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Aleksander Sokurov (b.1951). Aleksander Sokurov (1951). First worked as TV program director Educated as historian Educated at the VGIK as film director
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Aleksander Sokurov (1951) • First worked as TV program director • Educated as historian • Educated at the VGIK as film director • Produced numerous documentaries, “elegies”; first feature films were banned (in early 1980s). Later films received numerous prizes (Cannes, Venice, Toronto, etc.)
Sokurov’s poetic • Friend of Tarkovsky, develops Tarkovsky’s line in cinema: dreams, reflections on the past, long takes • Indivisibility of time and space • Sound track as a separate, parallel experience
Selected filmography • The Lonely Voice of a Man (1979-1987) • The Degraded (1980) • Painful Indifference (1983–1987) • Days of Eclipse (1988) • Save and Protect (1989) • The Second Circle (1990) • Stone (1992) • Mother and Son (1996) • Moloch (1999) • Taurus (2000) • Russian Ark (2002) • Father and Son (2003) • The Sun (2004) • Alexandra (2007) • Faust (2011)
Russian Ark Several genres combined: • sci-fi (time machine) • historical film • documentary (life of the museum) • poetic cinema (dream-like quality) • Film about film; ironically, no film – digital technology
Russian Ark • A passage through 300 years of history and culture represented by the Hermitage (its collection founded by Catherine the Great in 1764) • “History and life, history and art”; “simple things put in simple words” (Sokurov) • The meaning of the title: the biblical story of Noah; culture as the ark that keeps the nation afloat.
Russian Ark • An encounter of a European (presumably, Marquis de Custine, author of Russia in 1839) and a Russian (invisible, the voice behind the camera’s “eye”). • The two wander throughout the halls and staircases of the Hermitage as well as through different epochs. • Both have no idea how they got there (“accident” in case of the Russian). Unseen by most other people.
Marquis Astolphe de Custine (1790-1857) • Son of a revolutionary general who was guillotined. • Catholic, monarchist. • Began as diplomat, entered politics, then after a scandal became a novelist and finally travel writer. • Immensely rich, art connoisseur. • Went to Russia in 1839, wrote a book La Russie en 1839, banned in Russia. • Translated into Russian only in 1996
Russian Ark • Celebration of a passing, never repeated moment (as in theatre: impossible to edit mistakes) • Tarkovsky’s principles taken to the extreme (long takes replaced by one-shot film) • Uninterrupted continuity of the film serves as metaphor for continuity of history
Sokurov against Eisenstein • Total opposite of the montage cinema (ironically, S. received Eisenstein scholarship as a student) • Dream in place of “documentary” • Individuals vs depersonalized “masses” • Beauty vs roughness • High culture vs barbarism (sailors at the Hermitage – revolutionary sailors in October) • The aristocratic crowd leaving the stage of history (the Hermitage) with dignity vs the revolutionary mob rushing into the palace
Russian Ark: The room where Provisional Government was arrested in 1917, shown in pre-revolutionary peace
Russian Ark: Quotes • “Russia is like a theatre” • “What kind of play is this? Let’s hope it’s not a tragedy” • “In any case, it’s too late to interfere. Everything has already happened” • “Russian music makes me break out in hives” • “Everyone can see the future, but no one remembers the past” • “Let’s go! – Where? – Forward!”
Making Russian Ark • Two years of work on the project. The route of the camera carefully planned • 36 hours to prepare the setting • December 23, the shortest day of the year • About 4 hours of rehearsals • 90 minutes to shoot the 90 minute film in a single continuous take (“film made in one breath” - Sokurov) • Digitally enhanced last image
Making Russian Ark • About 2000 costumes made for the film • Over 1000 extras participating • Real historical objects (porcelain, furniture, some jewellery, etc) • Mariinsky Theatre orchestra, conductor Valerii Gergiev
