Sergei Parajanov
Encyclopedia
Sergei Parajanov was a Soviet Armenian
film director
and artist.
He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism
(the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet cinema authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him and suppress his films.
Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later disowned all of his pre-1964 works as "garbage". After directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
(renamed Wild Horses of Fire for most foreign distributions) Parajanov had become something of an international celebrity and simultaneously a target of attacks from the system. Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965–1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film administration, both local (in Kiev
and Yerevan
) and federal (infamous Goskino
), almost without discussion until he was finally arrested in late 1973 on trumped-up charges of rape
, homosexuality
and bribery
. Parajanov was imprisoned until 1977, despite a plethora of pleas for pardon from various esteemed artists.
Even after his release (he would be arrested for the third and last time in 1982) he was a persona non grata
in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the political climate started to relax, that he could resume directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films green-lighted. His health seriously weakened by four years in labor camps and nine months in a Tbilisi prison, Parajanov died of lung cancer
in 1990, at the time when, after almost 20 years of suppression, his films were finally again allowed to be featured in foreign film festivals.
parents Iosif Paradjanov and Siranush Bejanova, in Tbilisi, Georgia. His childhood was blessed with having access to art from an early age. In 1945, Parajanov traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at the VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools of Europe
, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko
and Aleksandr Dovzhenko. In 1948 he was convicted of homosexual acts
(which were illegal at the time in the Soviet Union) with a MGB
officer named Nikolai Mikava in Tbilisi. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but was amnestied after being incarcerated for three months.
In 1950 Parajanov married his first wife, Nigyar Kerimova in Moscow
. She came from a Muslim Tatar family and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to marry Parajanov, to terrible consequences: she was later murdered by her relatives in retaliation for her conversion. As a result of this tragic event Parajanov left Russia
for Kiev, Ukraine
. There he produced a few documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films: Andriesh (based on the fairy tale by Moldovan writer Emilian Bukov
), The Top Guy (a kolkhoz
musical), Ukrainian Rhapsody (a wartime melodrama), and Flower on the Stone (about a religious cult infiltrating a mining town in the Donets Basin
). He learned and became fluent in Ukrainian
and remarried (with Svitlana Ivanivna Shcherbatiuk aka Svetlana Sherbatiuk aka Svetlana Parajanov) in 1956. Shcherbatiuk gave him a son (Suren, 1958).
Tarkovsky's first film Ivan's Childhood had an enormous impact on Parajanov's self-discovery as a filmmaker (later the influence became mutual, they were also close friends). In 1964 he abandoned socialist realism
and directed the poetic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
, his first film in which he had complete creative control and which won numerous international awards. Unlike the subsequent The Color of Pomegranates
, it was relatively well-received by the Soviet authorities. The Script Editorial Board at Goskino of Ukraine praised the film for “conveying the poetic quality and philosophical depth of M. Kotsiubynsky’s tale through the language of cinema” and called it “a brilliant creative success of the Dovzhenko studio.”
Moscow also agreed to Goskino of Ukraine's request to release the film with its original Ukrainian soundtrack intact rather than re-dub the dialogue into Russian for Soviet-wide release, in order to preserve its Ukrainian flavor. (Russian dubbing was standard practice at that time for non-Russian Soviet films when they were distributed outside the republic of origin.)
Parajanov departed Kiev shortly afterwards for his motherland of Armenia
. In 1968, he embarked on Sayat Nova, a film which many consider to be his crowning achievement, though it was shot under relatively poor conditions and had a very small budget. Soviet censors intervened once again and immediately banned Sayat Nova for its allegedly inflammatory content. Parajanov re-edited his footage and renamed the film, The Color of Pomegranates
. It remains his best-known and most emblematic film. Critic Alexei Korotyukov remarked: "Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God." Mikhail Vartanov
wrote in 1969 that "...Besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until The Color of Pomegranates
...".
for "a rape of a Communist Party member, and the propagation of pornography." Three days before he was sentenced, Andrei Tarkovsky
wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, asserting that "In the last ten years Sergei Paradjanov has made only two films: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. They have influenced cinema first in the Ukraine, second in this country as a whole, and third – in the world at large? Artistically, there are few people in the entire world who could replace Paradjanov. He is guilty – guilty of his solitude. We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master."
An eclectic group of artists, filmmakers and activists protested, to little avail, on behalf of Parajanov, among them, Yves Saint Laurent, Françoise Sagan
, Jean-Luc Godard
, François Truffaut
, Luis Buñuel
, Federico Fellini
, Michelangelo Antonioni
, Andrei Tarkovsky
, and Mikhail Vartanov
). Parajanov served four years out of his five year sentence, and later credited his early release to the efforts of the French
Surrealist poet and novelist Louis Aragon
, the Russian poet Elsa Triolet
(Aragon's wife), and the American writer John Updike
. His early release was authorised by Leonid Brezhnev
, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, presumably as a consequence of the General Secretary's chance meeting with Aragon and Triolet at the Bolshoi Theatre
in Moscow. When asked by the Secretary if he could be of any assistance, Aragon requested the release of Parajanov, which was effected by December 1977.
While incarcerated Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost) and some 800 drawings and collages, many of which were later displayed in Yerevan
, where the Parajanov Museum is now permanently located. The museum opened in 1991, a year after Parajanov’s death, and hosts more than 200 works as well as furnishings from his home in Tbilisi
. His efforts in the camp were repeatedly compromised by prison guards, who deprived him of materials and called him mad, their cruelty only subsiding after a statement from Moscow admitted "the Director is very talented."
Upon his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented Parajanov from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards artistic outlets which he had nurtured during his time in prison. He crafted extraordinarily intricate collages, created a large collection of abstract drawings and pursued numerous other avenues of non-cinematic art, sewing more dolls and some whimsical suits.
In February 1982 Parajanov was once again imprisoned, on charges of bribery, which happened to coincide with his return to Moscow for the premiere of a play commemorating Vladimir Vysotsky
at the Taganka Theatre
, and were affected with some degree of trickery. Despite another stiff sentence, he was freed in less than a year with his health seriously weakened. By 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union
spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian
intellectuals, he created the multi-award winning Legend of Suram Fortress based on the novella by Daniel Chonkadze
, his first return to cinema since Sayat Nova first premiered fifteen years earlier. In 1988 Parajanov made another multi-award winning film, Ashik Kerib
, based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov
. It is the story of a wandering minstrel set in the Azeri culture. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky
and "to all the children from the world".
Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved too monumental to withstand his failing health. He died of cancer
in Yerevan
, Armenia
, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving his final masterpiece, The Confession unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Parajanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov
in 1992. He left behind a book of memoirs, also titled "The Confession". Federico Fellini
, Tonino Guerra
, Francesco Rosi
, Alberto Moravia
, Giulietta Masina
, Marcello Mastroianni
and Bernardo Bertolucci
were among those who publicly mourned his passing. A telegram that came to Russia read "The world of cinema has lost a magician".
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010 to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937–2009).
's dreamlike first film Ivan's Childhood. Parajanov had many admirers of his art but, as in the case of Orson Welles
(another unique artist) his vision did not attract many followers. "Whoever tries to imitate me is lost", he reportedly said once. However there are directors like Theo Angelopoulos
, Béla Tarr
and Mohsen Makhmalbaf
who share Parajanov's approach to film as a visual medium opposed to a narrative tool like literature.
Among his projects, there also were plans for adapting Longfellow
's The Song of Hiawatha
, Shakespeare's Hamlet
, Goethe's Faust
, the Old East Slavic poem The Tale of Igor's Campaign
, but film scripts for these were never completed.
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
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 artist.
He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
(the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behaviour, led Soviet cinema authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him and suppress his films.
Although he started professional film-making in 1954, Parajanov later disowned all of his pre-1964 works as "garbage". After directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors , also called Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Shadows of Our Ancestors, or Wild Horses of Fire – is a 1964 film by the Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the book by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky...
(renamed Wild Horses of Fire for most foreign distributions) Parajanov had become something of an international celebrity and simultaneously a target of attacks from the system. Nearly all of his film projects and plans from 1965–1973 were banned, scrapped or closed by the Soviet film administration, both local (in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
) and federal (infamous Goskino
Goskino
Goskino USSR is the abbreviated name for the USSR State Committee for Cinematography in the Soviet Union...
), almost without discussion until he was finally arrested in late 1973 on trumped-up charges of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
. Parajanov was imprisoned until 1977, despite a plethora of pleas for pardon from various esteemed artists.
Even after his release (he would be arrested for the third and last time in 1982) he was a persona non grata
Persona non grata
Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person", is a legal term used in diplomacy that indicates a proscription against a person entering the country...
in Soviet cinema. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the political climate started to relax, that he could resume directing. Still, it required the help of influential Georgian actor Dodo Abashidze and other friends to have his last feature films green-lighted. His health seriously weakened by four years in labor camps and nine months in a Tbilisi prison, Parajanov died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
in 1990, at the time when, after almost 20 years of suppression, his films were finally again allowed to be featured in foreign film festivals.
Early life and films
Parajanov was born to artistically-gifted ArmenianArmenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
parents Iosif Paradjanov and Siranush Bejanova, in Tbilisi, Georgia. His childhood was blessed with having access to art from an early age. In 1945, Parajanov traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at the VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko
Igor Savchenko
Igor Andreyevich Savchenko was a writer and director of films, often cited as one of the great early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin and Aleksandr Dovzhenko....
and Aleksandr Dovzhenko. In 1948 he was convicted of homosexual acts
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
(which were illegal at the time in the Soviet Union) with a MGB
Ministry for State Security (USSR)
The Ministry of State Security was the name of Soviet secret police from 1946 to 1953.-Origins of the MGB:The MGB was just one of many incarnations of the Soviet State Security apparatus. Since the revolution, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong political police or security force to support and...
officer named Nikolai Mikava in Tbilisi. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but was amnestied after being incarcerated for three months.
In 1950 Parajanov married his first wife, Nigyar Kerimova 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...
. She came from a Muslim Tatar family and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to marry Parajanov, to terrible consequences: she was later murdered by her relatives in retaliation for her conversion. As a result of this tragic event Parajanov left Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
for Kiev, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. There he produced a few documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films: Andriesh (based on the fairy tale by Moldovan writer Emilian Bukov
Emilian Bukov
Emilian Bukov was a Soviet Moldavian writer and poet, recognized with the State Prize of the Moldavian SSR and honorary title of People's Writer of the Moldavian SSR . Bukov was also awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1979 for his work, the Order of Lenin medal twice and the Order of the Red...
), The Top Guy (a kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
musical), Ukrainian Rhapsody (a wartime melodrama), and Flower on the Stone (about a religious cult infiltrating a mining town in the Donets Basin
Donets Basin
Donbas or Donbass , full rarely-used name Donets Basin , is a historical, economic and cultural region of eastern Ukraine. Originally a coal mining area, it has become a heavily industrialised territory suffering from urban decay and industrial pollution.-Geography:Donbas covers three...
). He learned and became fluent in Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and remarried (with Svitlana Ivanivna Shcherbatiuk aka Svetlana Sherbatiuk aka Svetlana Parajanov) in 1956. Shcherbatiuk gave him a son (Suren, 1958).
Break from Soviet Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
and directed the poetic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors , also called Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Shadows of Our Ancestors, or Wild Horses of Fire – is a 1964 film by the Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the book by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky...
, his first film in which he had complete creative control and which won numerous international awards. Unlike the subsequent The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates is a 1968 Armenian film directed by Sergei Parajanov.-Overview:The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally...
, it was relatively well-received by the Soviet authorities. The Script Editorial Board at Goskino of Ukraine praised the film for “conveying the poetic quality and philosophical depth of M. Kotsiubynsky’s tale through the language of cinema” and called it “a brilliant creative success of the Dovzhenko studio.”
Moscow also agreed to Goskino of Ukraine's request to release the film with its original Ukrainian soundtrack intact rather than re-dub the dialogue into Russian for Soviet-wide release, in order to preserve its Ukrainian flavor. (Russian dubbing was standard practice at that time for non-Russian Soviet films when they were distributed outside the republic of origin.)
Parajanov departed Kiev shortly afterwards for his motherland of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
. In 1968, he embarked on Sayat Nova, a film which many consider to be his crowning achievement, though it was shot under relatively poor conditions and had a very small budget. Soviet censors intervened once again and immediately banned Sayat Nova for its allegedly inflammatory content. Parajanov re-edited his footage and renamed the film, The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates is a 1968 Armenian film directed by Sergei Parajanov.-Overview:The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally...
. It remains his best-known and most emblematic film. Critic Alexei Korotyukov remarked: "Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God." Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov . Film director, cinematographer, documentarian, essayist, photographer and artist who developed a style of documentary filmmaking termed the “direction of undirected action.”...
wrote in 1969 that "...Besides the film language suggested by Griffith and Eisenstein, the world cinema has not discovered anything revolutionarily new until The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates is a 1968 Armenian film directed by Sergei Parajanov.-Overview:The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally...
...".
Imprisonment and later work
By December 1973, Soviet authorities grew increasingly suspicious of Parajanov's perceived subversive proclivities (particularly his bisexuality) and sentenced him to five years in a hard labor camp in SiberiaSiberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
for "a rape of a Communist Party member, and the propagation of pornography." Three days before he was sentenced, Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, asserting that "In the last ten years Sergei Paradjanov has made only two films: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. They have influenced cinema first in the Ukraine, second in this country as a whole, and third – in the world at large? Artistically, there are few people in the entire world who could replace Paradjanov. He is guilty – guilty of his solitude. We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master."
An eclectic group of artists, filmmakers and activists protested, to little avail, on behalf of Parajanov, among them, Yves Saint Laurent, Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan – real name Françoise Quoirez – was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Hailed as "a charming little monster" by François Mauriac on the front page of Le Figaro, Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois...
, Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
, Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
, Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
, and Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov . Film director, cinematographer, documentarian, essayist, photographer and artist who developed a style of documentary filmmaking termed the “direction of undirected action.”...
). Parajanov served four years out of his five year sentence, and later credited his early release to the efforts of the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Surrealist poet and novelist Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
, the Russian poet Elsa Triolet
Elsa Triolet
Elsa Yur'evna Triolet was a French writer.-Biography:Born Ella Kagan into a Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher in Moscow, she and her sister, Lilya Brik received excellent educations; they were able to speak fluent German and French and play the piano...
(Aragon's wife), and the American writer John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
. His early release was authorised by Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
, presumably as a consequence of the General Secretary's chance meeting with Aragon and Triolet at the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
in Moscow. When asked by the Secretary if he could be of any assistance, Aragon requested the release of Parajanov, which was effected by December 1977.
While incarcerated Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost) and some 800 drawings and collages, many of which were later displayed in Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
, where the Parajanov Museum is now permanently located. The museum opened in 1991, a year after Parajanov’s death, and hosts more than 200 works as well as furnishings from his home in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
. His efforts in the camp were repeatedly compromised by prison guards, who deprived him of materials and called him mad, their cruelty only subsiding after a statement from Moscow admitted "the Director is very talented."
Upon his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented Parajanov from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards artistic outlets which he had nurtured during his time in prison. He crafted extraordinarily intricate collages, created a large collection of abstract drawings and pursued numerous other avenues of non-cinematic art, sewing more dolls and some whimsical suits.
In February 1982 Parajanov was once again imprisoned, on charges of bribery, which happened to coincide with his return to Moscow for the premiere of a play commemorating Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
at the Taganka Theatre
Taganka Theatre
Taganka Theatre is a theater located in the Art Nouveau building on Taganka Square in Moscow. The theatre was founded in 1964 by Yuri Lyubimov and continued the traditions of his alma mater, the Vakhtangov Theatre, while also exploring the possibilities of Bertolt Brecht's "epic theatre".Under...
, and were affected with some degree of trickery. Despite another stiff sentence, he was freed in less than a year with his health seriously weakened. By 1984, the slow thaw within the 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....
spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
intellectuals, he created the multi-award winning Legend of Suram Fortress based on the novella by Daniel Chonkadze
Daniel Chonkadze
Daniel Chonkadze was a Georgian novelist primarily known for his resonant novella Suramis tsikhe ....
, his first return to cinema since Sayat Nova first premiered fifteen years earlier. In 1988 Parajanov made another multi-award winning film, Ashik Kerib
Ashik Kerib (film)
Ashik Kerib is a 1988 film by the Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the short story of the same name by Mikhail Lermontov...
, based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
. It is the story of a wandering minstrel set in the Azeri culture. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
and "to all the children from the world".
Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved too monumental to withstand his failing health. He died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving his final masterpiece, The Confession unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Parajanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov
Mikhail Vartanov . Film director, cinematographer, documentarian, essayist, photographer and artist who developed a style of documentary filmmaking termed the “direction of undirected action.”...
in 1992. He left behind a book of memoirs, also titled "The Confession". Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
, Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra
Tonino Guerra is an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter who has collaborated with some of the most prominent film directors of the world.-Biography:Guerra was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna....
, Francesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi is an Italian film director. He is the father of actress Carolina Rosi.-Biography:After studying Law, but hoping to study film, Rosi entered the industry as an assistant to Luchino Visconti on La Terra trema...
, Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
, Giulietta Masina
Giulietta Masina
Giulietta Masina was an Italian film and stage actress. She starred in La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
, Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...
and Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
were among those who publicly mourned his passing. A telegram that came to Russia read "The world of cinema has lost a magician".
Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010 to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei Parajanov (1924–1990) and Mikhail Vartanov (1937–2009).
Influences and his influence
Despite having studied film at the VGIK, he discovered his artistic path only after seeing Andrei TarkovskyAndrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
's dreamlike first film Ivan's Childhood. Parajanov had many admirers of his art but, as in the case of Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
(another unique artist) his vision did not attract many followers. "Whoever tries to imitate me is lost", he reportedly said once. However there are directors like Theo Angelopoulos
Theo Angelopoulos
Theodoros Angelopoulos is a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer.-Life:Angelopoulos studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, but after his military service went to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. He soon dropped out to study film at the IDHEC before returning...
, Béla Tarr
Béla Tarr
-Life:Tarr was born in Pécs, but grew up in Budapest. Both of his parents were close to theatre and film: his father was a scenery designer, while his mother has been working as a prompter at a theater for more than 50 years now...
and Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. During 2007 he was the president of Asian Film Academy.Makhmalbaf's films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past ten years. The multi-award-winning director, belongs to the new wave...
who share Parajanov's approach to film as a visual medium opposed to a narrative tool like literature.
Filmography
| Year | English title | Original title | Romanization | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Moldavian Tale | Молдавская сказка | Moldavskaya Skazka | Graduate short film. Lost. |
| 1954 | Andriesh | Андриеш | Andriesh | Co-directed with Yakov Bazelyan. Feature-length remake of Moldavian Tale. |
| 1958 | Dumka | Думка | Dumka | Documentary. |
| 1958 | The First Lad (aka The Top Guy) | Первый парень | Pervyj paren | |
| 1959 | Natalya Ushvij | Наталия Ужвий | Natalia Uzhvij | Documentary. |
| 1960 | Golden Hands | Золотые руки | Zolotye ruki | Documentary. |
| 1961 | Ukrainian Rhapsody | Украинская рапсодия | Ukrainskaya rapsodiya | |
| 1962 | Flower on the Stone | Цветок на камне | Tsvetok na kamne | |
| 1964 | Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors , also called Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Shadows of Our Ancestors, or Wild Horses of Fire – is a 1964 film by the Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the book by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky... |
Тіні забутих предків | Tini zabutykh predkiv | |
| 1965 | Kyiv Frescoes | Киевские фрески | Kievskie Freski | Banned during pre-production. 15 minutes of auditions survive. |
| 1967 | Hakop Hovnatanian | Հակոբ Հովնաթանյան | Hakob Hovnatanyan | Documentary. Short. |
| 1968 | The Color of Pomegranates The Color of Pomegranates The Color of Pomegranates is a 1968 Armenian film directed by Sergei Parajanov.-Overview:The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally... (aka Sayat Nova) |
Սայաթ-Նովա | Sayat Nova | |
| 1968 | Children to Komitas | Երեխաներ Կոմիտասին | Yerekhaner Komitasin | Documentary for UNICEF. Lost (?). |
| 1984 | The Legend of Suram Fortress The Legend of Suram Fortress The Legend of the Suram Fortress is a 1984 film directed by Georgian SSR-born Soviet-Armenian director Sergei Parajanov, his first film after 15 years of censorship in the Soviet Union, a film stylistically linked with his earlier The Color of Pomegranates : The film consists in a series of... |
ამბავი სურამის ციხისა | Ambavi Suramis tsikhisa | |
| 1985 | Arabesques On The Pirosmani Theme | Арабески на тему Пиросмани | Arabeski na temu Pirosmani | Documentary. Short. |
| 1988 | Ashik Kerib Ashik Kerib (film) Ashik Kerib is a 1988 film by the Soviet-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the short story of the same name by Mikhail Lermontov... |
აშიკი ქერიბი | Ashiki Keribi | |
| 1989–1990 | The Confession | Խոստովանանք | Khostovanank | Unfinished; original negative survives in Parajanov: The Last Spring Parajanov: The Last Spring (film) Parajanov: The Last Spring is a 1992 award-winning documentary by the Russian-Armenian filmmaker Mikhail Vartanov, that also includes the complete surviving footage of Sergei Parajanov's unfinished last film "The Confession", Vartanov's behind-the-scenes sequences of Parajanov at work on the... (1992) |
Produced and partially produced screenplays
- Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Тіні забутих предків, 1964, co-written with Ivan Chendei, based on the novelette by Mykhailo KotsiubynskyMykhailo KotsiubynskyMykhailo Mykhailovych Kotsiubynsky , was a Ukrainian author whose writings described typical Ukrainian life at the start of the 20th century...
) - Kyiv Frescoes (Киевские фрески, 1965)
- Sayat Nova (Саят-Нова, 1968, production screenplay of The Color of Pomegranates)
- The Confession (Исповедь, 1969–1989)
- Studies about Vrubel (Этюды о Врубеле, 1989, depiction of Mikhail VrubelMikhail VrubelMikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.-Early...
's Kiev period, co-written and directed by Leonid Osyka) - Swan Lake: The Zone (Лебединое озеро. Зона, 1989, filmed in 1990, directed by Yuri Ilyenko, cinematographer of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)
Unproduced screenplays and projects
- The Dormant Palace (Дремлющий дворец, 1969, based on Pushkin's poem The Fountain of BakhchisarayThe Fountain of BakhchisarayFor Boris Asafyev's ballet of the same name, see The Fountain of Bakhchisarai The Fountain of Bakhchisaray is a poem by Alexander Pushkin, written 1821-1823....
) - Intermezzo (1972, based on Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's short story)
- Icarus (Икар, 1972)
- The Golden Edge (Золотой обрез, 1972)
- Ara the Beautiful (Ара Прекрасный, 1972, based on the poem by 20th century Armenian poet Nairi Zaryan about Ara the BeautifulAra the BeautifulAra the Beautiful is a legendary Armenian hero. He is notable in Armenian literature for the popular legend in which he was so handsome that the Assyrian queen Semiramis waged war against Armenia just to get him.He is sometimes associated with the historical king of Ararat known as Arame who...
) - Demon (Демон, 1972, based on LermontovMikhail LermontovMikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
's eponymous poem) - The Miracle of Odense (Чудо в Оденсе, 1973, loosely based on the life and works of Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
) - David of Sasun (Давид Сасунский, mid-1980s, based on Armenian epic poem David of SasunDavid of SasunDavid of Sasun or David of Sassoun is an Armenian epic hero from the Daredevils of Sassoun who drove Arab invaders out of Armenia.The Sasuntsi Davit is an Armenian national epic poem recounting David's exploits...
) - The Martyrdom of Shushanik (Мученичество Шушаник, 1987, based on Georgian chronicleChronicleGenerally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
by Iakob TsurtaveliIakob TsurtaveliJacob of Tsurtavi also known as Jacob the Priest was the 5th-century Georgian religious writer and priest from Tsurtavi, then the major town of Gogarene and the Lower Iberia....
) - The Treasures of Mount Ararat (Сокровища у горы Арарат)
Among his projects, there also were plans for adapting Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
's The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...
, Shakespeare's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, Goethe's Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
, the Old East Slavic poem The Tale of Igor's Campaign
The Tale of Igor's Campaign
The Tale of Igor's Campaign is an anonymous epic poem written in the Old East Slavic language.The title is occasionally translated as The Song of Igor's Campaign, The Lay of Igor's Campaign, and The Lay of...
, but film scripts for these were never completed.
See also
- Art filmArt filmAn art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...
- Asteroid 3963 Paradzhanov3963 Paradzhanov3963 Paradzhanov is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 8, 1969 by L. Chernykh at Nauchnyj.- External links :**...
- Cinema of ArmeniaCinema of ArmeniaThe cinema of Armenia was born on April 16, 1923, when the Armenian State Committee on Cinema was established by the government decree.In March 1924, the first Armenian film studio: Armenfilm was established in Yerevan, starting with Soviet Armenia the first Armenian documentary film.Namus was...
- Cinema of GeorgiaCinema of GeorgiaThe cinema of Georgia has been noted for its cinematography in Europe. One of the most acclaimed Italian film directors, Federico Fellini, was an admirer of the Georgian film:...
- Cinema of the Soviet UnionCinema of the Soviet UnionThe cinema of the Soviet Union, not to be confused with "Cinema of Russia" despite Russian language films being predominant in both genres, includes several film contributions of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history,...
- Cinema of UkraineCinema of Ukraine-State owned:* Dovzhenko Film Studios * Odessa Film Studio * National Cinematheque of Ukraine * Ukrtelefilm* Yalta Film Studio-Film distribution:...
- Sergey Parajanov MuseumSergey Parajanov MuseumThe Sergei Parajanov Museum is a tribute to Soviet Armenian director and artist Sergei Parajanov and is one of the most popular museums in Yerevan. It represents Parajanov's diverse artistic and literary heritage.-History:...
External links
- Official Site (Parajanov.com)
- Sergej Parajanov Museum
- ENCI.com
- The Parajanov Case, March 1982
- Sergei Parajanov's 75th birthday
- The Cinemaseekers Honor Roll
- Interview with Ron Holloway
- Film about Parajanov Museum in Yerevan
- Actress Sofiko Chiaureli and many others about him
- Arts: Armenian Rhapsody
- Excerpted from “Paradjanov’s Films on Soviet Folklore” by Jonathan Rosenbaum
- For those who want to know more about Parajanov
- Sayat Nova at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- TV channel in Los Angeles on Sergei Parajanov
- Evening Moscow Newspaper Spouses of Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov received awards in Hollywood