Alexander Alexandrowitsch Volkov (director)

This article is about the Russian director Alexander Alexandrovich Volkov . For other people of the same name, see Alexander Volkov .

Alexander Volkov, around 1920

Alexander Alexandrovich Volkov ( Russian Александр Александрович Волков , scientific. Transliteration Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Volkov , also Alexandre Volkoff and Alexander Wolkoff * December 15 ^{. Jul} / 27. December  1885 ^greg. In Moscow ; † 22. March 1942 in Rome ) was a Russian Film director , screenwriter and actor .

biography

Alexander Volkov came from an aristocratic, culture-interested family from the Volga region. He began to paint and at the age of 15 won the Grand Medal for a portrait of the Russian tsarina at an exhibition in Paris. Then he made a vocal training and received an engagement at the Imperial Opera in Moscow. The career was interrupted by the Russo-Japanese War , to which Volkov was called up.

In 1913 he began working for the film, initially as an actor. Soon, however, he was working as a scriptwriter, author of subtitles , film editor and in the administration of the Thiemann & Reinhardt company of the Baltic German film producer Paul Thiemann . He took over the management of the studio from him when he moved to Pathé's Moscow studio in 1912 . From then on, Wolkow concentrated there on the cinematic adaptation of literary works, following the example of the French Film d'Art . His first directorial work was the Pushkin film adaptation of The Prisoner in the Caucasus , in which he also played the leading role. In addition to the directors Wjatscheslaw Wiskowski , M. Bontsch-Tomaschewski and Alexander Uralski , who were already employed by Thiemann, Wolkow also engaged the well-known theater director Wsevolod Meyerhold in 1915 for a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray .

In 1916, after recovering from a war wound, Alexander Volkov went to Josef Yermoljew's film company , which was one of the most important film production facilities in pre-revolutionary Russia. There he directed, among others, in 1917 together with Jakow Protasanow ( Father Sergius ) and Georgi Asagarow ( Kulissy ekrana ). Because of the Russian civil war, the company relocated its production to Yalta in 1918 , to Constantinople in 1920 and then moved to France with its employees. Jermoljew founded the new company Les Films Albatros with producer Noë Bloch , where numerous Russian exiles worked. Many of the company's productions were tailored to the Russian silent film star Ivan Mosjukin . For Volkov, now under his French form of name Alexandre Volkoff, a new, successful period in his career began.

As a director, he worked with Mosshuchin for more than a decade. In particular, the film drama Kean ou Disordre et Genie (1923) about the Shakespeare actor Edmund Kean was a success for both and made Mosschuchin an international star. As a co-director of Mosschuchin, Volkov was also involved in the comedy Le Brasier ardent in the same year . In 1924 he ended his collaboration with Yermoljew.

In 1926, Wolkow worked for a few months as Abel Gance's assistant while filming his monumental work Napoleon . After that, at the beginning of 1927 he shot the large-scale production Casanova with Mosjukin in the title role of seducer. The costume film also contains some scenes in color. As a consequence of the success of the film, Wolkow worked in Germany for two years. He shot the opulent fairytale film Secrets of the Orient (1928) for UFA and the French Ciné Alliance , followed by The White Devil (1929/30) based on Lev Tolstoy .

Back in France in 1933 he created another oriental fairy tale film, La mille et deuxième nuit , his first sound film . In the following year, Volkov shot for the last time with Mosschuchin, whose Russian accent became increasingly a problem in talkies. With the rise of poetic realism in France, Volkov's style looked outdated and his film work dwindled. In 1936 he shot again with Stjenka Razin in Germany, and in 1941 his last film was made in Italy.

Filmography

Director (selection):

• Amore imperiale (as Alessandro Wolkoff), D./F./I., 1941
• Stjenka Rasin (also: Wolga-Wolga ), (D, 1936)
• Carnival of life (original title: L'enfant du carnaval ), F. 1934
• La mille et deuxième nuit , F. 1933
• The white devil D. 1930
• Secrets of the Orient , D./F. 1928
• Casanova , F. 1927
• Les ombres qui passent (German: Grimassen der Großstadt ), F. 1924
• Kean (German: Verlöschende Fackel ), F. 1924
• Marriage stories (original title: Le Brasier ardent , directed with Iwan Mosschuchin), F. 1923
• La maison du mystère (German: The mysterious house ), F. 1923
• Na vierchine slavy (also: Au sommet de sa gloire ) R., 1916
• Le cœur du mal , F./R. 1916

Screenwriter (selection):

• 1941: Amore imperiale
• 1930: The White Devil ( Haji Murat )
• 1928: Secrets of the Orient
• 1927: Casanova
• 1924: Âme d'artiste
• 1924: Extinguishing Torch ( Kean )
• 1920: An unsettling adventure ( L'angoissante aventure )
• 1917: Father Sergius
• 1917: Kulisy ekrana

Actor :

• 1913: Klyuchi schastiya (international title: The Keys to Happiness ), Russia
• 1913: Razbitaya vaza (international title: The Shattered Vase ), Russia
• 1913: Sny mimoletnye, sny bezzabotnye snyatsya lish raz (international title: Dreams So Fleeting, Dreams So Carefree ) Russia
• 1915: Portret Doryana Greya (also: Le portrait de Dorian Gray ), Russia
• 1917: Krestnyy put , Russia
• 1921: La pocharde , France

Production Manager

• Le sergent X (German: Sergeant X - The Secret of the Foreign Legionnaire and Sergeant X - The Secret of the Missing ), F. 1932

Web links

• Alexander Alexandrovich Volkov in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Biography at www.deutsches-filminstitut.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Wolkoff. In: Hermann Teuner (Hrsg.): Filmkünstler (= We about ourselves. Vol. 1). Sybillen-Verlag, Berlin 1928.