Kirkinson wrote:And now the
Siskel Film Center is showing the same six films that screened at LACMA in February, plus
Ukrainian Rhapsody. Unfortunately I'll be working on a film shoot during both screenings of
Color of Pomegranates and
Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, which is infinitely frustrating, but at least I'll be able to see the later films. I love them all, and any Paradjanov in 35mm ought to be a joy.
Has anybody seen
Ukrainian Rhapsody? I haven't seen any of the pre-
Shadows films and this is the only one that fits my schedule.
You absolutely should see UKRAINIAN RHAPSODY. It's a wartime melodrama about a singer, it's crudely made and fairly hokey, but there is still some striking imagery in it, and the German sequences were shot on location in the ruins of Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad. Stepan Shkurat (of Dovzhenko's EARTH) has a cameo role as the singer's grandfather. A lot of people like it the best of his early films. The collective farm musical THE TOP GUY is silly and a lot of fun--it was actually the biggest hit of his entire career, believe it or not! SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES didn't bring in nearly as many admissions, and hardly anyone at all in the Soviet Union saw THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS.
I think THE FLOWER IN THE STONE is the strongest of his early films in terms of acting and camerwork, but it's unfortunately an anti-religious propaganda film about a Pentecostal-type cult infiltrating a mining community. You really need to see at least one of the early films to appreciate the radical difference between those and SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS.
P.S.-- Kirkinson, please report on the condition of the prints, what kind of soundtracks they have, etc. I'm also curious to hear about the brightness levels in the scenes I've discussed above.
P.P.S.-- I noticed on the program website it says that Paradjanov was sentenced to 11 years of prison. Where do people come up with this stuff? Here's my translation of the relevant section of the court verdict, which the Paradjanov Museum was kind enough to let me copy:
The verified evidence gives the court grounds to arrive at the conclusion that the defendant Parajanov properly qualifies according to Sections I and II, Articles 122 and 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, since he by mutual consent and with the application of force committed sodomy; by means of showing pornographic images he disseminated them. He has been previously tried for sodomy.
[snip]
Declared Guilty:
PARAJANOV Sergei Iosifovich-
according to Sections I and II, Articles 122 and 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR and has determined the following punishment for him: according to Section I, Article 122 of the Ukrainian SSR 1 (one) year of deprivation of freedom; according to Section II, Article 122 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR 5 (five) years of deprivation of freedom; according to the Article 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR 1 (one) year of deprivation of freedom.
On the basis of Article 42 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, the final punishment, by means of absorption of the less severe punishment by the more severe one, shall be set for him as 5 (five) years deprivation of freedom in a corrective labor colony of strict regime.
The court verdict was also published in French in the Patrick Cazals book, for those of you who read French.