Aleksandr Ptushko
Encyclopedia
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko ' onMouseout='HidePop("62312")' href="/topics/Russian_Empire">Russian Empire
– March 6, 1973 in Moscow
, Soviet Union
) is a Soviet animation and fantasy
film director
, and Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR
. Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney
," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis O'Brien
or Ray Harryhausen
. Some critics, such as Tim Lucas
and Alan Upchurch, have also compared Ptushko to Italian filmmaker Mario Bava
, who made fantasy and horror films with similarities to Ptushko's work and made similarly innovative use of color cinematography and special effects. He began his film career as a director and animator of stop-motion short films, and became a director of feature length films combining live-action, stop-motion, creative special effects, and Russian mythology
. Along the way he would be responsible for a number of firsts in Russian film history (including the first feature
-length animated film, and the first film in color), and would make several extremely popular and internationally praised films full of visual flair and spectacle.
studio. He began as a maker of puppets for stop-motion animated short films made by other directors, and rapidly became a director of his own series of silent puppet films featuring a character called Bratishkin. From 1928 to 1932, Ptushko designed and directed several of these "Bratishkin shorts." During these years, Ptushko experimented with various animation techniques, including the combination of puppets and live action
in the same frame, and became well known for his skills in cinematic effects work. Virtually all of these short films are now lost.
In 1933, Ptushko, along with the animation crew he had assembled over the years, began work on his first feature film entitled The New Gulliver
. Written and directed by Ptushko, The New Gulliver was one of the world's first feature length
animated films, and was also one of the first feature length film to combine stop-motion animation with live-action footage. (Many claim that it was the first to do this, but Willis O'Brien
had made The Lost World
in 1925 and King Kong
in 1933. The New Gulliver was, however, far more complex, as it featured 3,000 different puppets.) The story, a Communist re-telling of Gulliver's Travels
, is about a young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation. The New Gulliver was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan.
After the success of The New Gulliver, Ptushko was allowed by Mosfilm to set up his own department, which became known as "the Ptushko Collective," for the making of stop-motion animated films. This group of filmmakers would produce another fourteen animated shorts from 1936 to 1938. The direction of these shorts was rarely handled by Ptushko, though he would always act as the artistic supervisor for the group. These shorts were also frequently based on folktales and fairy-tales, a genre which was to become the source of Ptushko's greatest success.
In 1938, Ptushko began work on The Golden Key, another feature length film combining stop-motion animation with live action. An adaptation of the Pinocchio
story, and one which predated the Disney version by two years, this film was also highly successful in the Soviet Union, and did achieve limited released outside the country. Despite its success, The Golden Key was to be Ptushko's last foray into animation.
During World War II
, most of Moscow's film community, including Aleksandr Ptushko, were evacuated to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan
. He continued working in special effects, but would not direct another film until the end of the war.
. Despite being the first Russian film to be made in color, it won a "special prize for the use of color" at the first Cannes Film Festival
in 1946. With its plotline, featuring a focus on character over effects and the use of mythology
as a primary source, The Stone Flower set the tone for the next twelve years of Ptushko's career.
He followed The Stone Flower with Sadko
(the film, which was heavily recut and retitled The Magic Voyage of Sinbad for American release, is an adaptation of a Russian bylina
[epic tale] with no connection to Sindbad), Ilya Muromets
(retitled The Sword and the Dragon for American release), and Sampo
(an adaptation of the Finnish national epic The Kalevala
retitled The Day the Earth Froze for American release). Each film in the sequence was a theatrical retelling of epic mythology, and each was extremely visually ambitious. Sadko won the "Silver Lion" award at the Venice Film Festival
in 1953. Ilya Muromets was another of Ptushko's famous 'firsts' in Soviet cinema, being the first Soviet film to be made using widescreen photography and stereo sound. Ilya Muromets is also widely claimed to hold the record for most people and horses ever to be used in a film (the IMDB lists the tagline for the film as: "A cast of 106,000! 11,000 Horses!").
, Ptushko briefly abandoned epic fantasy for more realistic scripts. His first work in this vein was Scarlet Sails
, a romantic adventure story set in the late 19th century. It retained much of the visual power of Ptushko's previous films, but greatly reduced the fantastical elements and the amount of special effects whilst focusing on character interaction and development to an extent not seen since The Stone Flower. Following Scarlet Sails, Ptushko made A Tale of Time Lost, a story about children whose youth is stolen by elderly mages, reintroduced the fantastical vein. Uniquely for Ptushko, the film featured a modern-day, real world Moscow setting.
In 1966 Ptushko returned to the genre of epic fantasy, creating The Tale of Tsar Saltan
. In 1968 he began work on the largest film project of his career Ruslan and Ludmila, which was also to prove his last. Running for 149 minutes (split into two feature length segments), Ruslan and Ludmila was a film adaptation of Aleksandr Pushkin
's epic poem of the same name
, and was filled with the sumptuous visuals and technical wizardry for which Ptushko had become known. The film took four years to complete, and was released in 1972.
Aleksander Ptushko died a few months after its release, aged 72.
.
. The three re-edited films from Ptushko's epic fantasy period, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, The Sword and the Dragon, and The Day the Earth Froze were used as fodder for the show's humorous wisecracks in its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons (episodes 422, 505, and 617).
Though it may be considered a dubious distinction for a film to be aired as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000
series, it is worth mentioning that the versions of Ptushko's films which were used were the heavily re-edited and dubbed versions created specifically for American release, radically different from Ptushko's originals in all but their visuals.
It is also worth noting that Kevin Murphy, one of the stars of the program, has professed a love for the "breathtaking" visual style of these films in multiple interviews. Paul Chaplin, another writer of the show, has also expressed admiration.
Sadko
and Ilya Muromets
have since been fully restored and released on DVD in their original Russian versions by RusCiCo.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
– March 6, 1973 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
) is a Soviet animation and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, and Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR
Meritorious Artist
Meritorious Artist , also translated as Merited Artist, Deserved Artist or Distinguished Artist or Honorary Artist or Honorable Actor) is an honorary title in the Soviet Union, Russian Federation, Union republics, and Autonomous republics, also in some other Eastern bloc states, as well as in a...
. Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien
Willis Harold O'Brien was an Irish American pioneering motion picture special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was affectionately known to his family and close friends as "Obie"....
or Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
. Some critics, such as Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...
and Alan Upchurch, have also compared Ptushko to Italian filmmaker Mario Bava
Mario Bava
Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...
, who made fantasy and horror films with similarities to Ptushko's work and made similarly innovative use of color cinematography and special effects. He began his film career as a director and animator of stop-motion short films, and became a director of feature length films combining live-action, stop-motion, creative special effects, and Russian mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. Along the way he would be responsible for a number of firsts in Russian film history (including the first feature
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
-length animated film, and the first film in color), and would make several extremely popular and internationally praised films full of visual flair and spectacle.
Puppet Animation Era
Aleksandr Ptushko began his film career in 1927 by gaining employment with Moscow's MosfilmMosfilm
Mosfilm is a film studio, which is often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein , to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production and the epic Война и Мир...
studio. He began as a maker of puppets for stop-motion animated short films made by other directors, and rapidly became a director of his own series of silent puppet films featuring a character called Bratishkin. From 1928 to 1932, Ptushko designed and directed several of these "Bratishkin shorts." During these years, Ptushko experimented with various animation techniques, including the combination of puppets and live action
Live action
In filmmaking, video production, and other media, the term live action refers to cinematography, videography not produced using animation...
in the same frame, and became well known for his skills in cinematic effects work. Virtually all of these short films are now lost.
In 1933, Ptushko, along with the animation crew he had assembled over the years, began work on his first feature film entitled The New Gulliver
The New Gulliver
The New Gulliver is a Soviet stop motion-animated cartoon, and the first to make such extensive use of puppet animation, running almost all the way through the film . The film was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan...
. Written and directed by Ptushko, The New Gulliver was one of the world's first feature length
Feature length
Feature length is motion picture terminology referring to the length of a feature film. According to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a feature length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes to be eligible for an Academy Award.The term may also...
animated films, and was also one of the first feature length film to combine stop-motion animation with live-action footage. (Many claim that it was the first to do this, but Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien
Willis Harold O'Brien was an Irish American pioneering motion picture special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was affectionately known to his family and close friends as "Obie"....
had made The Lost World
The Lost World (1925 film)
The Lost World is a 1925 silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. The movie was produced by First National Pictures, a large Hollywood studio at the time, and stars Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger. This version was directed by Harry O...
in 1925 and King Kong
King Kong (1933 film)
King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
in 1933. The New Gulliver was, however, far more complex, as it featured 3,000 different puppets.) The story, a Communist re-telling of Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
, is about a young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation. The New Gulliver was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan.
After the success of The New Gulliver, Ptushko was allowed by Mosfilm to set up his own department, which became known as "the Ptushko Collective," for the making of stop-motion animated films. This group of filmmakers would produce another fourteen animated shorts from 1936 to 1938. The direction of these shorts was rarely handled by Ptushko, though he would always act as the artistic supervisor for the group. These shorts were also frequently based on folktales and fairy-tales, a genre which was to become the source of Ptushko's greatest success.
In 1938, Ptushko began work on The Golden Key, another feature length film combining stop-motion animation with live action. An adaptation of the Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
story, and one which predated the Disney version by two years, this film was also highly successful in the Soviet Union, and did achieve limited released outside the country. Despite its success, The Golden Key was to be Ptushko's last foray into animation.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, most of Moscow's film community, including Aleksandr Ptushko, were evacuated to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
. He continued working in special effects, but would not direct another film until the end of the war.
Mythological Epic Era
At the end of World War II, Ptushko returned to Moscow and became the first Russian director to make a film in color, using three-color Agfa film stock which had been seized in Germany. Using this color film stock, Ptushko created his first feature length folktale adaptation, The Stone FlowerThe Stone Flower
The Stone Flower is a 1946 Soviet fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. It was the Soviet Union's first color film shot on AgfaColor negative film seized in Germany, and was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival...
. Despite being the first Russian film to be made in color, it won a "special prize for the use of color" at the first Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1946. With its plotline, featuring a focus on character over effects and the use of mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
as a primary source, The Stone Flower set the tone for the next twelve years of Ptushko's career.
He followed The Stone Flower with Sadko
Sadko (film)
Sadko is a 1952 Russian fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. The film is based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which was based on a Russian bylina with the same name, and scored with Rimsky-Korsakov's music from the opera....
(the film, which was heavily recut and retitled The Magic Voyage of Sinbad for American release, is an adaptation of a Russian bylina
Bylina
Bylina or Bylyna is a traditional Russian oral epic narrative poem. Byliny singers loosely utilize historical fact greatly embellished with fantasy or hyperbole to create their songs...
[epic tale] with no connection to Sindbad), Ilya Muromets
Ilya Muromets (film)
Ilya Muromets , known in the US as The Sword and the Dragon and in the UK as The Epic Hero and the Beast , is a Russian fantasy film directed by the noted fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko, made at Mosfilm and released in 1956. It is based on the byliny tales of the bogatyr Ilya Muromets...
(retitled The Sword and the Dragon for American release), and Sampo
Sampo (film)
Sampo is a Russian and Finnish language 1959 joint Finnish and Soviet production based loosely on the events depicted in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. A significantly edited version called The Day the Earth Froze was released internationally. This version was later featured in the American...
(an adaptation of the Finnish national epic The Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
retitled The Day the Earth Froze for American release). Each film in the sequence was a theatrical retelling of epic mythology, and each was extremely visually ambitious. Sadko won the "Silver Lion" award at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in 1953. Ilya Muromets was another of Ptushko's famous 'firsts' in Soviet cinema, being the first Soviet film to be made using widescreen photography and stereo sound. Ilya Muromets is also widely claimed to hold the record for most people and horses ever to be used in a film (the IMDB lists the tagline for the film as: "A cast of 106,000! 11,000 Horses!").
Late career
After SampoSampo (film)
Sampo is a Russian and Finnish language 1959 joint Finnish and Soviet production based loosely on the events depicted in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. A significantly edited version called The Day the Earth Froze was released internationally. This version was later featured in the American...
, Ptushko briefly abandoned epic fantasy for more realistic scripts. His first work in this vein was Scarlet Sails
Scarlet Sails (film)
Scarlet Sails is a 1961 Soviet film produced by Mosfilm and directed by Alexandr Ptushko. It is based on Alexander Grin's 1923 adventure novel of the same name and stars Vasily Lanovoy and Anastasiya Vertinskaya. The story is a romantic fantasy and is described as a "fairy tale", though it...
, a romantic adventure story set in the late 19th century. It retained much of the visual power of Ptushko's previous films, but greatly reduced the fantastical elements and the amount of special effects whilst focusing on character interaction and development to an extent not seen since The Stone Flower. Following Scarlet Sails, Ptushko made A Tale of Time Lost, a story about children whose youth is stolen by elderly mages, reintroduced the fantastical vein. Uniquely for Ptushko, the film featured a modern-day, real world Moscow setting.
In 1966 Ptushko returned to the genre of epic fantasy, creating The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan is an 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, written after the Russian fairy tale edited by Vladimir Dahl...
. In 1968 he began work on the largest film project of his career Ruslan and Ludmila, which was also to prove his last. Running for 149 minutes (split into two feature length segments), Ruslan and Ludmila was a film adaptation of Aleksandr Pushkin
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
's epic poem of the same name
Ruslan and Ludmila (poem)
Ruslan and Ludmila is a poem by Alexander Pushkin, published in 1820. It is written as an epic fairy tale consisting of a dedication , six "songs" or "cantos", and an epilogue...
, and was filled with the sumptuous visuals and technical wizardry for which Ptushko had become known. The film took four years to complete, and was released in 1972.
Aleksander Ptushko died a few months after its release, aged 72.
American Re-Edits of Ptushko Films
When Ptushko's films were released in the United States, they were dubbed and re-edited, and the names of most of the cast and crew members were replaced with pseudonyms. While these practices were common at the time for releases of foreign films in the United States that were aimed at a mainstream audience, these modifications were also made to obscure the Russian origin of these films in order to improve their commercial prospects during the height of the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
- Valiant Pictures distributed a version of Ilya Muromets in 1960 under the title The Sword and the Dragon. In this version the total running time was reduced from 95 to 83 minutes, and the stereo soundtrack was removed during the English redub. The character names were also made less 'Russian-sounding': 'Svyatogor' was changed to 'Invincor,' and 'Vladimir' to 'Vanda.' The name 'Ilya Muromets' was, however, left unchanged.
- Roger CormanRoger CormanRoger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
's Filmgroup released Sadko in 1962 under the title The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. The Filmgroup version reduced the total running time from 89 to 79 minutes, re-dubbed it into English, and the character name 'Sadko' was replaced with 'Sinbad.' Notably, the "Script Adaptor" for this version of the film was a young Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
. In this opening credits of this version, the direction of the film is credited to "Alfred Posco."
- American International PicturesAmerican International PicturesAmerican International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
released a drastically shortened version of Sampo in 1964 retitled The Day the Earth Froze. The most heavily altered of the three, The Day the Earth Froze had a running time of only 67 minutes, down 24 minutes from the 91 minute runtime of the Soviet original. It was also re-dubbed into English. This film, while not having its character names altered, still had its credits heavily 'de-Russified': Ptushko was credited as "Gregg Sebelious," Andris Oshin was listed in the pressbook as 'Jon Powers' (and was described as a Finno-Swiss ski-lift attendant), and Eve Kivi was listed as 'Nina Anderson' (a half Finnish, half American beauty queen, figure skater, and stamp collector).
Mystery Science Theater 3000
The works of Aleksandr Ptushko are now perhaps best known to native English speakers for their inclusion in the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
. The three re-edited films from Ptushko's epic fantasy period, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, The Sword and the Dragon, and The Day the Earth Froze were used as fodder for the show's humorous wisecracks in its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons (episodes 422, 505, and 617).
Though it may be considered a dubious distinction for a film to be aired as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
series, it is worth mentioning that the versions of Ptushko's films which were used were the heavily re-edited and dubbed versions created specifically for American release, radically different from Ptushko's originals in all but their visuals.
It is also worth noting that Kevin Murphy, one of the stars of the program, has professed a love for the "breathtaking" visual style of these films in multiple interviews. Paul Chaplin, another writer of the show, has also expressed admiration.
Sadko
Sadko (film)
Sadko is a 1952 Russian fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. The film is based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which was based on a Russian bylina with the same name, and scored with Rimsky-Korsakov's music from the opera....
and Ilya Muromets
Ilya Muromets (film)
Ilya Muromets , known in the US as The Sword and the Dragon and in the UK as The Epic Hero and the Beast , is a Russian fantasy film directed by the noted fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko, made at Mosfilm and released in 1956. It is based on the byliny tales of the bogatyr Ilya Muromets...
have since been fully restored and released on DVD in their original Russian versions by RusCiCo.
Filmography
Original Russian titles noted where possible. See discussion page for source information.Feature Films Directed
- Новый Гулливер (The New GulliverThe New GulliverThe New Gulliver is a Soviet stop motion-animated cartoon, and the first to make such extensive use of puppet animation, running almost all the way through the film . The film was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan...
, 1935) -- director, script writer - Zolotoy Klyuchik (The Golden Key, 1939) -- director, producer
- Каменный цветок (The Stone FlowerThe Stone FlowerThe Stone Flower is a 1946 Soviet fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. It was the Soviet Union's first color film shot on AgfaColor negative film seized in Germany, and was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival...
, 1946) -- director, production designer - Садко (SadkoSadko (film)Sadko is a 1952 Russian fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. The film is based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which was based on a Russian bylina with the same name, and scored with Rimsky-Korsakov's music from the opera....
, 1952) -- director - Илья Муромец (Ilya MurometsIlya Muromets (film)Ilya Muromets , known in the US as The Sword and the Dragon and in the UK as The Epic Hero and the Beast , is a Russian fantasy film directed by the noted fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko, made at Mosfilm and released in 1956. It is based on the byliny tales of the bogatyr Ilya Muromets...
, 1956) -- director - Сампо (SampoSampo (film)Sampo is a Russian and Finnish language 1959 joint Finnish and Soviet production based loosely on the events depicted in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. A significantly edited version called The Day the Earth Froze was released internationally. This version was later featured in the American...
, 1959) -- director - Алые паруса (Scarlet SailsScarlet Sails (film)Scarlet Sails is a 1961 Soviet film produced by Mosfilm and directed by Alexandr Ptushko. It is based on Alexander Grin's 1923 adventure novel of the same name and stars Vasily Lanovoy and Anastasiya Vertinskaya. The story is a romantic fantasy and is described as a "fairy tale", though it...
, 1961) -- director - Сказка о потерянном времени (A Tale of Time Lost, 1964) -- director
- Сказка о царе Салтане (The Tale of Tsar SaltanThe Tale of Tsar SaltanThe Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan is an 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, written after the Russian fairy tale edited by Vladimir Dahl...
, 1966) -- director, script writer - Руслан и Людмила (Ruslan and LudmilaRuslan and Lyudmila (film)Ruslan and Ludmila is a 1972 film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. Based on the poem of the same name written by Alexander Pushkin in 1820.- External links :* "." at Cinema Strikes Back...
, 1972) -- director, script writer
Other Feature Film Work
- AerogradAerogradAerograd , is a 1935 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, a coproduction between Mosfilm and VUFKU. It is an adventure story set in the Soviet Far East in the future.- Cast :*Stepan Shagaida as Stepan Glushak...
(1935) -- director of combination shots - Deti Kapitana Granta (Captain Grant's Children, 1936) -- cinematographer and director of combination shots
- Batyri Stepey (Batyri of the Steppes, 1942) -- special effects director
- Paren iz nashego goroda (A Lad From Our Town, 1942) -- special effects production director
- Sekretar raykoma (Regional Party Secretary, 1942) -- special effects production director
- Front (1943) -- special effects
- Nebo Moskvy (The Skies of Moscow, 1944) -- director of combination shots
- ZoyaZoya (film)Zoya is a 1944 Soviet war film directed by Lev Arnshtam. It was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:*Galina Vodyanitskaya as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya*Tamara Altseva as Zoya's Teacher*Aleksey Batalov*Anatoli Kuznetsov as Boris Fomin...
(1944) -- special effects - Nashe Serdtse (Our Heart, 1946) -- special effects
- Tri vstrechi (Three Encounters, 1948) -- co-director
- My Friend, Kolka (1961) -- artistic director
- Beat Up, Drum! (1962) -- artistic director
- Fuse#3 (1962) -- script writer
- Вий (ViyViy (film)Viy is a 1967 horror film produced by Mosfilm and based on the Nikolai Gogol story of the same name.-Synopsis:...
, 1967) -- script writer, artistic director, director of combination shots
Short Films
- Propavshaya Gramota (The Missing Certificate/Lost Literacy, 1927) -- animator
- Sluchay na stadione (An Incident at the Stadium, 1928) -- director, designer
- Shifrovanny dokument (The Coded Document, 1928) -- director, script writer, animator
- Sto priklyucheni (One Hundred Adventures, 1929) -- director, script writer, animator
- Kino v derevnyu! (Cinema to the Countryside!, 1930) -- director, designer
- Krepi oboronu (Strengthen Our Defenses, 1930) -- director, script writer, animator
- Vlastelin byta (The Lord of Family Life, 1932) -- director, script writer, animator
- Repka (The Little Turnip, 1936) -- script writer, artistic supervisor
- Volk i Zhuravl (The Wolf and the CraneThe Wolf and the CraneThe Wolf and the Crane is a fable attributed to Aesop that has several eastern analogues. Similar stories have a lion instead of a wolf, and a stork, heron or partridge takes the place of the crane.-The fable and its alternative versions:...
, 1936) -- artistic supervisor - Lisa i Vinograd (The Fox and the GrapesThe Fox and the Grapes"The Fox and the Grapes" is one of the traditional Aesop's fables and can be held to illustrate the concept of cognitive dissonance. In this view, the premise of the fox that covets inaccessible grapes is taken to stand for a person who attempts to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously...
, 1936) -- artistic supervisor - Rodina Zovet (The Motherland CallsThe Motherland CallsThe Motherland Calls, , also called Mother Motherland, Mother Motherland Is Calling, simply The Motherland, or The Mamayev Monument, is a statue in Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer...
, 1936) -- artistic supervisor - Vesyolye muzykanty (The Merry Musicians, 1937) -- director, script writer
- Skazka o rybake i rybke (The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, 1937) -- director, script writer, animator
- Zaveshchaniye (The Will, 1937) -- script writer
- Lisa i Volk (The Fox and the Wolf, 1937) -- script writer, artistic supervisor
- Malenky-Udalenky (The Little Daring One/Tiny and Remote, 1938) -- script writer
- Pyos i kot (The Dog and the Cat, 1938) -- script writer
External links
- Ruscico's Ptushko page - includes small biography and links to purchase DVDs.
- University of Pittsburgh 2002 Russian Film Symposium website - includes medium length biography and links to essays on The New Gulliver, The Stone Flower, Sadko, and Viy.
- Ptushko's grave