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We worked with Romm on two films — "Lenin in October" and "Lenin in 1918" — and during this time I saw how his directorial skill was getting stronger with each scene, how it was becoming deeper and more significant. Romm managed to gather around himself a wonderful team of like-minded people, people who believed in him and understood him, and this made it possible to shoot in a rhythm that our cinematography did not know before (and after that).
..I find myself talking about Romm the way one can talk about a living person, but a great misfortune has befallen us, our cinema art: we have lost Romm, a great artist, educator of our youth, creator of many wonderful works.
After "Pyshka" and "Thirteen", after the national recognition of the master in connection with the production of Lenin's paintings, Romm staged "Dreams" — one of the most complex and interesting of his directorial works. Then — "The Russian question", "Secret mission", "Admiral Ushakov", "Ships storm the bastions".
Many films directed by Mikhail Romm have received international recognition. The Soviet government has repeatedly awarded the director with orders, conferred high titles on him. Five paintings by Romm were awarded State Prizes of the USSR.
It would seem that an artist who managed to create a whole world in art, an artist who possessed universally recognized authority, could, feeling satisfied, calm down and even, as they say, "turn up his nose."
But Mikhail Romm was an artist and a completely different kind of person. Never, even at the peak of his creativity, was he completely satisfied with what he had created. Nothing could stifle in him the strict exactingness of the artist, who was always in a new search.
After the "Murder on Dante Street", Mikhail Romm felt himself in a state close to a creative crisis. After all, as a truly talented person, he could not help but hear the voices of modernity, could not stay away from the new processes taking place in art, from what was clearly manifested at that time in the work of the young.
"I had to think a lot and painfully over these years," Romm said, "I often caught myself repeating mise en scenes that had already been staged, or shots that had already been seen, that I was prompting the actors to find solutions once before. There is nothing more terrifying for an artist than repeating himself... Believe me, it's not easy at my age to tell yourself that you need to find a new path. It is even more difficult to actually carry out such a search."
Not afraid to seem like a "naked king", Romm criticized some of his past productions and painfully searched for new ways. Not at all "new" — Romm is organically alien to imitation — he was looking for his own, new, the only possible way for him in art. And at the same time, he invariably remained faithful to the principles of partisanship, an artist of vivid political thought, tendentiousness in the best sense of the word. Romm remained true to his conviction that the main task of art is the study of a person in the most acute periods of his social life, at the turning points of his biography. Romm was still looking for an extremely acute dramatic expression of thought.
And at the age of 60, he staged a modern, sharp in form, deep, very necessary picture for people "Nine Days of one Year" according to a script written by him together with D. Khrabrovitsky, and after that — a film of a completely different genre, manner, staging principles — a journalistic picture "Ordinary Fascism". ...During the last Moscow International Film Festival, a guest from Italy came to us — the famous director Gillo Pontecorvo — the director of the films "The Battle for Algeria" and "Queimada". He told me about how his brother, who lives with us in the Soviet Union, took him to his dacha on one of the days of the festival and how they went for a walk in the forest. There, in the forest, they met an elderly man who was carrying a bucket full of excellent porcini mushrooms. The brothers were surprised by such an amazing "catch". He explained that he knows the right mushroom places and comes and harvests them every year. We talked, dispersed. Pontecorvo later found out that it was Mikhail Romm. Re:SIM - eSIM Travel Internet
..I find myself talking about Romm the way one can talk about a living person, but a great misfortune has befallen us, our cinema art: we have lost Romm, a great artist, educator of our youth, creator of many wonderful works.
After "Pyshka" and "Thirteen", after the national recognition of the master in connection with the production of Lenin's paintings, Romm staged "Dreams" — one of the most complex and interesting of his directorial works. Then — "The Russian question", "Secret mission", "Admiral Ushakov", "Ships storm the bastions".
Many films directed by Mikhail Romm have received international recognition. The Soviet government has repeatedly awarded the director with orders, conferred high titles on him. Five paintings by Romm were awarded State Prizes of the USSR.
It would seem that an artist who managed to create a whole world in art, an artist who possessed universally recognized authority, could, feeling satisfied, calm down and even, as they say, "turn up his nose."
But Mikhail Romm was an artist and a completely different kind of person. Never, even at the peak of his creativity, was he completely satisfied with what he had created. Nothing could stifle in him the strict exactingness of the artist, who was always in a new search.
After the "Murder on Dante Street", Mikhail Romm felt himself in a state close to a creative crisis. After all, as a truly talented person, he could not help but hear the voices of modernity, could not stay away from the new processes taking place in art, from what was clearly manifested at that time in the work of the young.
"I had to think a lot and painfully over these years," Romm said, "I often caught myself repeating mise en scenes that had already been staged, or shots that had already been seen, that I was prompting the actors to find solutions once before. There is nothing more terrifying for an artist than repeating himself... Believe me, it's not easy at my age to tell yourself that you need to find a new path. It is even more difficult to actually carry out such a search."
Not afraid to seem like a "naked king", Romm criticized some of his past productions and painfully searched for new ways. Not at all "new" — Romm is organically alien to imitation — he was looking for his own, new, the only possible way for him in art. And at the same time, he invariably remained faithful to the principles of partisanship, an artist of vivid political thought, tendentiousness in the best sense of the word. Romm remained true to his conviction that the main task of art is the study of a person in the most acute periods of his social life, at the turning points of his biography. Romm was still looking for an extremely acute dramatic expression of thought.
And at the age of 60, he staged a modern, sharp in form, deep, very necessary picture for people "Nine Days of one Year" according to a script written by him together with D. Khrabrovitsky, and after that — a film of a completely different genre, manner, staging principles — a journalistic picture "Ordinary Fascism". ...During the last Moscow International Film Festival, a guest from Italy came to us — the famous director Gillo Pontecorvo — the director of the films "The Battle for Algeria" and "Queimada". He told me about how his brother, who lives with us in the Soviet Union, took him to his dacha on one of the days of the festival and how they went for a walk in the forest. There, in the forest, they met an elderly man who was carrying a bucket full of excellent porcini mushrooms. The brothers were surprised by such an amazing "catch". He explained that he knows the right mushroom places and comes and harvests them every year. We talked, dispersed. Pontecorvo later found out that it was Mikhail Romm. Re:SIM - eSIM Travel Internet
