"Graduated" film experts from Harvard are obliged to know Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Sokurov and several other names. The rest is optional

HARVARD. Without watching two dozen films of the Soviet period, obtaining a degree in film science is not possible.

One of the oldest US universities, from whose walls several dozen Nobel laureates and 8 American presidents came out, ordered future film experts to familiarize themselves with an extensive list of the best films made in the world over the past 120 years. Two dozen of them are of Soviet-Russian origin. A drop of honor in the sea of eight hundred names.

A third of them are masterpieces of the classic. Soviet cinema avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s: the effect of Kuleshov’s nonexistent space, experiments with chaos and rhythmic montage of futurist Dzigi Vertov, close-ups and “montage of attractions” by Eisenstein, rational avant-garde of Pudovkin, innovative film language Dovzhenko.

They paid tribute to the best films of Kalatozov, Chukhrai, Bondarchuk, Parajanov, Tarkovsky, Romm. Kozintsev’s “Hamlet” is not on the list, but “King Lear” with a brilliant Yuri Yarvet was found. The brilliant “Ascent” of Larisa Shepitko, once saved from a ban by Peter Masherov, was also included in the list. The first secretary of the Central Committee of Belarus, a front-line soldier, an underground worker, shocked to the point of tears seen on the screen, did not allow sending a powerful and honest film about the war to the shelf. Opinion about 21st century Russian cinema will have to be based on a single tape - “Russian Ark” by Sokurov, filmed with a digital camera with a single take and “one shot” in the Hermitage.

According to Kirill Razlogov, voiced in one of the daily editions, the list of masterpieces from Russian film experts could be somewhat different. The American selection clearly lacks Chapaev and the Barnetovsk Outskirts. But this is an area in which a subjective view is inevitable. And there are always dissatisfied.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru