Andrei Tarkovsky, IVAN's CHILDHOOD (1962, 84 Min)
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October 6, 2015 (XXXI:6) Andrei Tarkovsky, IVAN’S CHILDHOOD (1962, 84 min) (The version of this handout on the website has color images and hot urls.) For the 1962 Venice Film Festival, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood shared the Golden Lion win with Valerio Zurlini’s Family Portrait (1962). Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Written by Vladimir Bogomolov (original story & screenplay), Mikhail Papava, Andrei Tarkovsky (uncredited) and Andrey Konchalovskiy (uncredited) Music by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov Cinematography by Vadim Yusov Film Editing by Lyudmila Feyginova Cast Nikolay Burlyaev…Ivan Valentin Zubkov….Kholin Evgeniy Zharikov…Galtsev Stepan Krylov …Katasonov Nikolay Grinko…Gryaznov Dmitri Milyutenko…Old Man Valentina Malyavina…Masha with Family Portrait (1962). He only directed 12 films including, Irina Tarkovskaya…Ivan's Mother 1986 The Sacrifice, 1983 Voyage in Time (TV Movie Andrey Konchalovskiy…Soldier with glasses documentary), 1983 Nostalgia, 1979 The First Day, 1979 Stalker, Ivan Savkin…himself 1975 The Mirror, 1972 Solaris, 1966 Andrei Rublev, 1962 Ivan's Vladimir Marenkov…himself Childhood, 1961 The Steamroller and the Violin, 1959 There Will Vera Miturich…Girl Be No Leave Today, 1956 The Killers (Short). He wrote for 16 film and television series including, 1986 The Sacrifice (scenario), Andrei Tarkovsky (director, writer) (b. April 4, 1932 in 1983 Voyage in Time (TV Movie documentary), 1983 Nostalgia Zavrazhe, Yurevetskiy rayon, Ivanovskaya Promyshlennaya oblast, (screenplay), 1979 Stalker (screenplay), 1979 Beregis, zmey!, 1975 RSFSR, USSR [now Ivanovskaya oblast, Russia]—d. December The Mirror, 1974 The Fierce One, 1974 Sour Grape, 1972 Solaris 29, 1986, age 54, in Paris, France) won numerous awards at the (screenplay), 1971 Konets atamana (uncredited), 1968 Sergey Cannes Film Festival including 1986’s Grand Prize of the Jury, Lazo (uncredited),1966 Andrei Rublev, 1962 Ivan's Childhood Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and FIPRESCI Prize for Offret (uncredited),1961 The Steamroller and the Violin, 1959 There Will (1986). In 1983 he won Cannes Film Festival award for Prize of Be No Leave Today (screenplay),1956 The Killers (Short, the Ecumenical Jury and the FIPRESCI Prize in addition to Best screenplay). Director for Nostalghia (1983), tied with Robert Bresson for L'argent (1983). In 1980 he won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Nikolay Burlyaev…Ivan (b. August 3, 1946 in Moscow, RSFSR, for Stalker (1979), in 1972 he won Grand Prize of the Jury as well USSR [now Russia]) has acted in 48 films and television shows, as the FIPRESCI Prize for Solyaris (1972) He also won 1969’s among them, 2011 Gogol. Blizhayshiy, 2008 Admiral, 1990 FIPRESCI Prize for Andrey Rublyov (1966) and 1962’s Venice Russkaya ruletka, 1989 Vysokaya krov, 1986 Lermontov, 1985 Film Festival Golden Lion for Ivan’s Childhood (1962), which tied Tarkovsky—IVAN’S CHILDHOOD-—2 Kontrudar, 1985 Living Rainbow, 1985 Dolgaya pamyat, 1983 little world into one that is wider and more challenging. The story Vechera na khutore bliz Dikanki (TV Movie), 1982 Pechniki (TV is told very delicately and imaginatively through the eyes of the Movie), 1980 Oblomov, 1979 Malenkie tragedii (TV Mini-Series), child, with a “masterly use of soft lighting and ...subtle gradations 1979 September Vacation (TV Movie), 1975 Vybor tseli, 1974 of atmosphere.” The photography is Vadim Yusov, a fellow- Under a Stone Sky, 1971 Legenda, 1971 Maksim Maksimych, 1971 student who has been Tarkovsky’s cameraman on all his films, and Trial on the Road, 1970 Krazha, 1970 Risk, 1967 Hero of Our the script is the work of Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, another Time, 1966 Andrei Rublev, 1966 Malchik i devochka, 1963 Bez of Tarkovsky’s contemporaries at VGIK and himself among the strakha i upryoka, 1962 Ivan's Childhood, 1961 Malchik i golub. most promising of the young Soviet directors. He also directed and wrote Lermontov (1986) and Poshekhonskaya Tarkovsky graduated in 1960 and has been a Mosfilm starina (1977). director ever since. The harsh poetry of his unique vision emerged fully in his first feature film,Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan’s Childhood, Valentin Zubkov…Kholin (b. May 12, 1923 in Peschanoye, 1962). Ivan, played by Kolya Burlayev, is an orphan working with Ryazan province, Soviet Union [now Russia]—d. January 18, a group of partisans during the Second World War, We first see 1979, age 55, in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]) starred in this twelve-year-old waif returning from a scouting expedition, 31 films and television shows, some of which are 1974 S toboy i crossing no-man’s-land, peering through mist and barbed wire, bez tebya, 1971 Zoia Rukhadze,1969 Vnimaniye, tsunami!, 1969 studying the swiftly flowing river that he has to cross to get back to Ya ego nevesta, 1969 Na voyne, kak na voyne, 1968 The his own side. His parents have been killed, his village has been Mysterious Monk,1966 Ya soldat, mama,1965 Poyezd destroyed, he has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, and he miloserdiya,1964 Den schastya,1963 Sandu Follows the Sun, 1962 lives only for revenge. He does not live long; years later in Berlin Ivan's Childhood,1961 Vremya letnikh otpuskov,1961 after the victory, his comrades find a folder recording his capture Evdokiya,1960 Leon Garros ishchet druga, 1959 Solntse svetit and fate. vsem,1958 Kommunist,1957 The Cranes Are Flying, 1948 Russkiy A sense of almost unendurable tension is built up by the vopros. camerawork and editing, in which the grim reality of the present is intercut with flashbacks, so that war and childhood, war and Lyudmila Feyginova (film editor) (birth/death unknown) edited nature, are constantly contrasted. The same sort of story has been 13 films including, 1990 Chastnyy detektiv, ili operatsiya told hundreds of times before, but Ivor Montague, pointing out that 'Kooperatsiya’, 1985 Zakonnyy brak, 1984 Dead Souls (TV Mini- this is generally true of Tarkovsky’s plots, goes on : “It is how they Series), 1979 Stalker, 1975 Ne mozhet byt!,1975 The Mirror,1974 are presented that becomes a commentary on man, his experience The Sannikov Land, 1974 Sour Grape, 1972 Solaris, 1971 and the universe….The tragedy here, however, is much worse Cîntecele marii, 1969 Ya ego nevesta, 1966 Andrei Rublev, 1962 because more inescapable. Ivan’s fate is sealed before ever the film Ivan's Childhood. begins….From the moment we see the wide-eyed creature in the mist, the contrast between the skinny, hungry, sometimes blubbering boy and the expert spy, professional, authoritative, competent, indispensable, the two bound into a single being—a soldier who had known torture and triumph alike, a child on whom grown men depend—we know he cannot survive….The film is not disfigured by the unnaturally cheery or the conventionally hysterical. With one blow it annuls a whole cinémathèque of the war films of all lands.” Ivanovo detstvo won fifteen awards at international film festivals, including the Golden Lion at Venice and the Grand Prize in San Francisco. It was followed by Andrei Rublev, a film about the medieval monk who became the greatest of all icon painters. Tarkovsky wrote the film in collaboration with Mikhalkov- Konchalovsky and shot it in black and white, except for the coda in which Rublev’s icons are displayed in all their richness. Completed in 1966 and shown at Cannes in 1969, it was not released in Russia ANDREI TARKOVSKY, from World Film Directors, V. II. Ed. until 1971, by which time it had acquired an enormous John Wakeman. The H.W. Wilson Co., Inc NY, 1988 underground reputation. It is not clear why the film was shelved for so long—the religious-philosophical issues that may have Russian director, born in Laovrazhe, Ivanova district, Soviet worried the Soviet censors remain intact at the center of the Union. He is the son of the distinguished poet Arseniy Tarkovsky picture, while the criticism that it “does not correspond to and the former Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova. Tarkovsky studied historical truth” (the excuse for its withdrawal from the 1971 under Mikhail Romm at VGIK, the All-Union State Institute of Belgrade Festival) is unconvincing, since almost nothing is known Cinematography in Moscow. In the course of his studies he made of the life of the real Andrei Rublev. Although Walter Goodman two short films, There Will Be No Leave Today (1959), and his has pointed out that “Komsomolskaya Pravda, the newspaper of diploma piece, Katok i skripka (The Steamroller and the Violin, the Communist youth organization, criticized Tarkovsky, a devout 1960). The latter, which won a prize at the New York Film Christian, for depicting Rublev, a much-revered fifteenth-century Festival, is about the friendship that develops between the tough monk, as a suffering, self-questioning artist rather than a native driver of a steamroller and a frail boy violinist who as a genius who helped bring about a Russian renaissance in the final consequence is drawn out of his comfortable but claustrophobic decades of Mongolian-Tatar rule.” Tarkovsky—IVAN’S CHILDHOOD-—3 The film consists of ten loosely connected episodes planet’s strange ocean has the capacity to punish intruders by covering the most prolific years of the painter’s life, 1400-1425. materializing people and episodes out of their past lives, forcing Russia had not still been freed from the yoke of the Tartars, and the them to relive their most painful mistakes and sins. Penelope world Rublev knew was a brutal one of feudal violence and casual Houston called this film “Russia’s answer to 2001, not in its cruelty. The church itself was engaged in a ruthless campaign display of space hardware but in the speculative quality of its against the vestiges of paganism. The film dramatizes the conflict ideas,” and Gavin Millar praised it as “an absorbing inquiry into in the artist between revulsion and compassion toward the the cause of love and the links between time, memory, and suffering around him.