January 9 is the birthday of Sergey Parajanov,who was a Soviet film director and artist who made significant contributions to Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behavior, led Soviet authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his films. Parajanov was born to artistically gifted Armenian parents, Iosif Paradjanov and Siranush Bejanova, in Tbilisi, Georgia on January 9, 1924 . In 1945, he traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at the VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools in Europe, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko and Aleksandr Dovzhenko. Andrey Tarkovskys first film Ivans Childhood had an enormous impact on Parajanovs self-discovery as a filmmaker. Later the influence became mutual, and he and Tarkovsky became close friends. In 1964 Parajanov abandoned socialist realism and directed the poetic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, his first film over which he had complete creative control. It won numerous international awards and, unlike the subsequent The Color of Pomegranates, was relatively well received by the Soviet authorities. In 1945 he entered the directing program at the VGIK (State Institute of Cinematography) under Igor Savchenko. In 1952 he started to work at the Alexander Dovzhenko Film Studio in Kiev as a film-director. Before 1963 he directed four non-remarkable full-length feature and three short documentary films. In 1964 his «Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors» («Wild Horses of Fire»), brought him world fame. Paradoxically, his problems started just from this movie. In 1965 he began his work over an anti-war film “Kiev Frescos», which was soon banned. In 1966 Parajanov was invited to Armenia where he started his work on «Sayat-Nova». With great difficulties this film was released on a screen in 1969 under the title «The Colour of Pomegranates». It is considered to be his best work after which he was deprived of possibility of making movies for 15 long years. There was a huge gap between a poetic cinema, a brilliant representative of which Parajanov was, and especially Parajanov’s cinema-language and the official Soviet Art. Parajanov was arrested twice because of false accusation in Ukraine (1974-1978) and Tbilisi (1982). These years his talent of brilliant Artist became apparent. He whould say : «I was not allowed to make movies and I started to make collages. Collage is a compressed film». Museum of S. Parajanov houses for about thousand works: collages, drawings, assemblages, dolls. By the end of his life he made another two films at the «Georgia-film» studio: «The Legend of Suram Fortress» and «Ashik-Kerib». Sergei Parajanov died in 1990 in Yerevan where his museum was opened in 1991.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 14:30:53 +0000
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