Optimisticheskaya tragediya
USSR,
1963, 120 min
Shown in 1963
CREDITS
- dir
-
Samson Samsonov
- scr
-
Sophiya Vichnevetskaya
- cam
-
Vladimir Monakhov
- mus
-
Vladimir Dekhterev
- cast
-
Margarita Volodina, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Boris Andreyev, Vsevolod Sanayev
- prod co
-
Mosfilm
- gga award
-
Best Supporting Actor: Boris Andreyev
-
COMMENTS
Margarita Volodina in person.
OTHER
Adapted from a play by Vsevelod Vichnievsky which enjoyed enormous success, this film deals with a very important part of the Russian Revolution in 1918. The movie includes many of the famous Russian battles which are a part of contemporary USSR history. The central personality in the story is a female commissar (Miss Volodina) who is dispatched under orders to help a disastrous situation among some insurrectionist sailors. The time is 1918 and the Russians are fighting not only dissenters in their own ranks but foreign armies as well. Made along epic lines as a historic document for Russians, The Optimistic Tragedy was adapted for the screen by woman writer Sophiya Vichnevetskaya. A Cannes Film Festival entry which runs almost two hours, the film was scored by Vladimir Dekhterev.
FACTOID #210
When Ginger Rogers appeared for a tribute at the SFIFF in 1984 (’sporting hair with the color and richness of whipped butter,’ wrote the Examiner), she shocked the packed Castro Theatre crowd at her 1984 tribute when she griped, ’The filthy mouths we’re hearing in films today’I won’t pay to see these movies. I’d rather stay home and make jam.’
