Kira Muratova

Muratova

Kira Heorhijiwna Muratova ( Ukrainian Кіра Георгіївна Муратова , scientific. Transliteration Kira Heorhijivna Muratova , Russian Кира Георгиевна Муратова / Kira Georgievna Muratova , scientific transliteration. Kira Georgievna Muratova ; *  5. November 1934 in Soroca / Bessarabia , Romania , today Moldova ; † 6th June 2018 in Odessa ) was a Ukrainian director and one of the best-known, but also most controversial filmmakers in Soviet - Russian film.

Life

Early years in the Soviet Union

Muratowa studied philology at Moscow State University , then switched to the Film Academy (WGIK) in Moscow to study directing . Your teacher was u. a. the legendary director and actor Sergei Gerasimov . In 1959 she graduated and from 1961 worked for the Odessa film studio . Muratowa's favorite subject is "the little people", whose emotional worlds and relationships she dissects in detail.

The reality of the Soviet Union at that time was reflected in her films: the monotonous and monotonous propagated from above, suppressing and suffocating everything individual in a leaden gray of conformity. This was also noticed by the state censors . Although Muratova made no political allusions in her films such as Short Encounters and Long Farewell , they did not come to the Soviet distributor or only to a limited extent. Other films, such as Unter Grau Steinen , were cut so severely by the Odessa film studio that Muratova had her name removed from the opening and closing credits. Instead, she had the name Ivan Sidorov put at this point , which is roughly comparable to the American John Smith . Several times she was temporarily banned from filming in the Soviet Union, which in fact amounted to a professional ban. Between 1971 and the political thaw that came with glasnost , she was only able to make two films: The Big Wide World Recognize (1978) and Under Gray Stones (1983).

In 2017 she was accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which awards the Oscars every year.

After perestroika

The turning point for Muratova came with perestroika , her films were finally allowed to be shown publicly and immediately received international attention. In 1988 there was a first retrospective at the film festival in Créteil, France, in the same year Muratowas Unter Grau Steinen was shown in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes film festival . Muratova's two outstanding films from the perestroika era are turning point and asthenic syndrome . The story of turning point is based on the novel The Message by William Somerset Maugham , which was filmed in 1940 as The Letter by William Wyler with Bette Davis in the lead role. Muratova shifted the plot to the inhospitable east of the Soviet Union and provoked again by exposing her main character Maria, who is believed to be a virtuous woman, as a murderer. The dark film is one of Muratova's key works and has received critical acclaim. In the turn of fate and even more clearly in The Asthenic Syndrome , a collage-like film language prevails in Muratowa's films, which characterizes her entire oeuvre in a fundamental way. The asthenic syndrome paints a picture of the decomposition and violence in late Soviet society. Due to a scene in which a finely dressed woman curses for a long time, the film became the last banned film in the Soviet Union and was only allowed to be shown publicly after a month's delay. After the presentation of The Asthenic Syndrome at the Berlinale, Muratowa's films Little Passions (Panorama), Three Stories (Competition) and People Second Class (Panorama) also premiered there in the following years .

Film language and style

Muratowa's style goes against the usual viewing habits. She reduces the freedom of action of her people to a minimum, makes them interchangeable, reciting stereotypical sentences as if they had been read off a sheet of paper, so that they appear almost caricature and the banality of good and bad seems almost tangible. The main characters in their early films, often the "bad guys", are the only ones to retain a personal individuality, a last spark of life that the others seem to have long since lost, and if that is all, in front of the monotonous language and the lifeless intonation of the secondary characters “Evil” is what brings them to life and what their lives can only be expressed through murder, hypocrisy and human contempt and, paradoxically, makes them appear more human than the good robots . The films have a strict structure. Even in Muratova's early works, she slows the viewer's gaze by forcing him into an almost frozen world with seemingly unshakable rules. The strict "mannerism" of the characters remains Muratowa's style. With its kind of staging the dramatic implementation of the classic film, but is based on the action theories of Brecht's epic theater . By deliberately removing the tension from the characters in the plot through conscious artificiality, she brings them to the fore. With her style, she tries to counterbalance the leveling nature of non-author films . She loves her predominantly female heroines, no matter how they act. This makes her one of the most important characters in the new “female film”.

“The 'female' film torments itself with unsolvable cursed questions, passionately seeking justice. The directors hope to be able to correct what their male colleagues have already rejected. They let themselves be guided by the natural instincts of those who create order and peacemakers, by the striving of society for stability with the desire to speak their word while the strong sex stubbornly remains silent. "

- Olga Sobolevskaya , RIA Novosti commentator

In her late work, however, Muratova increasingly found humor. In her film Chekhov-Motive (2002) she relaxes the drama through clowning and absurd situations, which give the severity of her humanistic demands an ironic lightness that almost relaxes it . A certain gentleness of age can be seen in her work, so her film People Second Class seems like a balance sheet of her previous work:

“I used to attach great importance to myself. Today I am more humble; I have understood what my place in the world looks like: It is the place of a grain of sand or a sheet of paper. "

A very telling quote:

“When I fly, nobody will notice. And I don't think anyone thinks of themselves. "

Awards

In 1988 a first retrospective of Muratowa's films was shown at the International Women's Film Festival Créteil , and in 1990 her film The Asthenic Syndrome won the jury's grand prize at the Berlinale . In 1994 Muratowa received the Honorary Leopard for Lifetime Achievement at the Locarno Film Festival and in 2000 she received the Andrzej Wajda Freedom Award . Furthermore, she was awarded the largest Russian film prize Nika six times . Muratowa's films have been shown at festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Moscow, Rome, Venice a. a. shown. Retrospectives were shown at Lincoln Center in New York in 2005 and at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2013 . She was also an honorary citizen of Odessa.

Filmography

• 1962: On the steep precipice ( У крутого яра )
• 1964: Our honest bread ( Наш честный хлеб )
• 1968: Short encounters ( Короткие встречи )
• 1971: Long Farewell ( Долгие проводы )
• 1978: Recognize the big wide world ( Познавая белый свет )
• 1983: Under gray stones ( Среди серых камней )
• 1987: The turning point ( Перемена участи )
• 1989: The asthenic syndrome ( Астенический синдром ) - awarded the Silver Bear at the Berlinale 1990
• 1992: The Militia in Love ( Чувствительный милиционер )
• 1994: Small passions ( Увлеченья )
• 1997: Three Stories ( Три истории )
• 1999: Letter to America ( Письмо в Америку )
• 2001: Second class people ( Второстепенные люди )
• 2002: Chekhov motifs ( Чеховские мотивы )
• 2004: The piano tuner ( Настройщик )
• 2005: The certificate ( Справка )
• 2006: The Doll ( Кукла )
• 2007: Two in One ( Два в Одном )
• 2009: Melody for an organ organ ( Мелодия для шарманки )
• 2012: Eternal Return ( Вечное возвращение )

literature

• Isa Willinger: Kira Muratova - Cinema and Subversion. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Konstanz, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86764-470-9

Web links

• Kira Muratova in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Review of Muratova's work
• Russian site with portraits and filmography
• Interview with Muratowa ( Memento from January 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Interview with Muratova and Golubenko

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} forum.mur.at ( Memento from March 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ( RTF document)
2. ↑ ^{a b} A story full of cruelty . Maja Turovskaja: The turning point , from the book: Murderers in the film . Frauenfilminitiative, Elefanten Press Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88520-447-9
3. ↑ "Class of 2017". Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.app.oscars.org/class2017/ .
4. ↑ Isa Willinger: Kira Muratova. Kino und Subversion , UVK, 2013 ISBN 978-3-86764-470-9
5. ↑ Isa Willinger: Kira Muratova. Kino und Subversion , UVK, 2013 ISBN 978-3-86764-470-9
6. ↑ russlandonline.ru ( Memento from July 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
7. ↑ parallelinfo.mur.at
8. ↑ Isa Willinger: Kira Muratova. Kino und Subversion , UVK, 2013 ISBN 978-3-86764-470-9
9. ↑ Olaf Tempelman: Voor alles en iedereen ongrijpbaar . In: De Volkskrant . International Film Festival Rotterdam, January 2013, p. 12.
10. ↑ Soviet-Ukrainian director Muratowa dies , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed on June 7, 2018