Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor
Vsevolod Pudovkin
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Pudovkin in Italy in 1951
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Born
| Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin
(
1893-02-28
)
28 February 1893
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Died
| 30 June 1953
(1953-06-30)
(aged 60)
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Occupation(s)
| Film director, screenwriter, actor, pedagogue
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Years active
| 1921?1953
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Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin
(Russian:
Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин
,
IPA:
[?fs?ev?l?t
?l(ː)?r???on?v??t?
p??dofk??n]
; 28 February 1893 ? 30 June 1953)
[1]
[2]
was a Soviet
film director
,
screenwriter
and
actor
who developed influential theories of
montage
.
[3]
Pudovkin's masterpieces are often contrasted with those of his contemporary
Sergei Eisenstein
, but whereas Eisenstein utilized montage to glorify the power of the masses, Pudovkin preferred to concentrate on the courage and resilience of individuals. He was granted the title of
People's Artist of the USSR
in 1948.
Biography
[
edit
]
Vsevolod Pudovkin was born in
Penza
into a
Russian
family, the third of six children. His father Illarion Yepifanovich Pudovkin came from peasants of the
Penza Governorate
, the village of Shuksha and worked in several companies as a manager and a
door-to-door
salesman. Vsevolod's mother Yelizaveta Aleksandrovna Pudovkina (nee Shilkina) was a housewife.
[4]
[5]
A student of engineering at
Moscow University
, Pudovkin saw active duty during
World War I
, being captured by the Germans. During this time he studied foreign languages and did book illustrations.
[6]
After the war, he abandoned his professional activity and joined the world of cinema, first as a screenwriter, actor and art director, and then as an assistant director to
Lev Kuleshov
.
In 1924, he married
Anna Zemtsova
.
[7]
Pudovkin asserted that his wife encouraged him for pursuing a career as a filmmaker.
[8]
His first notable work was a comedy short
Chess Fever
(1925) co-directed with
Nikolai Shpikovsky
.
Jose Raul Capablanca
played a small part in it, with a number of other cameos presented. In 1926 he directed what would become one of the masterpieces of
silent movies
:
Mother
, where he developed several montage theories that would make him famous. Both movies featured Pudovkin's wife Anna Zemtsova in supporting female parts (she left cinema shortly after).
The film is not shot, but built, built up from the separate strips of celluloid that are its raw material.
His first feature was followed by
The End of St. Petersburg
(1927), and
Storm over Asia
(also known as
The Heir of Genghis Khan
, 1928), titles which compose a trilogy at the service of the bolshevik revolutionary policy.
In 1928, with the advent of
sound film
, Pudovkin,
Sergei Eisenstein
and
Grigori Aleksandrov
signed the
Manifest of Sound
, in which the possibilities of sound are debated, and always understood as being in a state of tension and nonsynchronization with the image. This idea would be brought to bear in his next pictures:
A Simple Case
(1932) and
The Deserter
(1933), works that do not match the quality of earlier work.The Heir to Genghis Khan (or Storm over Asia; 1928). Pudovkin was publicly charged with formalism for his experimental sound film
A Simple Case
, which he was forced to release without its sound track.
[3]
In 1935 he was awarded the
Order of Lenin
.
After an interruption caused by health concerns, Pudovkin returned to movie making, this time with a number of historical epics:
Victory
(1938);
Minin and Pozharsky
(1939) and
Suvorov
(1941). The last two were often praised as some of the best movies based on Russian history, along with the works of Sergei Eisenstein. Pudovkin was awarded a
Stalin Prize
for both of them in 1941.
During
World War II
he was evacuated to
Kazakhstan
where he directed several patriotic war movies. He also played a small part in the
Ivan the Terrible
movie (as
God's fool
). With the end of war he returned to Moscow and continued his work at the
Mosfilm
studio, making biographical and war movies. In 1947 he was awarded another Stalin Prize for his work on
Admiral Nakhimov
, and in 1950 ? his second
Order of Lenin
and a third Stalin Prize for
Zhukovsky
. His last work was
The Return of Vasili Bortnikov
(1953).
Apart from directing, screenwriting and acting, Pudovkin was also an educator and a journalist, author of several books on film theory, professor at
VGIK
, president of the cinema section at
VOKS
(since 1944) and a member of the
Soviet Peace Committee
.
Vsevolod Pudovkin died on 30 June 1953 in
Dubulti
,
Latvian SSR
after a heart attack. He was buried at the
Novodevichy Cemetery
. One of the streets in Moscow is named after Pudovkin (see
Pudovkin street
).
Filmography
[
edit
]
Published works
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Schnitzer, Luda (1973).
Cinema in Revolution
. Da Capo Press.
ISBN
0306802856
.
- ^
Gillespie, David C. (2000).
Early Soviet Cinema
. Wallflower.
ISBN
1903364043
.
- ^
a
b
c
The Encyclopaedia Britannica guide to Russia : the essential guide to the nation, its people, and culture
. London: Robinson. 2009. pp. 208?213.
ISBN
9781593398507
.
- ^
Vsevolod Pudovkin (1976)
. Collection of Works in Three Volumes. Volume 3. ? Moscow: Iskusstvo, p. 288-289, 322, 489
- ^
Alexander Karaganov
(1983)
. Vsevolod Pudovkin. ? Moscow: Iskusstvo, 272 pages, p. 3
- ^
Bryher
(1922).
Film Problems Of Soviet Russia
. Riant Chateau TERRITET Switzerland. p. 44.
- ^
Rollberg, P. (2009).
Historical dictionary of Russian and Soviet cinema
. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.
ISBN
978-0-8108-6072-8
.
OCLC
228744396
.
- ^
Ryabchikova, Natalie (10 August 2018).
"The Disappearing Theoretician: From Anna Li to A.N. Pudovkina"
.
Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe
. Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe (6).
doi
:
10.17892/app.2018.0006.109
.
ISSN
2365-7758
.
External links
[
edit
]
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