“German. Beyond the camera” movie premiere and a presentation of “The feature length German” book of Alexander Pozdnyakov took place in the Presidential Library

A first screening of the movie “German. Beyond of the camera” along with a presentation of the book" The Great Herman ". The author of the works is Alexander Pozdnyakov.

Alexey German the senior (1938-2013) stands alone in the history of Russian cinema: both by adherence to the black-n-white ascetic stylistics of the frame and by the depth of the problems being raised. His films made a long way to its audience because of notorious shelving, where the coils of the best Soviet-era tapes remained for years, collecting dust. But a meeting with the audience finally happened. “After the  “under-the-table” screening of the movie entitled “My friend Ivan Lapshin” in a cramped room on Lenfilm Studios I came out dumbfounded and realized that after this film the cinematograph will no longer remain the same. German's movies are nourished with truth, which cannot be imagined,” - Alexander Pozdnyakov will write later.

In the basis of both the film and the books of the famous St. Petersburg based documentary filmmaker, film critic and a scholar in culture studies are the editing records of video interview that he had taken from the film director, the articles and newspaper interviews of the author with Alexei Herman from different years, and other chronicles. Collecting the material, Pozdnyakov talked to Herman's relatives, colleagues and friends. The book included first published rare photographs from the family archive, notes and drafts, storyboards for the movies, caricatures, etc.

“For many years, this a mountain like man walked along the long corridors of Lenfilm Studios and spoke out loud such things that the walls trembled from the fear that had been ingrained in all the pores of our lives, - Alexander Pozdnyakov said presenting his film. - Herman himself was not afraid of anything. He was not afraid to object to the “arbiters of movies’ fates” on the artistic councils, knowing perfectly well that this would only help to claim his film: “The people will not understand.” It is good that Konstantin Simonov supported him in the Ministry of Culture, or else a lot of veterans would never make it to release of “Twenty days without war.” Alexey Yuryevich usually spoke tight “in the subject” - and the bitter irony softened it somewhat. Once we sat in the White Living Room, and Herman formulated me his aesthetic manifesto, saying that he does not imagine a color film about the war, that people's emotions were as if shaded by war.”

The 52-minute movie about the life of the cult director is watching in one breath, because the famous film director, who didn’t use to let anyone into his inner world, is speaking about so fascinating and important issues. And here he speaks frankly about the main and painfully personal. For example, that growing-up of an ungainly big boy, who had sat at the school desk of the Leningrad school after the country one, was not going smoothly: at first he was rejected, he had to stand up for himself, using force, but then that important for a maturing teenager feel came: “I straddled life!”

With his external brutality, Alexei remained inside a vulnerable reflective person: he loved everything that connected him with his childhood. When his old school was leveled log by log, and only one stone remained, which once stood at the porch, - then, already an adult, German was coming repeatedly to pay his respects to it. “All the sounds, music, memories that I am dragging into my movies - from my childhood. Everything that happened next after it was much worse; that why I took a fighting position towards life.”

The book “The feature length German” by Alexander Pozdnyakov is based on the editing tapes from the author's movies “Herman. Beyond the camera” and “Light in the pavilion,” the articles and interviews of the author of different years, other materials. A special place in the publication belongs to the photographs and images of the objective world, in which the life of the famous artist was going on. They help to understand the epoch in which the original Soviet director worked.

Both the film-portrait and the book let the viewer closer and clearer to in all senses large figure of the feature length German. The filmmaker burdened with such a huge talent that one day he has summarized for everyone and for himself: “Hard to be a God.”