Vladimir Rostislavovich Gardin (born Vladimir Rostislavovich Blagonravov (Благонра́вов); – 28 May 1965) was a pioneering 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...

n film director and actor who strove to raise the artistic level of Russian cinema

Cinema of Russia

The cinema of Russia began in the Russian Empire, widely developed under the Soviet and in the years following the fall of the Soviet system, the Russian film industry would remain internationally recognised...

.

He first gained renown as a stage actor in the adaptations of Russian classics by Vera Komissarzhevskaya

Vera Komissarzhevskaya

Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya was the most celebrated Russian actress at the turn of the twentieth century.Vera Komissarzhevskaya was the daughter of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, a leading tenor of the Mariinsky Theatre, and sister of Theodore Komisarjevsky, a famous theatrical director...

 and other directors. In 1913, he turned to cinema and started producing screen versions of great Russian fiction: Anna Karenina (1914), The Kreutzer Sonata (1914), Home of the Gentry (1914), War and Peace (1915, co-directed with Yakov Protazanov

Yakov Protazanov

Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of cinema of Russia....

), and On the Eve (1915).

After the Russian Revolution of 1917

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, he organized and presided over the first film school in the world, now known as VGIK. With the advent of sound pictures, he stopped directing and returned to acting. His roles won him a high critical acclaim and the title of People's Artist of the USSR

People's Artist of the USSR

People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Nomenclature and significance :...

 (1947). Gardin published two volumes of memoirs in 1949 and 1952. Another book, The Artist's Life and Labor, followed in 1960.

Selected filmography

director

• The Keys to Happiness (1913); co-directed with Yakov Protazanov
  Yakov Protazanov
  Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of cinema of Russia....
  
  
• Days of Our Life (1914)
• Anna Karenina (1914)
• The Kreutzer Sonata (1914)
• War and Peace (1915)
• Petersburg Slums (1915); co-directed with Yakov Protazanov
  Yakov Protazanov
  Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of cinema of Russia....
  
  
• A Nest of Noblemen (1915)
• Ghosts (1915)
• Thought (1916)
• The Iron Heel (1919)
• Hunger... Hunger... Hunger (1921)
• Sickle and Hammer (1921)
• A Spectre Haunts Europe (1923)
• Locksmith and Chancellor (1923)
• Cross and Mauser (1925)
• The Bear's Wedding (1926)
• The Poet and the Czar (1927)

External links