May 24, 2013
Passed away Pyotr Todorovsky — director, cinematographer, composer, and actor. Nominated for an Oscar in 1985 for the film "Wartime Romance."
The more dramatic the shooting, the better the film turns out.
Born in 1925, in Ukrainian Bobrinets. He managed to complete 9th grade, finishing 10th grade after the war. In June 1941, he and his family were evacuated to Stalingrad. In November, due to the German advance, they had to flee again - in Saratov region.
In 1943, he entered the infantry school. He was sent to the front in April 1944. By August, he was already a mortar platoon commander.
When you go on the attack for the first time, you're not afraid. You run like a calf. But after you're wounded, when you have to rise from the trenches again, you're a completely different person.
Took part in the liberation Warsaw and taking Berlin. In March 1945 he was shell-shocked. He ended the war at Schonhausen on the Elbe. The experience would later form the basis of many film stories.
As a student at VGIK, I was walking past the Central Department Store (TsUM) one chilly winter day when I suddenly heard a painfully familiar, hoarse laugh. I turned around. Standing against the wall of the department store, wearing a padded jacket and fingerless gloves, was our battalion commander's girlfriend, selling pies. A chilled girl, wrapped in shawls, sat on a crate nearby. I stood there for a long time, unable to tear my eyes away. What had happened to her, the beauty, the queen of the front? Why had life changed her so? Years passed, and the memory of that meeting haunted me.
Road to Los Angeles The film "Wartime Romance" would happen 30 years later. During this time, Todorovsky had to repeatedly prove that he had chosen the right path. For example, when he entered the cinematography department at VGIK in 1949, he was last on the list.
The first year was a probationary year. The teachers needed to determine whether you were gifted or untalented. I got a "D" in the mastery section and was expelled, but I still made it to the academic council. I remember Pasha Nagin, the optics teacher, came out, sat down next to me, and said, "Well, go home. And in the fall, bring me a portrait, a landscape, and a genre scene—you'll have to retake the exam." That's how I was saved.
He graduated with honors, despite having to use cheat sheets to pass subjects like lighting engineering, which had a ton of complex formulas. He made his cinematic debut in 1956, in the film Marlena Khutsieva "Spring on Zarechnaya Street." Critics noted his mastery of "alternating between long shots and individual shots."
I can overcome anything to film what I want, and no one can stop me.
He made his first film as a director in 1962, "Never." He directed 17 films in total, including "The Beloved Woman of Mechanic Gavrilov," "Along the Main Street with an Orchestra," "Encore, Encore!", and "Intergirl" (the top-grossing film at the Soviet box office in 1989).
I had no training as a director. It was all intuition. I always relied on the first impression of the scene, on its smell.
I filmed "A Military Field Romance" in 1983. The main character, Sasha Netuzhilin, has a lot of personality. I might have played the role myself, if not for my age. One of the candidates was Victor Proskurin - he was auditioned for a role alongside Anastasia Vertinskaya. But in the end the choice fell on Nikolay Burlyaev, who told the director that the role was his and he would not give it to anyone else.
I love you so much, but I don’t know your name.
Lyuba was supposed to play Svetlana Kryuchkova — but she couldn't film because she had a small child. The role went to To Natalia Andreychenko. And here are the roles for Zinovy Gerdt It wasn't in the original script, but Todorovsky's best friend said he was ready to play anyone in his film, even a horse - and so the character of Victor, a movie theater administrator, appeared in the film.
I loved you, but a long time ago, back during the war.
The film seemed to have every chance of winning an Oscar, but at the end of the Cold War, the victory in the Best Foreign Language Film category was awarded to Richard Dembo's The Bishop's Diagonal, an allusion to the 1978 World Chess Championship match (Anatoly Karpov VS defector Виктор Корчной).
His last film as a director was “Riorita” in 2008.
He passed away at the age of 87.
