SeryozhaAlong with Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai, Georgiy Daneliya, now 88, is one of the greatest comic filmmakers of the Soviet era. He describes his own genre as “sad comedy,”expertly balancing a warmhearted approach to characterization with a certain melancholy undertow. Yet, with his work never distributed outside of the Eastern Bloc, except for Finland, and in the case of Kin-dza-dza! (1986), Japan, he is more deserving than any other Soviet director of critical reappraisal. Soviet comedies in general, and Daneliya's comedies in particular, are often characterized by a certain naïveté, yet a simplicity in approach shouldn’t be confused with simple-mindedness. Instead, like in an Yasujiro Ozu movie, this plainness becomes a style in itself, a way of strengthening a story though seeming to do less. Slyly subverting the demands of a state-run studio system, this naïve approach allowed Daneliya's complex characterizations to nest themselves matryoshka doll-like inside superficially straightforward stories.
- 4/2/2019
- MUBI
A nimble 1950s Russian musical comedy is coupled with a restored 1967 short by the Armenian director of The Colour of Pomegranates
In 1956, the Soviet Union having passed from Stalinist terror to Khrushchevian unease, the state cinema industry produced one of the most commercially successful films in its history: a musical comedy called Carnival Night, the debut feature from Eldar Ryazanov, previously a documentary-maker.
It is as light and nimble as a racehorse jockey – a little miracle of innocence, gaiety, mischief and fun, proof that Soviet cinema could do musicals to be compared to Hollywood’s MGM greats, in spirit, if not exactly in budget. Ryazanov went on to be renowned for slyly satirising the grisliness of apparatchiks and officials, and Carnival Night is surely an influence on Miloš Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball.
In 1956, the Soviet Union having passed from Stalinist terror to Khrushchevian unease, the state cinema industry produced one of the most commercially successful films in its history: a musical comedy called Carnival Night, the debut feature from Eldar Ryazanov, previously a documentary-maker.
It is as light and nimble as a racehorse jockey – a little miracle of innocence, gaiety, mischief and fun, proof that Soviet cinema could do musicals to be compared to Hollywood’s MGM greats, in spirit, if not exactly in budget. Ryazanov went on to be renowned for slyly satirising the grisliness of apparatchiks and officials, and Carnival Night is surely an influence on Miloš Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball.
- 12/3/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
One of the iconic Russian movie directors from the Soviet era, Eldar Ryazanov, has died. He was 88. According to Russian news agency reports, Ryazanov died at a Moscow hospital of cardiac failure following a lengthy illness. Born in Samara in 1927, Ryazanov wrote or co-write many of his movies. He became one of the Soviet Union’s biggest hitmakers of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Ryazanov’s first narrative film, the 1956 Carnival in Moscow (Karnavalnaya Noch), was a breakout…...
- 11/30/2015
- Deadline TV
One of the iconic Russian movie directors from the Soviet era, Eldar Ryazanov, has died. He was 88. According to Russian news agency reports, Ryazanov died at a Moscow hospital of cardiac failure following a lengthy illness. Born in Samara in 1927, Ryazanov wrote or co-write many of his movies. He became one of the Soviet Union’s biggest hitmakers of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Ryazanov’s first narrative film, the 1956 Carnival in Moscow (Karnavalnaya Noch), was a breakout…...
- 11/30/2015
- Deadline
The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath
Written by Emil Braginskiy, Eldar Ryazanov
Directed by Eldar Ryazanov
Soviet Union, 1975
As the Holy Grail of Soviet cinema, The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath is responsible every year for religious gatherings of zealous Russians around television sets within a few hours of ringing in the New Year. For close to 40 years, Eldar Ryazanov’s most famous and celebrated film has enjoyed a cherished prestige comparable to that of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. With all of the spirited comedy, coy romance, and poetry typical of a Ryazanov film, The Irony of Fate explores the intrinsic desires and complications of everyday people in an extraordinary situation.
Bumbling Zhenya Lukashin (Andrei Magkov) will gladly tell you, a number of times, of his traditional trip to the banya with his friends on New Year’s Eve. No doubt he...
Written by Emil Braginskiy, Eldar Ryazanov
Directed by Eldar Ryazanov
Soviet Union, 1975
As the Holy Grail of Soviet cinema, The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath is responsible every year for religious gatherings of zealous Russians around television sets within a few hours of ringing in the New Year. For close to 40 years, Eldar Ryazanov’s most famous and celebrated film has enjoyed a cherished prestige comparable to that of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. With all of the spirited comedy, coy romance, and poetry typical of a Ryazanov film, The Irony of Fate explores the intrinsic desires and complications of everyday people in an extraordinary situation.
Bumbling Zhenya Lukashin (Andrei Magkov) will gladly tell you, a number of times, of his traditional trip to the banya with his friends on New Year’s Eve. No doubt he...
- 11/25/2012
- by Lital Khaikin
- SoundOnSight
For Sydney-based photographer Alina Gozin.a, being a great on-set photographer means being everywhere and nowhere.
.By .being everywhere., I mean you have to be alert," she said "because you might lose the moment in a split of a second. At the same time you need to decide when you should shut up and move away and give up the potential photograph for the sake of the production..
Gozin.a's work has been selected and exhibited in numerous prestigious portrait exhibitions and won several awards including the highly prestigious London Photographic Association's Let's Face It 8 portrait competition (for her photo of filmmaker Luke Doolan) while her on-set experience spreads across feature films, documentaries, TV productions, theatre and key art (including this year's Flickerfest poster). She also recently shot stills and key art on Around the Block starring Christina Ricci and shared unit stills on highly-anticipated ABC series Redfern Now.
.By .being everywhere., I mean you have to be alert," she said "because you might lose the moment in a split of a second. At the same time you need to decide when you should shut up and move away and give up the potential photograph for the sake of the production..
Gozin.a's work has been selected and exhibited in numerous prestigious portrait exhibitions and won several awards including the highly prestigious London Photographic Association's Let's Face It 8 portrait competition (for her photo of filmmaker Luke Doolan) while her on-set experience spreads across feature films, documentaries, TV productions, theatre and key art (including this year's Flickerfest poster). She also recently shot stills and key art on Around the Block starring Christina Ricci and shared unit stills on highly-anticipated ABC series Redfern Now.
- 8/10/2012
- by Yuan Liu
- IF.com.au
Popular Russian film star and entertainer who brought a light touch to the Soviet era
After Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's "cult of personality" at the 20th party congress in February 1956, political and cultural life in the Soviet Union underwent many changes. One of the first films to benefit from "the thaw" was Eldar Ryazanov's musical-comedy Carnival Night (1956), starring Lyudmila Gurchenko, who has died of cardiac arrest aged 75.
The 21-year-old Gurchenko herself attracted a cult of personality with her sparkling performance as an enthusiastic member of a Soviet youth group (Komsomol) who is planning a fun-filled New Year's Eve celebration at the "house of culture". She is pitted against a pompous middle-aged bureaucrat who wants to make the occasion serious and educational by inserting communist slogans into the show. Tired of socialist realist films, which were required to glorify the revolution and the power of the collective, audiences...
After Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's "cult of personality" at the 20th party congress in February 1956, political and cultural life in the Soviet Union underwent many changes. One of the first films to benefit from "the thaw" was Eldar Ryazanov's musical-comedy Carnival Night (1956), starring Lyudmila Gurchenko, who has died of cardiac arrest aged 75.
The 21-year-old Gurchenko herself attracted a cult of personality with her sparkling performance as an enthusiastic member of a Soviet youth group (Komsomol) who is planning a fun-filled New Year's Eve celebration at the "house of culture". She is pitted against a pompous middle-aged bureaucrat who wants to make the occasion serious and educational by inserting communist slogans into the show. Tired of socialist realist films, which were required to glorify the revolution and the power of the collective, audiences...
- 4/3/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Itar-tass is reporting that the renowned Soviet and Russian actress Lyudmila Gurchenko has died in Moscow at the age of 75: "She played her best roles in Alexei German's Twenty Days Without War, Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky's Sibiriada, Nikita Mikhalkov's Five Evenings, Eldar Ryazanov's The Railway Station for Two, Pyotr Todorovsky's Mechanic Gavrilov's Beloved Woman, and Roman Balayan's Flights in Dreams and Reality."
As her Wikipedia entry has it, she "achieved overnight fame and celebrity status at 21 after she starred in young Eldar Ryazanov's 1956 directorial debut, musical Carnival Night. The film was enormously popular and made Lyudmila famous overnight. Throughout the next two years she toured the entire country with her Carnival Night-inspired musical numbers, attracting crowds of fans. The Soviet cultural establishment, however, deemed her style too western and too out of line with Soviet standards." But she made a roaring comeback, eventually receiving the...
As her Wikipedia entry has it, she "achieved overnight fame and celebrity status at 21 after she starred in young Eldar Ryazanov's 1956 directorial debut, musical Carnival Night. The film was enormously popular and made Lyudmila famous overnight. Throughout the next two years she toured the entire country with her Carnival Night-inspired musical numbers, attracting crowds of fans. The Soviet cultural establishment, however, deemed her style too western and too out of line with Soviet standards." But she made a roaring comeback, eventually receiving the...
- 4/3/2011
- MUBI
MOSCOW -- The producers of Russia's biggest-ever boxoffice success, Day Watch, which took in $35 million here last year, are planning a sequel to one of the nation's most popular Soviet-era films, Irony of Fate.
Beginning the buzz early, cinema booking agents, in Moscow this week for the 70th annual Russian International Film Market, were confronted with brash posters promising a new, as-yet-unnamed blockbuster from the makers of Day Watch.
The film -- to be shot by Watch director Timur Bekmambetov and featuring Watch star Konstantin Khabensky -- will update a film that has become a cult classic since its Dec. 31, 1975 release and which holds a place in Russian affection equal to that in the U.S. for It's a Wonderful Life.
Written and directed by Eldar Ryazanov, Irony of Fate tells the story of a group of friends in Moscow who get blind drunk while partying at a Turkish bath on New Year's Eve.
One of them is supposed to fly home to Leningrad to join his wife to celebrate the New Year, but by mistake they send Muscovite Zhenya instead, who is too drunk to notice.
Beginning the buzz early, cinema booking agents, in Moscow this week for the 70th annual Russian International Film Market, were confronted with brash posters promising a new, as-yet-unnamed blockbuster from the makers of Day Watch.
The film -- to be shot by Watch director Timur Bekmambetov and featuring Watch star Konstantin Khabensky -- will update a film that has become a cult classic since its Dec. 31, 1975 release and which holds a place in Russian affection equal to that in the U.S. for It's a Wonderful Life.
Written and directed by Eldar Ryazanov, Irony of Fate tells the story of a group of friends in Moscow who get blind drunk while partying at a Turkish bath on New Year's Eve.
One of them is supposed to fly home to Leningrad to join his wife to celebrate the New Year, but by mistake they send Muscovite Zhenya instead, who is too drunk to notice.
- 3/16/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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