Pudovkin’s life

Pudovkin was born in Penza on February 28, 1893.

In 1920, Pudovkin entered the First National Film School of the Soviet Union to study.

In 1922, he transferred to Kuleshov's "Experimental Studio" to study and work. He assisted Kulishov in exploring and experimenting with film language, and participated in "Mr. West in the Bolshevik Country". "An Extraordinary Adventure" (1924) and "Dead Light" (1925). Due to differences of opinion, Pudovkin left the Kuleshov Studio to work as a director at the Russian International Workers' Relief Committee Film Company.

In 1925, he co-produced the film "Chess Fans" with Н. Function". The photographer of the latter film was A.D. Glovnia, and they established a long-term cooperative relationship.

In the 1920s, while composing film scores, he also founded the montage film theory together with Sergei Eisenstein. During this period, Pudovkin published important film theory works "Film Directors and Film Materials", "On Film Screenwriters, Directors and Actors" and "Film Scripts", etc., which made significant contributions to the development of film aesthetics at that time. .

In 1926, he participated in the filming of "Mother", which gave full play to Pudovkin's realist aesthetic point of view. Together with the screenwriter N.A. Zalhei, he deeply understood the basic themes and revolutionary passion of Gorky's original work and transformed them into the language of the film. This is another major innovation in film language after "Battleship Potemkin", in which the metaphorical passage of "The Thaw of the Neva River" has become an important basis for associative montage. In his work of coaching actors, he strived to transform theater performance skills into film performance skills, setting an example of cultivating film actors based on the principles of the Stanislavsky system.

In 1958, this film was selected as one of the 12 best films since the advent of the film at the Brussels International Film Festival.

In 1927, the next two films were "The End of St. Petersburg" and "Descendants of Genghis Khan".

1929, when the film was screened abroad under the title "Asian Storm"), they continued to develop the aesthetic principles Pudovkin found in "Mother". It is characterized by rich means of expression, clear purpose, rigorous style, concise techniques, ups and downs of rhythm, and special emphasis on performance, thus establishing the organic connection between Stanislavsky's performance system and screen image creation. These two films are outstanding works of Soviet cinema in the 1920s. These works established Pudovkin's directorial style and his position in the world of cinema.

In 1932, he made the sound film "Ordinary Events" (also known as "Living Well"), which was not successful, but in "The Deserter" (1933), he achieved success. Sound and picture counterpoint.

In 1939, he shot a series of historical films, such as "Minin and Pozharsky".

In 1941, he filmed "Marshal Suvorov", and in 1947 he filmed "Admiral Nakhimov" and so on. In these films, he used all means to create distinctive characters. At the 1947 Venice International Film Festival, actors such as Diki and Kniadev in "Admiral Nakhimov" won acting awards. The film also won the Cinematography Award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1947.

In 1953, his last work was "The Return of Vasily Boltnikov" based on the novel "Harvest".