November 1 1971 years
Director Mikhail Romm, author of the film "Ordinary Fascism," has passed away.
There were people who, year after year, stubbornly said "no" to Nazism. It takes a lot of courage to die, but perhaps it takes no less courage to say "no" when everyone else says "yes," to remain human and a fighter when everyone else has ceased to be human, to think when thinking is forbidden.
Born in 1901 in Irkutsk, where his parents, Jewish Social Democrats, were exiled, he grew up in Moscow and trained as a sculptor. But "alone with clay and wood," he felt "bored and cold."
Mediocrity in art is unnecessary and offensive.
As a freelancer for the film commission of the Institute of Extracurricular Methods, he had access to numerous films. He watched them 20-30 times, memorized the sequences of shots, and analyzed them. In 1930, he began writing scripts for the Sovkino Mosfabrik. In 1933, he made his first silent film, "Pyshka," and in 1937, "Lenin in October." In 1941, he became responsible for feature film production at Mosfilm.
Nothing ages faster than a movie.
From 1948, he directed the acting and directing workshop at VGIK. His students included Tengiz Abuladze, Vladimir Menshov, Alexander Mitta, and others.
In 1965, the dock was removed. "Ordinary fascism" — with footage from the archives of the Ministry of Propaganda and Hitler himself, and amateur photos of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers. This story about the rise and spread of fascism across Europe focuses primarily on the totalitarian system and crimes of Nazi Germany. But thoughtful viewers also saw parallels with the communist regime in the USSR.
The most important thing about these torchlight displays was that they helped transform a man into a savage. And in a solemn atmosphere, at that. So, turning into a savage, he felt almost like a hero. And the Third Reich desperately needed a savage willing to do anything... First and foremost, to exterminate everything that opposed Nazism.
In 1966, he signed the "Letter of the 25" against Stalin's rehabilitation. He died in 1971. His unfinished film "The World Today" was completed by his colleagues, who renamed it "And Yet I Believe."
