Century Film Project

Celebrating the movies our ancestors loved

Tag: Vasily Stepanov

May 23, 2015

Rusalka (1910)

Rusalka

Alternate Titles: Русалка, The Mermaid

Since this is an English-language blog, I usually privilege the English translation of titles, but in this case there were (at least) two other movies called “The Mermaid” in 1910, so it seems best to stick with the Russian for clarity. I found this the best of the Goncharov movies I’ve seen so far. It resembles “A Sixteenth-Century Russian Wedding,” except that it actually has a plot. We still get the large cast, a simulated wedding night, nicely painted backdrops, and stylized period costumes. But we also get a story from Pushkin, as well. The story is of a young prince, who abandons a miller’s daughter in order to marry another woman, closer to his station. The first girl drowns herself in the river, but then the prince cannot seem to shake her image. On the wedding night, he leaves his bride after seeing apparitions. He returns to the mill, and we see many women emerge and return to the water. Then the miller appears, apparently driven mad by his daughter’s death, but also strangely gesturing about the women who come from the water. The prince follows the apparitions into the water, and next we see his body, surrounded by sirens beneath the waves. The final scene looks very much like a borrowing from Méliès, with shells and seaweed all around.

Rusalka1

Director: Vasily Goncharov

Camera: Vladimir Siversen

Starring: Vasily Stepanov, Alexadrandra Goncharova, Andrej Gromov

Run Time: 9 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

1 Comment
May 22, 2015

Brigand Brothers (1912)

Brigand Brothers

Once again, early Russian filmmakers turn to Pushkin for source material. Here, Vasily Goncharov attempts to interpret the an epic poem of two poor orphans who love the same woman and turn to a life on the run after murdering her father. This movie remains technically unimpressive, especially when we recall that one year later Evgeni Bauer would give us “Twilight of a Woman’s Soul.” Goncharov never seems to have gotten past the limitations of stationary camera and pantomime, which is probably why his career with Khanzhonkov didn’t last long after Bauer and Ladislas Starevich came on the scene. Still, this one does have the benefit of being shot outdoors, in the Russian countryside, and having that rustic, almost-Western look I mentioned in “Drama in a Gypsy Camp.” It’s certainly a much more complex storyline, with a lot of action and love scenes thrown in as the brothers find romance and adventure in their wayward existences, one of them finally dying while escaping from prison. The camera remains at a discreet distance from the action, however, and the production remains a set of scenic vignettes, with little cleverness to the editing technique, except for an occasional cutaway to allow us to see from a character’s point of view.

Director: Vasily Goncharov

Camera: Louis Forestier

Starring: Arsenii Bibikorand, Ivan Mosjoukine, Alexandra Goncharova, Vasily Stepanov

Run Time: 20 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

2 Comments
May 21, 2015

A Sixteenth-Century Russian Wedding (1909)

16th Century Russian Wedding

Alternate Titles: Русская свадьба XVI столетия, Russkaya svadba XVI stoletiya

This short film is a simple historical reenactment. It was produced, as was “Drama in a Gypsy Camp,” by the up-and-coming Alexander Khanzhonkov, who seems to have had a taste in Russian-national themed movies. He retained Vladimir Siversen, the director/cameraman, to shoot this picture, but handed the reins of directing over to Vasily Goncharov. This was probably wise, Siversen seemed to find both directing and cranking the film a bit overwhelming in the last outing, but here the camerawork is consistent and Goncharov seems to have been comfortable keeping the actors in line (liner notes tell us he relied on assistance from Pyotr Chardynin, who plays the father of the groom, in this). The entire movie is shot on the same stage, with only slight changes in decoration and costume to signal the difference between the bride’s room and the groom’s. The wedding hall is decorated with an elaborately-painted backdrop like something out of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” but for the most part the art is fairly restrained. All of the actors are shown full-frame, nobody’s feet are cut off, and with considerable headroom, making them appear quite small and indistinguishable on the screen. You’d never recognize any of these actors if you saw them in a different costume. The costumes emphasize the fact that this is an upper-class wedding, not a peasant affair, although some of the dancers at the wedding have more austere clothes, once again a comment on the presumed class of movie-goers in Czarist Russia.

Director: Vasily Goncharov

Camera: Vladimir Siversen

Starring: Alexandra Goncharova, Andrej Gromov, Pyotr Chardynin, Pavel Biryukov, Vasili Stepanov, Lidiya Tridenskaya

Run Time: 8 Min, 25 seconds

You can watch it for free: here.

2 Comments