4 February 1881 year
He was born in Moscow into a merchant family. Yakov Protazanov — actor, screenwriter, director. One of the "fathers" of Russian cinema, who directed more than 100 films.
There was no cinema, but there was already Protazanov
(Vladimir Mayakovsky)
At 19, he graduated from a commercial college and worked as a salesman in a textile company. He became interested in art under the influence of his actor uncle. At 24, he traveled around Europe, where he discovered cinema.
Upon his return, he found work as an assistant director at the first silent film studio, Gloria. At 28, he made his first film, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.
I called on my favorite poet for help and submitted my first script. I remember well how proud I was that I received 25 rubles for it—a considerable sum at the time.
By the age of 30, he had become one of the leading directors in the Russian Empire. He was praised for his "loving approach to Russian history" and "the poetic haze of birch trees," and his films were called "living theater."
In the biographical film about Leo Tolstoy "The Passing of the Great Elder" was the first Russian film to use the technique of "double exposure"—in a single shot, the real writer, as depicted in documentary footage, "walked in the sky" alongside the actor playing him. At the request of Tolstoy's family, the film was banned from showing in Russia (due to "desecration of the writer's name"), but it enjoyed a successful run abroad.
Youth and a thirst for sensation pushed me to bold ideas. But I recall this episode of my creative life without shame.
In the film "Drama on the Telephone," he was one of the first in cinema to use the "polyframe" principle - he divided the screen into four parts and placed images of different events in them.
Among Protazanov's pre-revolutionary masterpieces are the films "Nikolai Stavrogin" based on Dostoevsky's "Demons" and Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades," in which he was the first to use a moving camera and night shots.
"The Queen of Spades" is a landmark work of cinematic art. It is the first achievement of Russian cinema, achieving worldwide significance.
(film scholar Romil Sobolev)
In 1917, he made the film "No Blood," which criticized the Bolsheviks. A year later, his film "Father Sergius" was released, which later fell into disgrace for its religiosity.
A drama or not a drama, a novel or not a novel, but life itself
(Kinotvorchestvo newspaper about the film Father Sergius, Paris)
In 1920, after the decree nationalizing the film industry, he emigrated. He continued filming in France and Germany.
In 1923, on the initiative Lunacharsky, returned to the USSR and worked at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film factory. His Forty-First, about the tragedies of the Civil War (subsequently re-shot) Chukhrai) Lunacharsky called it a "marvelous picture" and a "masterpiece." However, his colleagues criticized him and accused him of "theatricality."
Standing in the way of studying and improving the craft of cinema are people who have specialized in the old art. They are our enemies.
(film director Lev Kuleshov)
With this Protazanov, centuries-old antiquities are climbing
(Vladimir Mayakovsky)
In 1924, he released the first science fiction film in the USSR, Aelita, which was an incredible success.
He also staged comedies: “The Trial of Three Million,” “The Tailor from Torzhok,” “Ranks and People,” and “The Feast of St. George.”
In 1931, he made his first sound film, the Civil War drama "Tommy." But the film flopped at the box office.
In 1937, at the peak of Stalin’s terror, his “Dowry” was published, which brought back his success (a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris).
During the evacuation to Tashkent, at the height of the Great Patriotic War, he filmed a comedy about Khoja Nasreddin. Denunciations were filed against Protazanov for it, claiming it was full of seditious jokes and "failed to uphold the morale of the Red Army soldiers." In the Uzbek SSR, he was recognized as an Honored Artist for this work.
In twenty years, someone will definitely die - either me, or the emir, or the donkey!
(Nasreddin in Bukhara)
He was a genius at casting, discovering many stars of early Soviet cinema: Ivan Mozzhukhin, Igor Ilyinsky, Olga Gzovskaya, Vasily Kachalov, Mikhail Zharov.
During rehearsals, he invariably wielded the baton, using it to direct the creative process. In moments of extreme dissatisfaction, he would take off his hat and throw it on the floor.
He died in Moscow in 1945, at 64.
