Mikhail Romm is a famous Soviet director, screenwriter. He is a laureate of several Stalin Prizes and People's Artist of the USSR, many of his films have been awarded various prizes and awards. He is a classic of Soviet cinema, who influenced the formation of the aesthetics of Soviet cinema and became a teacher for a whole galaxy of famous filmmakers.
Biography
Mikhail Romm was born in Irkutsk, where, shortly before, his father was expelled for clandestine revolutionary work in 1901. According to various sources, his date of birth is January 24 or February 21. His parents were doctors: his father was a bacteriologist, his mother was a dentist. A year after the birth of Mikhail, the family was expelled to Zaigraevo (Buryatia), where they lived for several years, after which they moved to Moscow.
There Romm studied at the gymnasium and entered the School of Sculpture and Architecture. Film critics note that sculpture studies influenced the style of Romm as a director - his films are characterized by great attention to texture, a special relief of faces. During the Civil War, Romm joined the Red Army, where he was a signalman, and also served on the food commission. After returning, he entered the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute; in addition, in 1922-1923 he studied at the cinematographic workshop of Lev Kuleshov.
After graduating from the institute in 1925, Mikhail Romm worked as a journalist, screenwriter and translator.
Since 1931, Romm was an assistant director at the Soyuzkino studio, and in 1934 his first directorial film Pyshka was released.
In 1936, he met his future wife - actress Elena Kuzmina, who starred in his film "Thirteen."
In 1937 and 1939, Romm made two films about Lenin (Lenin in October and Lenin in 1918), thanks to which he received official recognition.
In 1941, he shot one of the most famous paintings in his career - âDreamâ.
Since 1938, Romm taught directing at VGIK. Among his students are many classics of Soviet and Russian cinema: A. Tarkovsky, V. Shukshin, T. Abuladze, D. Asanova, G. Chukhrai, B. Yashin, S. Soloviev and others.
In 1956, Romm's melodrama âMurder on Dante Streetâ was released. The film was successfully rented and glorified young Mikhail Kozakov, who played in it.
In 1962, he makes the film âNine Days of One Year,â which becomes a new stage in his creative career.
In 1965, Romm shot the documentary âOrdinary Fascismâ - a study using the cinematography of the phenomenon of mass psychosis. The last documentary film by Mikhail Romm âAnd Still I Believe ...â remained incomplete and was completed after his death by M. Khutsiev and E. Klimov.
He died on November 1, 1971, was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.
And now a few words about the most famous films of Mikhail Romm.
âDummyâ
Romm's debut film âPyshkaâ, released in 1934, became one of the last silent films in the Soviet Union - in the same year officially there was a complete transition of Soviet cinematography to sound cinema. âPyshkaâ (based on the novel by Guy de Maupassant) is a comedy exposing the vices of a bourgeois society, telling about hypocritical gentlemen and a respectable prostitute. One of the many advantages of the film is the cast: for example, in this film, Faina Ranevskaya played her first film role.
"Thirteen"
The motion picture by Mikhail Romm âThirteenâ of 1936 was shot under the influence of Westerns, namely, John Ford's âLost Patrolâ. âThirteenâ is an adventure and war movie telling about the struggle of a detachment of the Red Army and the Basmachi (the guerrilla movement of Central Asia opposing the Soviet regime). This picture is considered one of the first Soviet âdesert filmsâ or âwesternsâ (named so by analogy with westerns). It influenced not only the Soviet cinema, but also the world: in the USA, three remakes of âThirteenâ were subsequently filmed - âSaharaâ by Zoltan Kord, âSaharaâ by Brian Trenchard-Smith and âThe Last of the Comanchesâ Andre to Thoth.
"Dream"
The 1941 film âDreamâ is an existential drama and tragicomedy dedicated to the inhabitants of the hostel of the same name, their broken destinies, hopes and disappointments, the gulf between a beautiful illusion and an oppressive reality. Only the main character, a young girl who left the village, lacks the strength of mind not to break, but to continue to move on in search of her happiness. The role of the hostess of the guesthouse Rosa Skorokhod was played by Faina Ranevskaya. After watching The Dream, US President Franklin Roosevelt called her a brilliant tragic actress, and the film itself is magnificent. The film âDreamâ Mikhail Romm called âvery personalâ - it is based on his childhood memories, the characters of his family.
âNine days of one yearâ
âNine Days of One Yearâ comes out in 1962 and becomes one of the most important films of the sixties. This picture tells about the work of nuclear physicists and about the moral issues they face in the process of their research. The film âNine Days of One Yearâ marks the emergence of a new Soviet hero - a scientist, an intellectual. This theme is present in many works of the sixties: it was a period of a surge of interest in science, faith in reason, and the search for a new aesthetic.
âOrdinary Fascismâ
âOrdinary Fascismâ (1965) is a documentary film in which the captured movie archives of Nazi Germany are used, which with the help of editing and musical accompaniment become the authorâs statement of the director. A feature of the film is the voice-over voice of the director Mikhail Romm himself - unlike the solemnity and facelessness that is usual in documentary films, his voice seems human, ordinary, lively, which further emphasizes the anti-totalitarian pathos of the film. The film âOrdinary Fascismâ was very successful: for two years of rental it was watched by 25 million viewers.