The Moscow film company behind some of the greatest classics of Soviet cinema on Wednesday said it had agreed to make dozens of its best-known movies freely available on YouTube.
The agreement between Mosfilm and YouTube means that an initial batch of 50 films that still have legendary status in Russia but are little known outside will for the first time find a wide foreign audience.
The unabridged films have been posted with subtitles and Mosfilm said it will add five more films every week, meaning that by the end of the year a library of 200 films will be available in high definition. [Among the films: Andrei Tarkovsky's 1975 arthouse classic "Mirror"]
The Mosfilm channel is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/mosfilm
-- Soviet film classics find new life on YouTube
PLUS: My hoard of Russian-language films so far--not to gloat here (though there's that, too, chuckle chuckle) but to emphasize that if you desire getting some serious education about world cinema, especially from a country that for much of the 20th century stood in existential opposition to the West and its greatest image-maker, America's Hollywood, the films are there. Among the essential titles that have appeared locally at one time or the other: the seminal Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, Ivan The Terrible), Pudovkin (Mother) and Tarkovsky (Solaris, Nostalghia, Andrei Rublev); the works of latter-day masters such as Sukorov (Russian Ark) and Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun); the monumental epics by Bondarchuk (War and Peace) and Gerasimov (Quiet Flows the Don); Chukhrai's war drama Ballad of a Soldier--one of the most heart-tuggingly lyrical movies I have seen. But Russian cinema isn't all heavy, portentous stuff. It also has its contemporary gangster film (the blockbuster Brother 1-2), slam-bang action thriller a la Transporter (titled, what else, Russian Transporter), urban romantic comedy (Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears), horror (Nails), even the taboo-breaking gay flick (You I Love). Yes, you just have to know where to look for these films--and it won't be at AstroVision or Odyssey, that's for sure. открыть глаза (otkrytʹ glaza)--Open your eyes!
• A CRUEL ROMANCE (Eldar Ryazanov)
• THE ADMIRAL (Andrei Karvchuk)
• AGONY RASPUTIN (Elem Klimov)
• ALEXANDER NEVSKY (Sergei Eisenstein)
• ANDREI RUBLEV (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• ARSENAL (Alexander Dovzhenko)
• AUTUMN MARATHON (Georgy Danelia)
• BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (Grigori Chukrai)
• THE BARBER OF SIBERIA (Nikita Mikhalkov)
• BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Sergei Eisenstein)
• BROTHER/BROTHER 2 (Aleksei Balabanov)
• THE BURNING LAND (Mikahil Ptashuk)
• BURNT BY THE SUN (Nikita Mikhalkov)
• CAPTIVE (Aleksei Uchitel)
• CHERRY TOWN (Gerbert Rappaport)
• THE CHILDHOOD OF MAXIM GORKY (Mark Donskoi)
• COME AND SEE (Elem Klimov)
• THE COMMISSAR (Aleksandr Askoldov)
• THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Mikhail Kalatozov)
• THE CUCKOO (Alexander Rogozhkin)
• THE DAWNS HERE ARE QUIET (Stanislav Rostotsky)
• DESTINY OF A MAN (Sergei Bondarchuk)
• EARTH (Alexander Dovzhenko)
• FATHER AND SON (Alexander Sokurov)
• FATHER OF A SOLDIER (Rezo Chkheidze)
• FRANZ + POLINA (Mikhail Segal)
• HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER (Aleksei Popogrebsky)
• THE ITALIAN (Andrei Kravchuk)
• IVAN’S CHILDHOOD (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PARTS 1-2 (Sergei Eisenstein)
• KINO-EYE/THREE SONGS ABOUT LENIN (Dziga Vertov)
• MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (Dziga Vertov)
• THE MIRROR (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• MOLOCH (Aleksandr Sokurov)
• MONGOL (Sergei Bodrov)
• MOSCOW DOESN’T BELIEVE IN TEARS (Vladimir Menshov)
• MOTHER (Vsevolod Pudovkin)
• MOTHER AND SON (Alexander Sokurov)
• NAILS (Andrey Iskanov)
• NOSTALGHIA (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• OCTOBER: 10 DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (Sergei Eisenstein)
• PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS (Sergei Bodrov)
• QUIET FLOWS THE DON (Sergei Gerasimov)
• THE RETURN (Andrei Zvyagintsev)
• RUSSIAN ARK (Aleksandr Sokurov)
• RUSSIAN TRANSPORTER (Oleg Pogodin)
• SADKO (Aleksandr Ptushko)
• SIBERIADE (Andrei Konchalovsky)
• SOLARIS (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• THE STEAMROLLER AND THE VIOLIN (Andrei Tarkovsky)
• STRIKE (Sergei Eisenstein)
• THE SUN (Aleksandr Sokurov)
• TCHAIKOVSKY (Igor Talankin)
• THEY FOUGHT FOR THEIR MOTHERLAND (Sergei Bondarchuk)
• WAR AND PEACE (Sergei Bondarchuk)
• YOU I LOVE (Olga Stolpovskaya & Dmitry Troitsky)