Sergueï Paradjanov

Sergueï Iossifovitch Paradjanov (in Cyrillic Russian СергейИосифовичПараджанов , in Armenian: ՍարգիսՀովսեպիՊարաջանյան ) born the January 9th 1924 with Tbilissi in RSS of Georgia, dead the July 20th 1990 with Erevan in Arménie, is a realizer who was discussed in Soviet Union, but very defended and appreciated by the Western film enthusiasts. A museum is devoted to him to Erevan, in Arménie, where he is regarded as the large national scenario writer.

Without knowing the language of its Armenian ancestors, nor their country, Paradjanov gradually will move away from Soviet grammar to work out a cinematographic work in direct catch with the traditions of the areas where it turns (Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaïdjan, Arménie). Pluriethnic artist, musician, plastics technician, painter, it partly owes his turn of mind with the fact that his/her father, Iossif Paradjanian, were antique dealer. An early contact with the objets d'art worked its imaginary and its taste for the collections. It inspired its practice stakhanovist of joinings, which hold at the same time of the conceptual art and the naive folklore; to some extent compressed films, that Paradjanov arranged when it could not turn (in prison in particular). Its life and its art were mixed. Its family home of Tbilissi, opened to the hosts of passage, was a great jumble where piled up decorations, costumes and heteroclite objets d'art.

Paradjanov is resulting from one of the more universities of cinema of the world, the VGIK of Moscow, which it enters in 1945. One of its professors will be the large realizer Alexandre Dovjenko. In 1950, Paradjanov Marie with Nigyar Kerimova, in Moscow. Of Moslem origin tatare, it converts with the orthodoxe religion to marry it, which will have terrible consequences. She will be assassinated later by parents who did not forgive him this conversion. After this tragedy episode, Paradnanov emigrates in Kiev where it turns several documentary ( Dumka , gold Hands, Natalia Ujvy ). He learns the Ukrainian language and remarie with Svetlana Ivanovna Cherbatiouk in 1956. It will give him a son (Suren, 1958).

Its singular films are often influenced by the ethnic diversity of its native area the the Caucasus and mix social reality, folklore, legends and shamanism. Its first works, turned to Ukraine (and new and France), are rather close to socialist realism (like the First guy , pastoral passing fancies in a kolkhoz) until the rupture of the Chevaux of fire in 1965. Discovered in the international festivals with the Horses of fire , Paradjanov will be for the Occident the first official symbol of the oppression of the Soviet artists (Tarkovski will be another). This chief of work is repudiated by the authorities of Moscow because it is turned in dialect houtsoul (of Carpates Ukrainian) and not doubled in Russian, it is repudiated by the scenario writer himself because one shortened it against his liking, but also because it does not correspond to the nonnarrative cinema to which it aspires…

the horses of fire is the short version of the Ombres of the forgotten ancestors , lyric UFO and baroque mixing pagan mythology and romantic account. Drawn from the work of Mikhaïl Kotzioubinski, this tale puts in scene shepherds and loggers of Carpates Ukrainian. Twelve chapters recall the tragic life of Ivan, peasant overpowered by the destiny, put at the round of applause of its community. One spoke about " Romeo and Juliette of Carpates”, but the film overflows the epic shakespearienne by its primitive dryness near to the Greek tragedy. Filming is with the tuning fork. It is wild and heterogeneous: mix expressionnism (the bright red punctuates the crimes while squirting on the objective) and of impressionism (the camera carried of brilliant Iouri Ilienko pitches at the rate/rhythm of the emotions of the heroes). This unclassable work is played of all the codes, including pictorial (references to Bruegel). It is of an absolute modernity by exceed the archaism. Elliptic, exuberant, anti-psychological, halfway between Eisenstein and Tarkovski, the Horses of fire is a country opera punctuated by envoûtés rites and religious ceremonies, choruses and pagan musics in unison with nature. But the scenario writer, if it were released from the Soviet academism, is not yet in full possession of his means. Perhaps because it had to compose with Iouri Ilienko, operator chief and cameraman who imposed his agitated style to him.

In 1968 it reaches its apogee with Sayat Nova , which will be also victim of the censure. Sayat Nova ( the Color of the grenade ), is inspired by the life of a Armenian poet died in Georgia. Instead of a linear, scenario writer, at the same time structuralist account and traditionalist, choose a series of alive tables representing of key moments of the life of the poet. Whereas all the realizers of the world defend themselves to make a solidified cinema, Paradjanov asserts it proudly: “It seemed to me that a static image, with the cinema, can have a depth, a such miniature, a figure, a dynamics interns…” He chooses frontal images, films the human ones like died natures, accumulates esoteric information (fish and lambs, juice of grenade drawing a chart). It is the beginning of big problems with the mode in place.

If this artist except category enjoys a certain notoriety then, it is less for its work than for its political statute. In December 1973, the Soviet authorities condemn it to five years of forced labors. Paradjanov does the one of the newspapers when he is imprisoned in Ukraine in 1974 for fallacious reasons (“illicit trade of objets d'art, homosexuality, and aggression on the person of a son of dignitary of the mode”), the media, the committees are mobilized (in France, Yves the St. Lawrence, Francoise Sagan, and especially Louis Aragon, go up to the crenel). One implicitly reproaches the scenario writer for promoting nationalism. At the time, it already turned the essence of its work: six feature-length films. Thanks to the protest campaign, it will not spend four years in prison.

On its return to Tbilissi, the mode prevents it from continuing its career of scenario writer. It is the occasion for him to continue artistic activities started at the time of its detention. It carries out in particular the extraordinary ones and complex joinings and produces a great number of drawings abstraits.
But he will be again imprisoned. Its various stays in prison are completed in 1982. It returns from there sick (diabetic, cancer patients). But, supported by several intellectuals géorgiens, it succeeds in turning two last splendors: the Legend of the fortress of Souram (1985) and Achik Kérib (1988), filmic equivalents of the Turkish miniatures and Persians. the Legend of the fortress of Souram is drawn from a cruel news of Géorgien Daniel Chonkadzé according to which a fortress can be saved ruin only if one man is immured there. Turned in fixed and frontal broad plans, this cinema déconstruit and alchemical joins again with painting pre-Rebirth. The symbol, the sign, are more important there than the text and the word. These rebuses, these puzzles have all the grace of the arabesques of Orient.
D'ailleurs Achik Kérib , drawn from a news of the Russian poet Mikhaïl Lermontov, points out the tales of the Thousand and One Nights : a young poor troubadour falls in love with the pretty girl from a commercial rich person. To be able to marry it decides to make fortune by traversing the world… Paradjanov will dedicate to this film to his/her large friend the scenario writer Andreï Tarkovski.

For Paradjanov, essence was not the narration but the vision, the image. He said to be often inspired by his dreams and did not make distinction between a table and a film. It had hardly begun the turning of the Confession , an allegory openly political (and polemic), when it was carried by a cancer (it was 66 years old). The few plans which it succeeded in turning will be included in the film Paradjanov: last spring , realized by his/her close friend Mikhaïl Vartanov in 1992.

Catalog of films

Parajanov: Last spring (1992) (segment the Confession) * Ashugi Qaribi Achik Kérib, tale of a poet in love (1988)
Arabeskebi Pirosmanis temaze (1985) Arabesques on the topic with Pirosmani (1985)
Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa the Legend of the fortress of Souram (1984)
Sayat Nova (1968) the Color of the grenade (1968)
Hagop Hovnatanian (1967)
Tini zabutykh predkiv Horses of fire, (1964)
Tsvetok Na kamne (1962) a flower on the stone (1962)
Ukrainskaya rapsodiya (1961) Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961)
Pervyj paren (1959) the First guy (1959)
Dumka (1957)
Natalya Ushvij (1957)
Zolotye ruki (1957) gold Hands (1957)
Andriyesh (1954)
Moldovskaya skazka (1951)

External bond

''' Paradjanov.com '''
Card IMDb
Exposure of its joinings and projection of its films from April 20th to May 20th, 2007 to the Museum of modern art of Saint-Etienne

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