Kheifits Iosif Efimovich, director: biography, personal life, filmography

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

Iosif Efimovich is an outstanding screenwriter who directed thirty films that contained the entire history of the Soviet period. The filmmaker showed himself to be a true artist who managed to capture on film for posterity the image of a man transforming historical time.

Like a Chekhov hero

Even by filming the classic literary works of Chekhov or Turgenev, Iosif Kheifits brought out the features of his contemporaries, showing the audience the truth about today. He skillfully translated the literary text into the language of cinema, his author's directorial delights were perceived justifiably and organically. It is no coincidence that his work has received international awards. The authority of Iosif Kheifits in the domestic film industry has always been unattainably high, even the most famous actors considered it an honor to play with him even in an episodic or secondary role. Restrained, intelligent and delicate - he himself was like a Chekhov hero, he eschewed pathos in his professional activities and personal life. At the same time, he treated those around him who did not justify his trust with tenderness.sadness, did not stop hoping for their transformation.

Industriousness grows talent

Kheifits Iosif Efimovich was born in Minsk in 1905 in the family of an employee. From childhood, he showed extraordinary creative abilities, was interested in cinema. In 1924 he moved to Leningrad to gain basic skills and knowledge, studying at the Leningrad College of Screen Art. In an educational institution, the young man meets Alexander Zarkhi, who later became his close friend, creative associate and co-author of many films. Joseph successfully combined his studies with writing reviews in the magazines "Kinonedelya", "Working Week", took an active part in the activities of the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema, headed by F. Dzerzhinsky.

After graduating from a technical school, he decides to continue to improve his skills as a filmmaker at the film department of the Institute of Art History. Simultaneously with the training, he began working at the Sovkino film factory. In a creative duet with Zarkhi, he writes the scripts for the films “The Moon on the Left” and “Transport of Fire”. Friends initiate the formation of the Komsomol production team and shoot films about the Soviet youth "Noon" and "Wind in the Face".

Catalog of unclaimed personalities

In 1933, director Iosif Kheifits, in tandem with A. Zarkhi, made a film about the events on the Soviet-Chinese border called "My Motherland". The painting was created by order of the highest ranks of the Red Army. A sound masterpiece, in fact, of recent debutants delighted experiencedfilmmakers. But later the film incurred the wrath of the strongest of this world, therefore it sank into oblivion, disappeared from the history of Russian cinema, remaining a fact not of a creative, but rather of a personal biography of Joseph Kheifits. The fact is that the novice filmmakers in their work relied on individuality, although the previous typified canon had already departed, and the new one was not established by censorship. Therefore, the film "My Motherland" is often positioned by critics as a catalog of unclaimed personalities, types and bright characters. The actors involved in the production of the tape were little known, in the future, most failed to build a brilliant career.

Unlike "My Motherland", in the movie "Hot Days" solid celebrities played, but the performers failed to "revive" the characters of this overly optimistic comedy picture. But on her shooting, Iosif Kheifits and Yanina Zheimo met and fell in love with each other, confirming their feelings by legal marriage.

Ignoring society trends

In most of the main film plots of the works of director Iosif Kheifits, even those oversaturated with social significance, there is a person's private life, his personality. This can be confirmed by the film, included in the classics of Soviet cinema called "Deputy of the B altic", which was also filmed in collaboration with Zarkhi. The directors, despite the trends prevailing at that time in Soviet cinematography, emphasized the social intent of their work, directing the attention of the audience in the right direction. According to the idea of the authors, the image of the scientist Polezhaev served as a clear illustration of the possibility of harmonious interaction between the Russian intelligentsia and the revolutionary proletariat. In this project, as in "Member of the Government" and "His Name is Sukhe-Bator", they tried to achieve one goal - to show the personal path to the revolution of three heroes different in their social status and level of intellectual development.

In the spirit of the times

In the future, the filmography of Joseph Kheifits was replenished with the documentary film "The Defeat of Japan", the film "In the Name of Life" and the film "Precious Grains". After a lull in the creative activity of the director, he practically stopped filming during the period of active struggle against cosmopolitanism.

In 1954 the director filmed V. Kochetov's novel "The Zhurbin Family". The film "Big Family" is made in the traditional form of a story about a working dynasty for socialist realism. At the same time, the picture reflects the trends of the time, the history of the relationship between the main characters is not directly related to their professional activities and the social background of the film. This trend is observed in the subsequent creations of Joseph Kheifits, such as "My Dear Man" and "The Rumyantsev Case".

Screens of classics

A significant period in the work of the filmmaker is devoted to screen adaptations of the works of Chekhov, Turgenev, Kuprin. Among the most significant film adaptations in the director’s track record are: “Lady with a Dog”, “In the City of S.”, “Bad Goodman”, “Asya”, “Shurochka”. The listed paintings brought Iosif Efimovich wide popularity in the West. Foreign artists highly appreciated the author's attention to the expressiveness of details, smooth, unhurried narration, permeated with subtle psychologism.

Around this period, Kheifits turns to modern realities, participates in the creation of films “The Only One”, “Salut, Maria!”, “First Married”.

Unfortunately, the director was not allowed to translate on film the creative idea of the actor Y. Tolubeev, the film "Tevye the Milkman", despite the fact that the script written by L. Trauberg was already ready.

Acting Director

In the period from the late 60s to the 80s. in Kheifits, there is a complication of the concept of a movie hero, perhaps under the influence of work on screen adaptations of Turgenev and Chekhov's prose. The main subject of artistic interest of the director is the unpredictability of personal individuality in the spontaneous deliberateness of the flow of life, the duality of a person's life position, the discrepancy with traditional ideas about life or norms of behavior.

This concept of the hero made Iosif Kheifits an exclusively acting director. The system of expressive means is determined by the installation on the actor, among them an innovative method - free in-frame editing. Even in almost the last masterpiece called "The Stray Bus", the director finds an unprecedented creative twist, which allows him to present a person and his environment to the viewer in an original way. Whereinthe narrative is not full of acute crisis situations.

Private life

Iosif Kheifits was married twice. The first time, as already mentioned, he married the actress Yanina Zheymo, who bore him a son, Julius. Currently Julius Iosifovich is a well-known Polish cameraman. The second wife was a woman of rare beauty, Irina Vladimirovna Svetozarova. The couple raised two sons - Dmitry and Vladimir, who decided to follow in the footsteps of the famous father. Dmitry became a director, Vladimir became a film artist.

Iosif Efimovich was really happy in marriage. The spouses were never seen angry or irritated, they truly loved each other. In their house, according to acquaintances, spirituality always reigned, no gossip and squabbles. Despite the fact that the family lived quite poorly. There was a period when they had to sleep on a mattress set on bricks, the roof was leaking, an iron bathroom seemed like a luxury. At the same time, there was always fresh air in the apartment, Kheifits always kept the windows wide open.

The treasure of the family was a few books that stood on the shelf, which the director made with his own hands: he sawed it out and opened it with potassium permanganate. His sons recall that he was a fan of homemade things, so the whole house was filled with crafts - funny, touching, naive.

In the memory of generations

The creative legacy of Joseph Kheifits is hard to overestimate. Even modern visionaries, when building a pictorial series, try to inherit his technique, to be extremely consistent. Filmmaker dies at 90years old, buried near St. Petersburg at the Memorial Cemetery, near the village of Komarovo. In 2005, a postal envelope dedicated to Iosif Efimovich Kheifits was issued in Russia.