“The Bride of Student Pevtsov” ( 1916 ) is a silent feature film by Eugene Bauer . The premiere took place on January 26, 1916 [1] . The film has not been preserved.
| Student Bride Pevtsova (Bride with the past) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | household drama |
| Producer | Eugene Bauer |
| Author script | Alexander Voznesensky |
| In the main cast | Georgy Khmara, Vera Yureneva |
| Operator | Boris Zavelev |
| Film company | T / d Khanzhonkova |
| Duration | 5 pieces |
| A country |  Russian empire |
| Tongue | |
| Year | 1916 |
Other names for the film are Awakening, Unhappy Student Love, Bride with the Past [1] .
Content
Story
In terms of the genre, the film is “a household drama from student and landlord life” [1] . A poor student of Singers falls in love with student girl Katya Dunaeva, the daughter of a landowner. His love is miserable. The film was shot based on a play by A. Voznesensky with a claim to social issues, but, according to some film critics, which is a banal melodrama about the poor student’s unhappy love for the bride with the past [2] .
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Grigory Khmara | student Vasily Pevtsov |
| Alexander Cherubimov | his father |
| Vera Yureneva | Katya Dunaeva, student |
| Arseny Bibikov | landowner Dunaev, father of Katya |
| Vitold Polonsky | Kryndin, a wealthy classmate of Pevtsov |
| N. Bronich | Nina Voznesenskaya, Katy's commodity by courses |
Criticism
The well-known critic V. Turkin in the Pegasus magazine named the film among the tapes that “can withstand any comparison, and even teach something new to foreign tape manufacturers” [3] [4] . He attributed this domestic drama to one of the best films directed by Bauer [5] .
Screenwriter A. Voznesensky spoke disapprovingly of the work of the director, at the request of which they searched for candelabra with enamel that would suit him for several hours, but they started to take off the poor student in the script (it was important in the idea of the play) in an expensive frock coat [6] [5] . “My author’s intervention,” he wrote, “required a maximum of energy to prevent an art catastrophe and postpone the shooting” [7] [5] .
Soviet critic E. S. Gromov quoted a rather lengthy quote describing one of the shootings of the film “The Bride of Student Pevtsov,” prone to theoretical generalizations by A. Voznesensky:
“The first scene for the shooting was scheduled at 10 a.m. Missed until 2 pm - still not starting. I ask, what's the matter? Bauer does not want to put in the hall of the landowner house those candelabra that he brought. They require some others, with enamel. They scour the city in search of such candelabra ... At half-past four they invite to the pavilion ... They call Khmaru, the artist, who played student Pevtsov, from the restroom. He comes out - and I feel close to fainting; a poor shirtless student (this was very important in the idea of the play) comes out in a perfectly tailored frock coat on a white lining. What's the matter? - It's nothing, Bauer answers ... My author’s intervention needed a maximum of energy to prevent an art catastrophe and postpone the shooting ... While the whole ideological structure of the play was based on the opposition of two images - a student of a shirt (Khmara) and a student of white-lining (Polonsky), - the director, who delayed the performers and workers for many hours to find some candelabra with enamel, could not find a simple jacket ... Such was the usual inattention of the director not only to the sophisticated details of the brow mental psyche on the screen, but even to primitive signs of the image ... ” [6] [8] .
This quote marked the beginning of the Soviet cinematographic tradition to consider Bauer as a formalist-decorator [7] [9] . “Voznesensky began, others picked up,” the film critic I. Graschenkova was vexed, “and long decades of misunderstanding of the essence and significance of Yevgeny Bauer's contribution to Russian and European cinema stretched” [10] . Almost half a century later, the same Gromov answered Voskresensky that “he saw only snobbery and aesthetics where a new aesthetics was born”.
Today we are not able to judge the motives that prompted the director to care only about the candelabra, and not about the jacket. But the afflicted perturbations of Voznesensky do not seem especially serious to us. There was no deep “ideological” content in his play, according to which he wrote the script. This is the most banal melodrama seasoned with liberal phraseology about the “poor student’s unhappy love” for “the bride with the past”. The passions and feelings of the heroes are fanciful and empty. And, perhaps, it was much more honest and logical to turn the hero into a rather poor white-saver than to leave him a poor democrat. And the candelabra were really important ... The aesthetics of an expressively shot thing that laughed on the screen, said, suffered, that is, did the same thing as the actor, sometimes even better [2] .
The film expert Neya Zorkaya echoed Yevgeny Gromova:
“There were stories about how, in search of some necessary candelabra with enamel, he could delay shooting for several hours. This is not about historical and museum accuracy, to which Bauer was indifferent ... The candelabra of precisely this form and ornamentation, apparently, were included in the graphic composition conceived by the director. Bauer was an adherent of Screen Beauty ” [11] [12] .
At the same time, the actress Vera Yureneva , who played in the film, highly appreciated the acting and directorial work in her memoirs.
The captivating appearance, the careful development of the role and the depth of true feelings in the role of the student Pevtsov showed Khmar as a subtle actor. The director’s manner of working [on the film “The Bride of Student Pevtsov”] can be defined as more artistic than the work of Chardynin. Bauer, by the way, introduced music during filming. An excellent specialist performed works of the best composers that were consonant in mood and rhythm [13] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Vishnevsky, 1945 , p. 106.
- ↑ 1 2 Gromov, 1982 , p. 127.
- ↑ Pegasus, 1916, No. 2, p. 50.
- ↑ Short, 2009 , p. 40.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Short, 2009 , p. 45.
- ↑ 1 2 Ascension, 1924 , p. 95-96.
- ↑ 1 2 Gromov, 1976 , p. 301.
- ↑ Gromov, 1982 , p. 126-127.
- ↑ Gromov, 1982 , p. 126.
- ↑ Grashchenkova, 2005 , p. 256.
- ↑ Vigilant, 1997 , p. 92.
- ↑ Vigilant, 2005 , p. 61.
- ↑ Yureneva, 2004 , p. 276.
Literature
- Voznesensky A.S. The art of cinema. - Kiev, 1924. - S. 95-96. - 180 p.
- Vishnevsky V.E. Feature films of pre-revolutionary Russia. - M .: Goskinoizdat, 1945 .-- S. 106. - 194 p.
- Gromov E.S. Decorative craftsmanship of Eugene Bauer // Issues of cinema art: annual historical and theoretical collection. Issue 17. - M .: Nauka, 1976. - S. 285-303. - 320 p.
- Gromov E.S. Pedigree of innovation // The Art of Cinema. - 1982. - No. 9 . - S. 113-127 .
- Zorkaya N.M. “Light Painting” by Eugene Bauer // The Art of Cinema. - 1997. - No. 10 . - S. 77-93 .
- Yureneva V. “Was it really like that?” // Cinema notes. - 2004. - No. 66 . - S. 263-280 .
- Grashchenkova I.N. Cinema of the Silver Age. Russian cinema of the 10s and Cinema of the Russian post-October foreign countries of the 20s. - M. , 2005 .-- S. 256. - 432 p.
- Zorkaya N.M. The history of Soviet cinema. - SPb. : Aletheia, 2005 .-- S. 61 .-- 544 p.
- Short V.M. Operators and directors of Russian feature films. 1897-1921. - M .: Research Institute of Cinema, 2009. - P. 40, 45. - 430 p.
Links
- “The bride of student Pevtsov” on the site “Encyclopedia of Russian Cinema”