The Russian Orson Welles

[Flint]

Hi All-
Watched "The Cranes are Flying" this weekend for the first time. A definite MUST SEE. Michiel Kalatozov's work in this and also "I Am Cuba" is utterly brilliant and reminded me very strongly of Welles. In the "dynamic camerawork" catagory, I'd say easily his equal.

Problem is, I can find very little on this man. If anyone has any info (or has seen any of his other films!), would be glad to hear about it.

-Flint

[Le Chiffre]

Eisenstien should probably be considered the "Russian Orson Welles" before Kalatozov, but I agree that CRANES and CUBA are both great films, and that Kalatozov's outrageous camera movements do seem very Wellesian. Two other fairly well known films of his are SALT FOR SVENETIA (1930) and THE RED TENT (1969). VHS copies of TENT are available on ebay, but my guess is those are probably pan-and-scan. I'd rather see it on DVD or in a theatre if the opportunity ever comes along. BTW, you can see a strong Kalatozov influence in Scorcese's CASINO, which he made right after co-producing the I AM CUBA restoration.

[Le Chiffre]

Just watched the Criterion DVD of Kalatozov's LETTER NEVER SENT from 1959 and was blown away by the imagery. He really was a visual stylist on a par with Welles, and I like the weirdness of his soundtracks too. Wiki lists a lot more films for him then they did when this thread was first started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalatozov

Now they list about 14 films in his oeuvre - as opposed to about 4 or 5 back then - and some of them are on Youtube in their entirety, although in Russian sans subtitles:


The Red Tent (1970 - Complete Russian Version, without subtitles):
part1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKAqyCAR ... EDEDD10840
part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSm1Dlzj ... EDEDD10840

Scene from The First Echelon (1953) with Shostakovich Waltz #2 (The theme song from Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMU2fy1tCnQ

The First Echelon complete (in Russian without subtitles):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKlS2Ez2UqY

True Friends (1954) complete (in Russian without subtitles):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3IakstUL_c

Hostile Whirlwinds (1950):
Вихри враждебные Калато́зов
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyQ97-_II7Y (7-minute scene)

Valery Chkalov (The Wings of Victory - 1941 - in Russian without subtitles)
Валерий Чкалов Калато́зов
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jKqGZurF4I

[Colmena]

The very odd history of "I am Cuba" is covered in the documentary "I am Cuba, Siberian Mammoth"-- which one can find at Netflix.

A co-production, is was too Cuban for the Russians, and too Russian for the Cubans, and so dropped out of sight.

The n-flix blurb:

"This fascinating documentary chronicles the making of the politically charged Soviet-Cuban cinematic production Soy Cuba (championed by such modern-day filmmakers as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola). In tracing the back story behind the 1964 propaganda film, director Vicente Ferraz collects extensive interviews of surviving cast and crew, many of whom felt betrayed after the film was ridiculed in Cuba and panned by media critics."