Sergey Gerasimov

Best films:
, /10

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Sergey Gerasimov (1906), formerly an actor in the films of FEKS stalwarts like Kozincev and Trauberg, devoted himself to contemporary themes in his early silent movies: Dvadtsat-dva Neschastia/ Twenty-two Mishaps (1930), co-directcd with Sergei Bartenev, and Liubliu li is tebia?/ Do I Love You? (1934).

He became famous thanks to his first three sound films: Semero smelykh/ The Bold Seven (1936), based on a book about children explorers by explorer Konstantin Zvantsev, Komsomolsk/ City of Youth (1938), set in the Russian Far East where a group of kids builds a new city, and especially Uchitel/ The New Teacher (1939), about a heroic teacher in a remote town (a former student who, after graduating from high school in Moscow, wants to return to his village and establish a school there, but must contend with the prejudice and hostility of the peasants).

He adapted a Mikhail Lermontov play in Maskarad/ Masquerade (1941), an Aleksandr Fadeev novel in the anti-Nazi Molodaia Gvardiia/ The Young Guard (1948), and especially a Mikhail Sholokhov novel in the monumental historical epic in three parts Tikhii Don/ And Quiet Flows the Don (1958).

He directed several propaganda films during and after World War II, notably Nepobedimye/ The Invincible (1943), co-directed with Mikhail Kalatozov, and Bolshaia Zemlia/ Mainland (1944).

Then came: Sel'skii Vrach/ Country Doctor (1952), set in a Siberian village, Liudi i Zveri/ People and Beasts (1962), Zhurnalist/ The Journalist (1967), U Men. 1970), At the Lake Liubit' Cheloveka/ For the Love of Man (1973), and Dochki-materi/ Daughters and Mothers (1975).

Krasnoe i Chernoe (1976) was a five-hour TV adaptation of Stendhal's novel "Red and Black". He closed his career with historical epics such as Iunost' Petra/ The Youth of Peter (1980) V Nachale Slavnykh Del/ At the Beginning of Glorious Deeds (1981) and The Death of Lev Tolstoi (1984).

Osvobozdeinnyj Kitay is a romantic documentary on the Chinese revolution.