hi this is a podcast of witnesses to eisenstein and its leading film historians natalya ryabchikova and stanislav didinsky we talk about who and how created and watched iconic well-known little-known forgotten soviet films. this is the school of the moviegoer, where we reveal the secrets of kinarchives and tell. why watch soviet cinema now, how to better understand it, how to find new meanings in it and get the most out of it. and today we will talk

about films that were created and watched during the great patriotic war. stanislav how it all started, how we enter this topic, how we enter this concept of military cinema. well, uh, i must say that as soon as, uh, the country found out that the great patriotic war had begun, and a mass initiative from below begins, including among some graphists, and the idea of ​​\u200b \u200bcreation arises. well, in general, an economically expediently justified film product that can be made in the current conditions that are developing quickly, yes, because after all there is filming, as we know, this is usually a long process, especially feature film. you need to validate the script. here you need to approve the actors to build the scenery and so on. in general , it can take half a year and a year or even more for some graphic artists, after thinking, decide what needs to be filmed. as quickly as possible, a-a block films and release

them on the screen as soon as possible, so that, well, in addition to the newsreels that were so endlessly about how the preparations for the front were going and about all this, we’ll also talk about a separate professional for cameramen. this is a separate interesting topic that continues our time to explore. and more and more. we know about biographies. then in june of the forty -first year, and a decision is made on the initiative. and some graphic artists to shoot the so-called combat film collections, collections of footage, which will consist of stories. but small ones, and there 10-15 minutes, yes, and tell some well, accessible, but in simple language stories about what is happening in the rear at the front. let's look at fragments from the combat collection number nine, which just now clearly shows how it was. wait. who are you me? pole quarter number 14 searches to no avail tell that if

in an hour it is not issued, then everyone has 10 and so on. thank you for everything, goodbye. goodbye. uncle one minute. don't worry, i'll just show him how to get through the passage yard let's go, in fact, military films were not the first, but military films that came out on the screen, because before they started collecting them all into full-length ones. yes, these very collections came out, only a short film, which was incredibly important, was released already in july in the forty-first year. chapaev is with us. this is an example of how cinema. well, as a kind of phenomenon. yes, yes, in our life it takes popular heroes. in particular. here. they took. chapaev chapaev in the film of the beginning of the thirties, as we know, was dying at the end of the tape, it was not clear the situation, but here we

are told unambiguously chapaev and chapaev are with us. where will you take it? come on, vasily ivanovich, come on, come on, come on. finally, vasily ivanovich has been waiting for you here. i think you won’t swim out, just as

chapaevna won’t swim out. i think that the canons of socialism are broken on the soviet screen, because we see really mass cinema, well, in which, as it were, two universes, two multiverses collide or merge into one. why they took chapaev at all why it could have been done a little, it seems like in the series sherlock sherlock dies and then returns we don’t know much about how viewers actually watched movies in the thirties, but we know that the boys ran watch chapaev dozens of times, because there was a rumor that somewhere in some of the cinemas. chapaev still emerges and this is the desired finale. yes, so that it floats after 7 years and is embodied and it’s good that boris babkinkin returns, like chapaev, moreover, the director , but another director here vladimir petrov did peter i, and the first film was made by the vasiliev brothers, and

any characters appear in military film collections in the same way from the thirties . uh, for example, maxim performed by boris chirkov, only they return with other directors. it's so interesting how the directors take, and their favorite character , which was embodied by their other colleagues and themselves , and they take such a cameo and it really turns out the universe, and soviet movie heroes and cranes, who all meet in one of some kind of interesting, but dangerous world. there, of course, there are different plots, there are plots on the theme of some foreign life. yes, the czechoslovaks of poland are also going where, and these struggles are the fascist underbelly. here's how in this assembly nine there are plots from which we have at the front, but everything is in one, of course, on the one hand we say goodbye to the poster style, and the picture begins on the screen and there are no more halftones here. everybody is here. it is clearly transparent in this that others are built, there are our good enemies and there are bad ones. there are no

more gray areas for you. well, this is, at least, in the first years in forty-one-forty -two, then it starts to be perceived a little differently, but what else is on the screens. so you woke up on the morning of june 23 and watched what's on in cinemas. the film alexander immediately returns to the screens nevsky which was filmed by sergei and one of our favorite characters. actually. e, in the thirty-eighth year, it was filmed at the moment when german aggression is growing and in e, the plot, which is absolutely about ancient russia yes and the middle ages, nevertheless, there are references to e, these knights. yes, of course, ah and ah, the film is being shot, and then the molotov pact is concluded and germany is no longer an enemy. but a certain ally removes the film from the screen . eisenstein makes the opera at the bolshoi theater pavar, but in june 41 films instantly he returns to the screens and gets a real

second life, because this image of nevsky yes, and especially in the finale of the film, turns out to be in tune with incredible go and tell everyone in foreign lands that russia is alive. let them visit us without fear. but if whoever enters us with a sword, celebrate, he will perish. on that stands and will stand the russian land. interestingly, when this film is taken at 30 , almost nothing is known about nevsky, and when the order of alexander nevsky is introduced during the war , then the image on the order. this is not some medieval image. and this is actually a stylized nikolai cherkasov in the role of nevsky it seems to me that this is the connection between screen cinema and real life. it's

absolutely straight here. and, of course, there were films that were made before the war, for example. in the summer of the forty-first year in july in august. there is a color film in moscow. the little humpbacked horse. it was just taken down. this is one of the first soviet color films. the first color film is a fairy tale. and in five moscow cinemas in august of the forty -first year, you can see how the humpbacked in september, uh, masquerade, masquerade , which is called the swan song of the pre-war linfilm, comes out, because sergei gerasimov finished filming the film adaptation of lermontov on june 21, 1941 and 22. they were supposed to show it ready. naturally, this did not happen. the film was sent by plane to moscow , and the negative plane was shot down. they had to, uh, take positive positive copy. yes, and the so-called counter-tit is already dealing with it, that is, the second

negative, and from this negative already make new copies, that is, the film may disappear altogether so gone. in fact, many of the films in leningrad are those that were shot in the twenties, because after the evacuation of the partial alinfilm, there were some things. e, they are buried, for example, yes, well, so that incendiary bombs do not come across, because it must be recalled that at this time the film is still extremely combustible and if a spark gets there , everything can simply burn out, therefore, in moscow, i buried films in the yard in the boom, as it is believed that bezhin meadow was dug up and not dug up , this legend is the same as the films that were buried before the revolutionary filmmakers and entrepreneurial producers. yes, before they left for emigration, they also buried them in their yard at the studio, and then when these films were taken out, it turned out that they had all rotted away. let me remind you that this is a podcast of eisenstein's witnesses where we, film historians natalia ryabchikova stanislav devinsky, talk about who and how

created and watched classic well-known little-known forgotten soviet films in addition to people who were engaged in feature films, but there were people who made newsreels. as a matter of fact, who filmed combat front-line cameramen, and then it was going to film magazines, which were shown before each session. actually. here are your news. they were in your cinema just the same. like in the newspaper or on the radio. well, i still remember, even in my childhood, when you come to the cinema, and you will have a film show, it begins with newsreels. actually. it has always been that way since its inception. cinematography, always screenings of feature films, pretended to be the release of some kind of documentary with a story about the events of the last days of the last month. yes here, in this case, the main news, of course, we have only events at the front and chained to this. attention, all e spectators who lead look but what is happening there? yes, because we see

footage directly from the front lines. yes, of course, of course, this is the whole truth, as they would say, yes, but what should still be in many ways people in the rear are somehow encouraged to cheer up. yes , there are no stories here, or maybe heavy defeats about how things really are, but there is a story about what gives hope. here it must be said that, firstly, and military operators they appear before the start of the great patriotic war, they are in the spring, and forty-one years they form such a small brigade, and out of three, in my opinion, a person who should be here with the army and e it's like that. here's a presentation, or something of front-line operators, and then, and it's clear that in june 1941, a lot of people are either called up to the front or sent to the militia. or, uh, they want to thaw as volunteers, right? and let's say there are a lot of people who haven't finished the course yet. geek operators go to the front, just as

a cameraman and uh, not everything that they shoot later uh, they immediately show. yes, sometimes it's chronic. sometimes this is collected in longer full-length documentaries that begin to come out, then already from the russian german troops near moscow, these are , of course, later works, but they are based precisely on the work of cameramen, and over the previous years, the film chronicle of the great patriotic war is being formed in general , uh, which are stored are used constantly and it is clear that this is often shooting at the risk of life, and historians are trying to calculate, and the number of dead front-line operators. first, we tried to count. how many of them there were and for a long time it was believed that somewhere, and 250,260 more recently, already in the 21st century, they found. uh, edit sheets of the record. what was being filmed? yes and now according to these records restored. how many people made these records. it turned out that there were more than three hundred operators, plus hundreds more

people who were part of the front-line groups. that is, there were directors and only directors of sound operators. yes it happened and sound filming, and we still do. yes indeed exactly. i don't know how many there were. let's see an example of how direct operators work. locksmiths and teachers artists from steelworkers join extermination squads in worker battalions, this

film, the defeat of the german fascist troops near moscow, was personally controlled by stalin; in the thirties he was the main viewer of soviet cinema, almost everything that was done in soviet studios. he looked through , edited the script, changed the name, removed the directors, and so on. and this film, despite to the fact that in the future he had other concerns, more he moved away from, let's say, frequent viewing of the movie, this one he really edited and, for example, cleaned. uh, too wordy. here's the voice-over. even here it was noticeable that we hear more brown music. yes, we are watching. actually, we see these shots than they tell us something, and this, of course, was one of the reasons. why

was this movie so successful so popular it was shown while sold to america, it's true there is a refurbished version for the american to a different name, but this film won an oscar , that is, and, of course, the masters of cameramen were also awarded, because they really showed what was happening and, in general , soviet films suddenly appeared in the american box office in the forties. uh, within the framework of this allied one, and the allied commonwealth with solidarity, and we have some american films, and in america there are soviet ones. true, some films. there's even enough. smart insightful uh critics can't fully accept, let's say the film rainbow, which shoots with manganese, uh, he seems to be a critic in new york too naturalistic, too much, well,

somehow it’s such a tragedy that it crushes a child with a tank. why do they do it? what is it shown on the screen to endure here, the main thing from an american of american rules cannot and it is impossible for them to understand? how does it feel here inside the country. although this film was filmed in ashgabat, they are filming in winter, but in raduga and the ukrainian village there are absolutely such snowdrifts. how did they do it? we are still we don’t know for sure, because unfortunately the archives are already in the khovansky studio of the post-war years. died due to an earthquake. yes, we don't have enough materials, but the fact that it was possible is actually some kind of incredible feat. well , i must say that this part is very large. a tore called kinobova guatsii, yes , because all the major film studios of the country that are located on its western part are evacuated. come on, central asia in the caucasus yes, first of all, mosfilm, which is regulated in central asia, volmat linfilm is not so lucky, and the echelons in which it was

the loaded equipment remains in besieged leningrad and, in fact, they will practically stand there until the end of the war. yes, some things are gradually beginning to be transferred by planes, but this first winter of the siege of the echelon , everything was loaded at a frantic pace. it was all loaded in the summer, yes, but the ring closed too quickly and already the classics in the leningrad cinema were taken out to the mainland by planes. i understand correctly that this is the real story of this central film studio, which is formed in alma-ata. in general, this has not yet been written, and most importantly, what we know about it today is that absolutely heavy ones were filmed there. in the conditions of a shortage of all firewood for lighting, one of the main masterpieces of those years of soviet cinema is a film from a film, ivan the terrible well, yes, of course, this is the largest project, as they would say now, but the centrally united film studios, because it was launched before the war in the winter

of forty-one and in the summer of 41 is not very clear. is it necessary to continue making a film about ivan the terrible? but this is an order from above. yes, these are transfers from stalin from eisenstein and eisenstein asks bolshakov for the head of the film industry. but is it necessary to continue? yes, they say to him, yes, it is necessary, but when the moscow echelon arrived for 2 weeks, they went to almaty. yes , there are constant stops. lyubov orlova draws water into the kettle and so on. ah. right there they chop wood at these sub-stations, and when you reach alma-ata, you understand that, in general, the city is not adapted to living in such a large number , it will throw racists absolutely nowhere to settle, and under normal conditions, no filming, and they start filming more or less only forty the third year in alma-ata, and nevertheless it is necessary to make ivan the terrible, and einstein is very interested, is it necessary

to add these modern details there, as well as in alexander nevsky? yes, let's say, is it necessary to develop a line of cooperation, and the correspondence of ivan the terrible with elizabeth the first of england? yes, at this moment he needs to consult with his superiors, and the authorities are far away, and at this moment england is important to us now, we need to show it on the screen, they say to show it, but not very much. yes, even unique shots have been preserved where mikhail or rom e plays the role of the english queen. this is very funny in itself. yes , mikhail roma auditioned for the role of an english lysit very similar to the famous ones. portraits a unfortunately, yes, we only have samples, a the first series of ivan the terrible included this piece, where the terrible sends his ambassador to england to his sister, so dear elizabeth

dar you will bring their sweet sister to our elizabeth of agricia. yes, on these abrasives. eggs like the ships of her english sea, bypassing the baltic by the white sea for us to sail the germans, outwitting the livonians well, here you can see that these are not just historical details. although we know that the historical ivan corresponded with the historical elizabeth, but here there is a clear reference to the present, and these references can be found in wartime films quite unexpectedly, but, let's say the film koschey the immortal comes out well, it seems like a fairy tale. yes, but koschei

, who plays our favorite baba yaga, georgy millyar. he's like, uh, a skeleton that's kind of warlike too. he has some there is a hat of some kind of iron this helmet, which makes some kind of a knight of the livonian order out of it, and by analogy it turns out that he is also some kind of quite a hitler and uh, these references they appear consciously not consciously, because everyone is very interested. and what does the audience need, and how does one of the historians write in cinema? variable voleifamin on the very first day of the war , the first thing that went into the furnace was the secret plans that filmmakers had in case the war broke out, because it was so suddenly, that all these plans could no longer be carried out, completely new ones had to be invented. and how do you get out of it? what kind of stories you come up with with stories

was generally very difficult, because a wants to be closer to what is happening at the front. i would like, uh, to show the truth to the audience, but filmmakers are in the rear. one of those who was really looking for on the set, apparently some kind of material visual embodiment of the image of war. it was just mark donskoy yes, it’s true, who spoke today, who struck the american with his naturalism. in general, she is still amazed at her level of hmm crane magnetic cruelty. yes , they didn’t do that then, then later, after 20 years, when torgovkovsky will be filmed on three rublyovo soviet but how to return to this aesthetics of cruelty again. yes, ivan's childhood. but then it was absolutely a challenge. i think that he deliberately made margana to hook soviet viewers and not by accident, but when this film was seen in italy, it is believed, as

the legend says, that it largely influenced the formation of italian neo-realism, there is a trend in italian cinema that has emerged in the last year. and as a matter of fact, the second world war and e, which then influenced absolutely the entire world cinema. yes, when a movie is shot not in a pavilion, but somewhere in nature, when we see real life on the screen, because it is impossible to recreate the life of a pavilion. we see the ruined city. ruins we see, not even actors very often, but simply sitters or, as it were, extras, who graphically themselves and that's it. it is too partly comes, just, maybe from radagin. although, of course, they played at the donskoy. mostly actors, well, except for children, yes, and we know, for example, in films there is no realism. the children played themselves. one of the girls who appear on the screen in a rainbow grew up as a costume designer and continues to work as a curator of the museum's costume funds

. we have a rainbow fragment. the most final. let me wait for fate. until the end , they will drink it to the last drop. oh women, who from they will now die a big win win no no, let them wait before their women and their own children renounce them. let them say, no, they weren't our fathers. let them answer before the court of the people for our grief and torment. let the wrath of the people go on their heads and their land will not accept the damned.

it's pretty hard to show a rainbow on the screen, but it worked out nonetheless. i remind you that this is an eisenstein's witnesses podcast, uh, in which we talk about why and how to watch obscure and well-known films, what the viewer wanted to watch, what the viewer, but fell in love with immediately and forever. who nevertheless managed to make such films, including at the centrally united film studio, and these were films that somehow related, but to the war. sometimes it was about those who are waiting, let's say already from the front, as in the film. wait for me just according to simonov's script based on simon's driving poem or like in the movie two soldiers. and here there

is no longer any posterity that was in military film collections. and there is just very subtle, very calm acting, directing, in some places, for example, in the film two soldiers, when the soviet troops appear , even then. colleagues wrote in the newspapers that, well , somehow ours appear and the germans immediately all fall in piles there. well, a little naive. it’s clear that you want to understand, fighting spirit, yes , well, well, even colleagues see that they don’t, but when scenes appear more intimate, more such human sincere. yes, they can be, by the way, just like in rainbow but expressive, or they can be very, very calm, as in two fighters there. uh, sasha meets a girl, arcadia, in leningrad. he is trying to help, they quarrel, then you go away again, everything is built on some kind of friendly contacts we don’t recognize. there, what kind of fighters they are by and large. we know that they are beautiful by default, but the main one of us what kind of people,

yes, yes, and how do they hold on to this friendship, yes, they have it. here is another fighting partnership. and, of course, this film was immediately remembered by everyone for its songs, not some bogoslovsky wrote two masterpieces. generally. the soviet e, cinema music pop song is scows full of mullet and dark night, and it so happened that the song dark night could not be there at all in this one, but in this dugout, a dugout that flows right there almost on the screen is raining. yes, very quietly at night, mark bernes , who plays arkady with a guitar, fills this song and uh, as we know from the memoirs from the works of historians. uh, there was supposed to be a scene with writing and reading letters, and leonid, the crafty director, didn’t succeed in any way. well, something didn't work out, and then suddenly thought maybe a song.

bogoslovsky immediately made the melody, vladimir agapov immediately wrote the text, here is this dark night. yes , this is a favorite knowledge you do not sleep. eh, almost at night they raised da erness and he sang. only bullet only these wires. dim stars twinkle in the dark night you, my beloved, do not sleep, and secretly at the children's bed. are you shedding tears? the most offensive thing for this film is that before the release, nikita bogoslovsky gave the text and

music to utyosov, and he managed to record it and at first everyone heard the utyosov version, nevertheless, the bernes version is still won, despite the fact that it seemed to some that, well, it was somehow a little bit vulgar, especially this is such a thin line, on which everyone tried to stay. uh, what are we filming about, how serious it is, how much it helps the front. is it possible to make comedies for the front? yes , roughly speaking, is it necessary here and here is a wonderful neutralberg, which was just one of the creators of maxim's trilogy. maxim in the thirties makes the same film in almaty, which is called an actress. this is an operetta artist who goes to the rear, works there in theater, but lives with a woman who talks all the time, but there my son is at war, and you sing songs here. and the actress leaves the theater and goes to work, and as a nurse in the hospital. well , of course, there he meets this

military son of this very woman. she doesn't really know. from this he let's see, let's see, yes, what do you think goes leopard in the artillery you have to go. so again, you will sing for her after the war. that's great. you know what i would recommend. here go to any theater and in the evening before the start. announce that the performance is postponed until the end of the war, because we kindly believe that 5-50 is not the time now. let's see what the public will do with you then, especially the military. and what to talk to you when we don't understand a damn thing about art? i don't understand anything. only i want to say, obviously it was very tasty. do you understand? i do not understand, but i love art. here we are the military themselves, as it were, they say, no, your art. we need again quite a shame that when the movie came out it would seem all so correct, as and as it should be

scolded in the newspapers. well, finally we get to the importance of our podcast - this is a film that was created by the besieged leningrad film, nathan or notes of a mistress. e, about which we know from the memoirs that are still in the museum of cinema and theater in lithuania, this has not yet been published, but we looked through these memoirs . and now we can tell something, but the main problem is that filip is still his only copy in the german state limofund, even and nowhere in it is impossible to look at it on the internet. clearly, the chronicle is filmed in leningrad, of course, the cameramen remain there. the film remains there , and we know that the film lived and was a girl who has already been released, and after the end of the blockade, it was partially filmed, until it was removed. yes, the blockade was very important for the director vladimir and symont, in order to show exactly the shots from this same leningrad. once upon

a time there was a girl being filmed. for forty- three years now. and what is happening in leningrad in forty-one forty-two