Aleksei Yuryevich German

Aleksei Yuryevich German
Born
Aleksei Yuryevich German

20 July 1938
Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
(present day St. Petersburg, Russia)
Died21 February 2013(2013-02-21) (aged 74)
St. Petersburg, Russia
NationalityRussian
Occupations
  • Film director
  • screenwriter
SpouseSvetlana Karmalita
ChildrenAleksei German Jr.

Aleksei Yuryevich German[1] (Russian: Алексей Юрьевич Герман, IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ˈjʉrʲjɪvʲɪdʑ ˈɡʲermən]; 20 July 1938 – 21 February 2013)[2] was a Russian film director and screenwriter.[3] In a career spanning five decades of filmmaking, German completed six feature films, noted for his stark pessimism, long, serpentine sequence shots, black and white cinematography, overbearing sound design and acute observations of Stalinist Russia.

Biography

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German was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1938; his father was the writer Yuri German.[4] He studied under Grigori Kozintsev until 1960, and then moved on to working in theatre before joining the Lenfilm studio as an assistant director. He made his directing debut with Sedmoy Sputnik, co-directed with Grigori Aronov in 1967. Over the course of his career, many of his projects met with production difficulties or official opposition; in 50 years, he managed to complete just six feature films, his final film being the science fiction film Hard to Be a God, completed by his son, Alexei German after his death,[5] debuted at the Rome Film Festival in 2013.

Trial on the Road (1971) is the film that made Alexei German famous. It was banned for fifteen years and was shelved by the Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union until its release (1986) during the Gorbachev era.

In 1987, at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherlands), Alexei German, as a director, received a KNF Award for his three films, Trial on the Road, Twenty Days Without War, and My Friend Ivan Lapshin.

German was married to the screenwriter Svetlana Karmalita;[6] they had a son, Aleksei Alekseivich German, who is also a film director.[7] German died of heart failure 21 February 2013.[8]

Style

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Most of German's films are set during the Joseph Stalin era and the Second World War, and they depict the time period in a critical light. His films, shot mostly in black and white or very muted color, have a distinctive "murky" look and are often described as looking "aged." He was known for his obstinacy as a director, for featuring protagonists who could be categorized neither as heroes nor antiheroes, and for casting actors against type.[9]

Filmography

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References

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  1. ^ His surname is sometimes transliterated Guerman or Gherman to indicate that the Latin script ⟨g⟩ is "hard".
  2. ^ "Legendary Soviet Filmmaker Dies at 74". The Moscow Times. 21 February 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  3. ^ Nancy Condee (2009). "Aleksei German: Forensics in the Dynastic Capital". The Imperial Trace - Recent Russian Cinema. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 185–216. ISBN 978-0190451226.
  4. ^ Bergan, Ronald (26 February 2013). "Aleksei German obituary". The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  5. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (6 August 2015). "Hard to Be a God review – mud, blood and holy hell". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  6. ^ Rollberg, Peter (20 July 2016). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442268425.
  7. ^ Bergan, Ronald (26 February 2013). "Aleksei German obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  8. ^ Kishkovsky, Sophia (23 February 2013). "Aleksei German, Director of Anti-Soviet Movies, Dies at 74". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  9. ^ Dolin, Anton (March/April 2012) No Surrender. filmcomment.com
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