience Rybak bolts into the trees for cover from the shower of of Catastrophe, ‘examples of their social categories’; bullets headed in their direction, a wounded Sotnikov faultless and transparent role models for future attempts to take his own life with his rifle, determined generations. The characters in The Ascent, however, ‘exist not to be taken alive by Nazis. Shepitko’s use of a long Shepitko—THE ASCENT—9 take as Sotnikov struggles Still unsuccessful at to complete this act, retrieving food for their unit, mounting his gun between Rybak and the now injured his feet, anchors us Sotnikov come across a uncomfortably within his seemingly empty cabin, sense of time, intensifying which they discover is in fact the urgency and realism of the home of a woman, the scene. Right before he Demchikha (Lyudmila intends to pull the trigger, Polyakova), and her three we cut to a point-of-view children. Soon after their shot as Sotnikov gazes up arrival, however, Sotnikov at the moon emerging spots German soldiers in the from behind thin wisps of distance, heading towards grey cloud. This shot in the cabin. Demchikha tells particular (along with several others throughout the Rybak and Sotnikov to hide in the attic, which they do film) is deployed with the intention of bringing us into in time for the Germans to arrive. Once again, Shepitko the interior lives of these soldiers, in their moments of tethers us to Rybak and Sotnikov: the Nazis’ arrival is silent contemplation, and Shepitko has the courage to framed through the attic roof, its wooden planks allow us access to a character’s inner world in what they fragmenting their bodies into isolated glimpses of legs, believe to be their last moments. arms and heads. We don’t know what happens when the Shepitko’s characters ‘exist in a world of German soldiers enter Demchikha’s home – we hear sensation, touching (and touched by) the environment only shouting and the smashing of plates. The lack of that envelops them’ (Guynn). This is no more apparent subtitles for the German dialogue brings us even further than in the following scene, where Rybak musters the into the subjective experience of Rybak and Sotnikov, courage to return to his fallen comrade. Interrupting whose knowledge is also ours. Sotnikov’s pre-death vigil, Rybak drags his crippled As the two men wait nestled amongst the straw comrade clumsily through the snow in a desperate rescue on the attic floor, the sickly Sotnikov struggles to attempt. In this stunningly visceral sequence, we are in prevent himself from coughing, a battle he eventually the snow too – the camera mimics the soldiers’ unsteady loses, giving away their position. Demchikha’s cries of movements, heaving its way through the snow and protest are heard as the Germans find a way into the shoving through the leafless brambles as they do, so attic. When the hand of a German soldier grips the attic close as if it could almost collide with the figures it is entrance to pull himself up, the camera imitates Rybak’s filming. White snow peppers the soldiers’ black gaze, shrinking behind the straw in fear. Then, an uniforms as they clamber along the forest floor, and the extreme close-up of Rybak’s terrified expression – soundscape descends into a vivid mixture of cracking possibly the last of his life – fills the screen as the sound branches, groans of pain and the crunch of thick, of the German soldier cocking his machine gun stands powdery snow. There are no wide, contextualising shots alone in the sound mix. The human face is a ‘terrain to for the entirety of the scene; Shepitko allows her be explored’ (Guynn), and rich chiaroscuro-style lighting audience no reprieve. We have no choice but to latch to match puts the turbulent psychological states of onto the men’s desperation, their disorientation, their characters on profoundly confronting display. Rybak fear in this moment. Given the physical intensity of steals a glance at Sotnikov, whose hands cover his face as performing the scene (the film was shot in January at the he lies buried in the hay, the focus of the shot then height of the Russian winter, when conditions dropped shifting to a single strand of straw trembling in the as much as 40 degrees below freezing), the struggle on winter breeze. In mere seconds, Shepitko communicates the actors’ faces is palpable and real. Shepitko makes it the two men’s sheer fragility in this moment, their clear that this is not a heroic struggle, but a desperate defencelessness and their vulnerability. Shepitko cuts to attempt to stay alive, viscerally representing the immense a close-up of the barrel of the gun, ratcheting the physical pressures and strains that bodies underwent in tension up to smouldering levels by dropping us into the wartime to simply continue living. body of Rybak himself. It is as if, like his, our fate teeters in the balance. Shepitko—THE ASCENT—10

The Ascent is a stunningly intimate tale of when she was killed in a car accident at just 41 years old, survival in wartime, its honesty in drawing us into the along with four other members of her crew while imperfect lived experiences of its characters made even location scouting for a sixth film. Across her five more impressive by the more objective standards of completed features, which include a character study of a historical filmmaking prevalent at the time of its former woman fighter pilot in Wings and an abstract creation. Through the film’s harrowing second half and drama concerning a neurosurgeon’s existential crisis its agonising conclusion, it becomes apparent that in You and Me, her immense talent is evident. It is physical strength does not necessarily translate into painful to speculate about what she would have achieved, psychological resilience. Shepitko’s characters are not had her career not been all too brief. But what we can do pawns serving a higher moralistic purpose, but flawed, is lift up and admire the work she did leave us. To do so complex and realistic individuals compelled to make would be to continue a vital and never-ending quest: impossible decisions under the immense, nightmarish unearthing the work of women which has been forgotten pressure brought about by war. in histories of art and cinema, and affording it the The Ascent would be Shepitko’s last completed respect and visibility it deserves. work as a filmmaker, as her life was tragically cut short

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 39) Nov 5 Louis Malle Au revoir les enfants 1987 Nov 12 Charles Burnett To Sleep With Anger 1990 Nov 19 Steve James, Frederick Marks & Peter Gilbert Hoop Dreams 1994 Nov 26 Alfonso Cuarón Roma 2018 Dec 3 Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge 2001

CONTACTS: email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected]... for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http: //buffalofilmseminars.com... to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to [email protected].... for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.