Out of the Past 2018 / Letyat zhuravli / USSR 1957
Andrei Tarkovsky described the visual merits of Mikhail Kalatozov’s films as outstanding and saw them as inspirational for his own work. In an era of faceless wartime epics, this drama, focusing on a simple tale of tragic love, appeared as a revelation – not only in its theme but in its expressive style, which ensured that the image, editing and sound also had a significant creative role to play in the film.
Love and war, a courageous sacrifice on the front, the torment of waiting for a loved one, and a girl suffering the agony of remorse for a perceived failure. These dramatic and emotionally powerful motifs form the basis for The Cranes Are Flying, which went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1958. The film disrupted the schematism of Soviet cinema: instead of clichés and the pathos of heroic themes, it offered close scrutiny of one of the many relationships tainted by war while, at the same time, the director allowed himself significant space to draw out the subjective experiences of his protagonists. Together with distinguished cameraman Sergey Urusevsky, he returned to the legacy of the Soviet avant-garde, telling his story using a purely cinematic idiom with special emphasis on elegant visual composition.
Zdena Škapová
98 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Mikhail Kalatozov
/ Screenplay Viktor Rozov
/ Dir. of Photography Sergey Urusevsky
/ Music Moisey Vaynberg
/ Editor Mariya Timofeeva
/ Art Director Evgeny Svidetelev
/ Production Mosfilm Cinema Concern
/ Cast Tatyana Samoylova, Aleksey Batalov
/ Sales Mosfilm Cinema Concern
Mikhail Kalatozov (1903, Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR – 1973, Moscow, USSR). Selected filmography: Salt for Svanetia (Jim Shvante, doc. 1930), Valery Chkalov (1941), Invincible (Nepobedimye, 1942), Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoe pismo, 1959), The Red Tent (Krasnaya palatka, 1969)
Mosfilm Cinema Concern
Mosfilmovskaya Str. 1, 119 991, Moscow
Russia
Phone: +7 095 143 9700
Fax: +7 095 938 2083
E-mail: [email protected]
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