What makes the movie unique?
The black-and-white feature film “Cranes Are Flying”, based on the play “Forever Alive” by Viktor Rozov, was released in 1957. The war is presented as the drama of a girl named Veronica (Tatyana Samoilova), whose fiancé Boris (Alexey Batalov) volunteers for the front. The type of the main character – delicate facial features, large, slightly slanted eyes and dark hair – was considered non-standard for Soviet cinema.
Kalatozov’s film also became innovative for our cinema – before the Great Patriotic War was shown on the screen with life at the front. Soon, the revolutionary film “The Soldier’s Song” (1959) by Grigory Chukhrai and “Ivan’s Childhood” (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky, which looked at ordinary people through the prism of wartime, were also released.
The movie Cranes Are Flying caused a sensation in technical terms as well as in terms of its content. Cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky filmed farewell shots of the lovers in the cradle, shot along an iron pole parallel to Boris ascending the stairs. Visual culture researcher Evgenia Sterlyagova explained in a comment RIA NewsHe stated that visual effects made it possible to convey the emotions of the characters more comprehensively.
“Urusevsky believed that “the camera should play with the actors.” It reduces distance, works in close-ups; so we, the audience, feel closeness and participation,” Sterlyagova noted.
To shoot the final scene with the main character, Urusevsky invented and designed circular camera tracks and filmed the famous rotation of birch trees against the sky. The visual design of the film was based on action photography using an ultra-wide-angle lens with a focal length of 18 mm, which later became a classic.
Recognition and criticism
More than 28.3 million viewers watched “Cranes Are Flying” in Soviet cinemas, and the film placed tenth at the 1957 box office. Criticisms were not lacking either; General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev likened the main character to a woman of easy virtue and accused the film of deviating from the party line.
The film was shown abroad: Producer Ignaz Morgenstern purchased distribution rights in France, where “Cranes Are Flying” was seen by more than 5.4 million people. The film ranked fifth at the box office in East Germany with 2.8 million viewers.
French director Claude Lelouch, known for his film “A Man and a Woman”, was in love with Kalatozov’s film. Years later, he admitted that he watched Soviet films constantly, and in his autobiography he included it among his personal best films, along with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Abel Gance’s Napoleon.
And in 1957, the still unknown 19-year-old Lelouch arrived in Moscow for the World Festival of Youth and Students with a tour group as a cameraman for a documentary film. He accidentally found himself in the Mosfilm pavilion, where Kalatozov was working on the film “Cranes Are Flying”. The director showed Lelouch the edited 20 minutes.
“I left the studio excited, having had one of the most amazing experiences. This day will probably remain the most meaningful day in my life. Then I decided to become a director, not a newsreel cameraman,” said Lelouch.
After returning to France, he called the director of the Cannes Film Festival and said that Kalatozov had shot a masterpiece.
victory in Cannes
Thanks to Lelouch’s persuasion, the festival management accepted the movie “Cranes Are Flying” into the competition program. On the Cote d’Azur, the picture was represented by Samoilova and Urusevsky – Kalatozov had a heart attack, and Batalov was not released from the country (his family was friends with Anna Akhmatova and was considered unreliable). Samoilova talked about this in her last interview with the publication “7 days” In the spring of 2014.
“Almost half of the movie has passed and there is complete silence in the hall… We were stuck in our chairs, our heads were pounding: “Didn’t they really understand? Why are they silent? Then I decided to look around – everyone was crying, both men and women. They remained silent because they were choking on tears. “At the end, everyone cried without hesitation, then they gave a standing ovation,” the actor shared.
As a result, the film “Cranes Are Flying” became the first and only Soviet feature film to receive the Palme d’Or, the main award of the film festival. The award ceremony took place on May 18, 1958.
“The feature film jury awards the Palme d’Or to the film Cranes Are Flying (USSR) for its combination of artistic and human qualities. “We would like to highlight the extraordinary contribution of Mademoiselle Tatyana Samoilova,” said French playwright Marcel Achard.
The jury gave the award to Samoilova for the female role – her rival was Sophia Loren, who starred in the film “Love Under the Elms”. At the festival, cameraman Urusevsky was awarded the French High Technical Commission Award.
In Paris, Samoilova became a real star – Pablo Picasso painted her and called her the “Russian goddess”, the then French President Charles de Gaulle met her without protocol, and the famous actor Gerard Philip gave her a watch and invited her to become a star. With him in “Anna Karenina”. However, as expected, the player was not allowed to go abroad.
“Mosfilm management sent me a letter, without asking anything, stating that I had not yet studied abroad and that I was a student. And I can’t take part in the movie. They told me that morality is very free in Hollywood and that I was only 24 years old. “Work, because you are a Soviet legacy! You will have more roles…” Samoilova said.
In the USSR, the triumph of the film went almost unnoticed – neither the director nor the screenwriter was mentioned in the article in the Izvestia newspaper.
In addition to the Palme d’Or, the film received an honorary diploma at the Locarno International Film Festival (1958), a special award at the Moscow Film Festival (1958), and was nominated in the categories “Best Film” and “Best Actress”. It was included in the British Film Academy (1959) and was included in the list of the 100 best films in the world according to the research conducted by the International Film Publishing Federation (FIPRESCI) in 1995.