Elem Klimov - Soviet film director, author of several textbook films

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Klimov Elem Germanovich - a famous film director of the Soviet period. People's Artist of the Russian Federation since 1997, in the period from 1986 to 1988 he was the secretary of the presidium of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR.

Elem Klimov, biography

Born in 1933, July 9, in Volgograd (former Stalingrad), in the family of German Stepanovich Klimov, a member of the Party Control Committee under the Central Committee of the CPSU. Beginning in 1956, he led the rehabilitation of victims of Stalin's repressions. Personally collected more than seventy volumes of files on the innocently convicted. There were several hundred people repressed, and German Stepanovich hoped to fully understand the situation, but his he alth failed him - he had to transfer the matter to younger enthusiasts.

Mother - Klimova Kaleria Georgievna. Brother - Klimov German Germanovich, screenwriter. Wife - Larisa Shepitko, a famous film director. There is a son - Klimov Anton, PR director. The family lived together, although they rarely gathered at the same table.

Elem Klimov graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1957 and began working as a design engineer at a Moscow plant. Collaborated with the editors of the Central Television. In 1962 he joined the CPSU. In 1964 he graduated from VGIKdirecting speci alty and came to work at the film studio "Mosfilm".

Career start

Elem Klimov, whose films are classics of Soviet cinema, made his first feature film in 1964. It was the comedy "Welcome, or No Trespassing". Starring Evgeny Evstigneev. The film made a splash and alerted the party leadership of the country. The next picture of Klimov called "The Adventures of a Dentist" was banned and "shelved" for many years. The film was released after twenty years, in 1987.

The director's blue dream was to create a full-length film based on Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Klimov even wrote the script together with his brother Herman, but the money for the production was not given for ideological reasons, and the project remained on paper.

In the early nineties, a meeting of Russian filmmakers with business representatives took place. Someone raised the issue of financing new film projects. The speaker pointed to Elem Klimov and said that the director could never fulfill his dream of filming Bulgakov's masterpiece. The present new wave millionaires expressed their desire to help with money, but Klimov refused, explaining his position by the fact that he did not understand the sources of this money.

Larisa Shepitko

Elem Klimov met his future wife at the institute. Larisa studied at the directing department and was consideredthe first beauty of VGIK. She acted in films a lot as a student, and once she met with a senior student named Alem, handsome, tall and talented. Soon the young people got married.

Larisa and Elem were the most beautiful matrimonial duo of Soviet cinema, they worked together and helped each other in everything. At some point, Shepitko came forward, she received a prestigious award at the Berlin Film Festival for her film called "Ascent".

Elem, on the contrary, experienced his next failure, his painting "Agony" was banned (it had been in the archive for ten years).

Nevertheless, life went on, the son grew up, scripts were written, new projects were opened. Shooting was planned according to the scenario of Rasputin Valentin "Farewell to Matera". Shepitko was supposed to shoot the picture.

However, a tragedy happened, Larisa got into a car accident. The entire film crew died with her. The already begun film was finished by Elem Klimov.

Main work

And only after this maddening tragedy did the director find the strength and shoot his main picture called "Come and See". The picture was created on the verge of reality, with pain and screaming. It turned out to be a real masterpiece, deeply psychological, on a bare nerve, unlike other Soviet films.

The picture was shot on a monstrous material - based on the facts about the genocide of the Belarusian people, the destruction of villages by the Nazis. Some episodes filmed by Klimov went beyond the normal humanrepresentation. There were no tears, no compassion, no sympathy, no pity. Only horror, inevitable and chilling blood. Scary movie.

In total, the director made twelve films, he had been waiting for his chance for years, but to no avail. He lived as he had to, was indifferent to the world around him, felt disgust for the new values that had replaced the Soviet system. Elem Klimov died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003, on October 26. The director was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery.

Director's work

As mentioned, Elem Klimov made 12 films in total, of which only six were released on the big screen:

• "Come and See" (1985);
• "Farewell" (1981);
• "Agony" (1981);
• "Larisa" (1980);
• "An Evening of Memories" (1972);
• "Sport, sport, sport" (1970);
• "Single Fathers" (1968);
• "Welcome or No Trespassing" (1964);
• "Look, the sky!" (1962);
• "The Zhinikh" (1960);
• "Adventures of the Dentist" (1965);
• "Caution: Vulgarity" (1959).