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Grigori Kozintsev | |
|---|---|
Григорий Козинцев | |
 Kozintsev in 1958 | |
| Born | Grigori Moiseyevich Kozintsov 22 March [O.S. 9 March] 1905 Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) |
| Died | 11 May 1973(1973-05-11) (aged 68) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1919–1973 |
Grigori Mikhailovich Kozintsev[a] (bornGrigori Moiseyevich Kozintsov;[b]22 March [O.S. 9 March] 1905 – 11 May 1973) was a Soviettheatre andfilm director,screenwriter andpedagogue. He was namedPeople's Artist of the USSR in 1964. In 1965 he was a member of the jury at the4th Moscow International Film Festival.[1] Two years later he was a member of the jury of the5th Moscow International Film Festival.[2] In 1971 he was the president of the jury at the7th Moscow International Film Festival.[3]
Grigori Kozintsev was born in the Jewish family of a doctor, therapist and pediatrician Moisei Isaakovich Kozintsov (1859–1930) and his wife Anna Grigorievna Lurie was from arabbinical family fromKiev. His mother's sister was the gynecologist and scientist-physicianRoza Lurie [ru]. The mother's brother was the dermatologist Alexander G. Lurie (1868–1954), a professor and chair of venereal skin diseases at the Kiev Postgraduate Medical Institute (1919–1954).
Kozintsev spent his early childhood inNovozybkov ofChernigov Governorate, where his father served as the district sanitary inspector, as well as a doctor of the Novozybkov girls' school and where Kozintsev entered the first grade of the Novozybkov school.
Since 1913, after moving from Novozybkov, he studied at the Kiev-Pechersk Gymnasium, since 1915 – the 5th gymnasium in Pechersk. The father admitted patients at the commercial clinic "Kvisisana" on the Large Zhitomir Street, 19, and at a free dispensary in the surgical hospital, built by philanthropist Babushkin on the Tverskaya Street, 7. The family lived in a house number 22, Apt. 2 on Mariinsko Annunciation Street (later Saksaganskogo Street). In 1919 together with his sister Lyubov, he attended a private school-studio of painting ofAleksandra Ekster. Together with other students of the school he took part in a celebratoryavant-garde design of the Kiev streets.
The theater attracted him most of all; he began work with participation in the mural decorations of the famous spectacle ofKote MarjanishviliFuente Ovejuna by the Spanish playwrightLope de Vega. He worked in theSolovtsov Theater from the age of 14.[4] With Mardzhanov and his friendsSergei Yutkevich,Michał Waszyński andAleksei Kapler he created a puppet theater, and then the experimental theater "Harlequin", in which he staged a play that he wrote himself, and finally carried out a street performance based on the folk playKing Maximilian. In early 1920 he went to Petrograd and entered the class ofNathan Altman in the Free Art Workshops (formerlyImperial Academy of Arts[4] (today the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I. Y. Repin) and at the same time directed at the Studio Theater Comic Opera, led by Kote Marjanishvili.
In December 1921, Kozintsev contributed the "Salvation in the Trousers" section to theManifesto of the Eccentric Theater,[5] (the other contributors wereLeonid Trauberg, G. K. Kryzhitsky and Sergei Yutkevich), which was announced during a debate organized by them. In 1922, Kozintsev and Trauberg organized an avant-garde theater workshopFactory of the Eccentric Actor [ru] (FEKS),[4] and in the same year staged an eccentric re-imagining of the playMarriage byNikolai Gogol. For two years they staged three more plays based on their own material, and in 1924 moved their experiments in the area of eccentric comedy in film, transforming the theater workshop into the Film SchoolFEKS.[6]
In 1924 he began working at the film studio Sevzapkino (nowLenfilm) initially directing short films alongside Trauberg.[4]The Adventures of Oktyabrina (1924) – their first short film was a continuation of their theatrical experiences based on their own script; it was an attempt to combine politics (to expose theNEPman who helped the imperialists) with outright buffoonery and according toYury Tynyanov, "a rampant collection of tricks, which the directors amassed, starved for movies." In the second eccentric short filmMishki versus Yudenich (1925) which no longer starred variety and circus actors who joined the directors from the theater (among them wasSergey Martinson), instead the actors were students of the film school, includingSergei Gerasimov,Janina Żejmo,Andrei Kostrichkin.
The first feature film by Kozintsev and Trauberg was romantic melodramaThe Devil's Wheel in 1926,[4] scripted byAdrian Piotrovsky. Love for dazzling eccentricity was combined with a convincing display of urban life. In this film was established the constant creative collective of FEKS's; not including the directors, it included the cinematographerAndrei Moskvin and artistEvgeny Eney, who worked with Kozintsev during almost all of his films.
FEKS's next film,The Overcoat (1926), a film adaptation of "St. Petersburg stories" by Nikolai Gogol, became one of the masterpieces of Soviet silent cinema. A script by the famous Russian writer Yury Tynyanov helped evolve his directorial vision, expressive visual choices and eccentric, on the verge of grotesque acting of actors led to the creation of a film which was stylistically in "the manner of Gogol."
The vigorous and organized working team FEKS sought in every movie to search for a new direction, and in 1927 also released a contemporary comedyLittle Brother (1927) based on their own script, and immediately followed up with the historical melodramaThe Club of the Big Deed (1927), scripted by Yury Tynyanov andG. Oxman, based on the material of the Decembrist uprising. Both films enjoyed success with the audience, especiallyThe Club of the Big Deed which the famous Russian criticViktor Shklovsky described as "the most elegant film of the Soviet Union".
Beginning in August 1927, Kozintsev was a teacher at theLeningrad Institute of Performing Arts, which was merged with the film school FEKS.
Starting from their first sound pictureAlone (1931) which used experimental montage sound techniques, a new period began in the work of Kozintsev and Trauberg. This included the Maxim trilogy:The Youth of Maxim (1935);The Return of Maxim (1937) andThe Vyborg Side (1939). The trilogy received acclaim in the Soviet Union but was banned as propaganda in the United States until the 1960s.[4]Pirogov in 1947 was his first feature film that he directed on his own.[4]
Kozintsev worked briefly in theater, staging the playsKing Lear (1941),Othello (1943) andHamlet (1954).
Beginning in 1944, and under the title of professor from 1960, Kozintsev led the director's workshopVGIK. Among his graduates wereEldar Ryazanov,Stanislav Rostotsky, Benjamin Dorman, and Vasily V. Katanyan.
HisDon Quixote (1957) became a classic film adaptation, the first film version in colour.[4] In 1962 Kozintsev published the bookOur contemporary William Shakespeare, which became the theoretical preparation for his two outstanding Shakespearean adaptations:Hamlet (1964), (Lenin Prize, 1965; Special Prize of the International Film Festival in Venice, 1964) andKing Lear (1970).
In 1964 he was given the titlePeople's Artist of the USSR.[4]
In 1965–1971 Kozintsev led a directing workshop at the Lenfilm. He also wrote a historical and theoretical monograph "Deep Screen" (1971) and "Space Tragedy" (published posthumously in 1973).
He died on 11 May 1973 inLeningrad and was buried at Literatorskie Jetty ofVolkovo Cemetery.
| Year | Original title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1924 | Похождения Октябрины | The Adventures of Oktyabrina | director; screenwriter; film is lost |
| 1925 | Мишки против Юденича | Mishki versus Yudenich | director; screenwriter; film is lost |
| 1926 | Чёртово колесо | The Devil's Wheel | director |
| Шинель | The Overcoat | director | |
| 1927 | С.В.Д. | The Club of the Big Deed | director |
| Братишка | Little Brother | director; screenwriter; film is lost | |
| 1929 | Новый Вавилон | The New Babylon | director; screenwriter |
| 1931 | Одна | Alone | director; screenwriter |
| 1934 | Юность Максима | The Youth of Maxim | director; screenwriter |
| 1937 | Возвращение Максима | The Return of Maxim | director; screenwriter |
| 1938 | Выборгская сторона | The Vyborg Side | director; screenwriter |
| 1943 | Юный Фриц | The Young Fritz | director; film is lost |
| 1946 | Простые люди | Simple People | director; screenwriter |
| 1947 | Пирогов | Pirogov | director |
| 1953 | Белинский | Belinsky | director; screenwriter |
| 1957 | Дон Кихот | Don Quixote | director |
| 1964 | Гамлет | Hamlet | director; screenwriter |
| 1971 | Король Лир | King Lear | director; screenwriter |
