Aleksandr Ptushko

Aleksandr Ptushko

Infobox Celebrity
name = Aleksandr Ptushko


caption =
birth_date = birth date|1900|4|19|mf=y
birth_place = Lugansk, Ukraine
death_date = death date and age|1973|3|6|1900|4|19|mf=y
death_place = Moscow, Russia
occupation = director, writer, animator, special effects artist
salary =
networth =
spouse =
website =
footnotes =

Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko ("Александр Лукич Птушко"; OldStyleDate|April 19|1900|April 6 in Lugansk, currently Ukraine--March 6, 1973 in Moscow, Russia) is a Soviet animation and fantasy film director. Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen. Some critics, such as Tim Lucas and Alan Upchurch, have also compared Ptushko to Italian filmmaker Mario Bava, who made fantasy and horror films with similarities to Ptushko's work and made similarly innovative use of color cinematography and special effects. [Tim Lucas, DVD commentary for "Black Sunday" (1960), Image Entertainment 2000] [Upchurch, Alan (Nov/Dec 1991). "Russkaya Fantastika: The Fairytale Landscapes of Aleksandr Ptushko - Part One". "Video Watchdog", p. 24-37.] [Upchurch, Alan (Jan/Feb 1992). "Russkaya Fantastika: The Fairytale Landscapes of Aleksandr Ptushko - Part Two". "Video Watchdog", p. 32-46.] He began his film career as a director and animator of stop-motion short films, and became a director of feature length films combining live-action, stop-motion, creative special effects, and Russian mythology. Along the way he would be responsible for a number of firsts in Russian film history (including the first feature-length animated film, and the first film in color), and would make several extremely popular and internationally praised films full of visual flair and spectacle.

Career in Film

Puppet Animation Era

Aleksandr Ptushko began his film career in 1927 by gaining employment with Moscow's Mosfilm studio. He began as a maker of puppets for stop-motion animated short films made by other directors, and rapidly became a director of his own series of silent puppet films featuring a character called Bratishkin. From 1928 to 1932, Ptushko designed and directed several of these "Bratishkin shorts." During these years, Ptushko experimented with various animation techniques, including the combination of puppets and live action in the same frame, and became well known for his skills in cinematic effects work. Virtually all of these short films are now lost.

In 1933, Ptushko, along with the animation crew he had assembled over the years, began work on his first feature film entitled "The New Gulliver". Written and directed by Ptushko, "The New Gulliver" was one of the world's first feature length animated films, and was also one of the first feature length film to combine stop-motion animation with live-action footage. (Many claim that it was "the" first to do this, but Willis O'Brien had made "The Lost World" in 1925 and "King Kong" in 1933. "The New Gulliver" was, however, far more complex, as it featured 3,000 different puppets.) The story, a Communist re-telling of "Gulliver's Travels", is about a young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation. "The New Gulliver" was released in 1935 to widespread acclaim and earned Ptushko a special prize at the International Cinema Festival in Milan.

After the success of "The New Gulliver", Ptushko was allowed by Mosfilm to set up his own department, which became known as "the Ptushko Collective," for the making of stop-motion animated films. This group of filmmakers would produce another fourteen animated shorts from 1936 to 1938. The direction of these shorts was rarely handled by Ptushko, though he would always act as the artistic supervisor for the group. These shorts were also frequently based on folktales and fairy-tales, a genre which was to become the source of Ptushko's greatest success.

In 1938, Ptushko began work on "The Golden Key", another feature length film combining stop-motion animation with live action. An adaptation of the "Pinocchio" story, and one which predated the Disney version by two years, this film was also highly successful in the Soviet Union, although it was never released outside of the country. Despite its success, "The Golden Key" was to be Ptushko's last foray into animation.

During World War II, most of Moscow's film community, including Aleksandr Ptushko, were evacuated to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. He continued working in special effects, but would not direct another film until the end of the war.

Mythological Epic Era

At the end of World War II, Ptushko returned to Moscow and became the first Russian director to make a film in color, using three-color Agfa film stock which had been seized in Germany. Using this color film stock, Ptushko created his first feature length folktale adaptation, "The Stone Flower". Despite being the first Russian film to be made in color, it won a "special prize for the use of color" at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946. With its plotline, featuring a focus on character over effects and the use of mythology as a primary source, "The Stone Flower" set the tone for the next twelve years of Ptushko's career.

He followed "The Stone Flower" with "Sadko" (the film, which was heavily recut and retitled "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad" for American release, is an adaptation of a Russian "bylina" [epic tale] with no connection to Sindbad), "Ilya Muromets" (retitled "The Sword and the Dragon" for American release), and "Sampo" (an adaptation of the Finnish national epic "The Kalevala" retitled "The Day the Earth Froze" for American release). Each film in the sequence was a theatrical retelling of epic mythology, and each was extremely visually ambitious. "Sadko" won the "Silver Lion" award at the Venice Film Festival in 1953. "Ilya Muromets" was another of Ptushko's famous 'firsts' in Soviet cinema, being the first Soviet film to be made using widescreen photography and stereo sound. "Ilya Muromets" is also widely claimed to hold the record for most people and horses ever to be used in a film (the IMDB lists the tagline for the film as: "A cast of 106,000! 11,000 Horses!").

Late career

After "Sampo", Ptushko briefly abandoned epic fantasy for slightly more reality-based scripts. His first work in this vein was "Scarlet Sails", a romantic adventure story which retained much of the medieval atmosphere of Ptushko's previous films, but greatly reduced the fantastical elements and the special effects work. Following "Scarlet Sails", Ptushko made "A Tale of Time Lost". Its story, about children whose youth is stolen by the elderly, reintroduced a great deal of fantasy. However, the film featured a modern-day, real world setting, which was a distinct aberration for Ptushko.

In 1966, Ptushko returned to the genre of epic fantasy, creating "The Tale of Tsar Saltan". In 1968, he began work on the largest film project of his career, which would also be his last, "Ruslan and Ludmila". Clocking in at 149 minutes (though it was split into two feature length segments), "Ruslan and Ludmila" was a film adaptation of Aleksandr Pushkin's epic poem of the same name, and was filled with the special effects and technical wizardry for which Ptushko had become known. The film took four years to complete and was released in 1972.

Aleksander Ptushko died a few months after its release at age 72.

American Re-Edits of Ptushko Films

When Ptushko's films were released in the United States, they were dubbed and re-edited, and the names of most of the cast and crew members were replaced with pseudonyms. While these practices were common at the time for releases of foreign films in the United States that were aimed at a mainstream audience, these modifications were also made to obscure the Russian origin of these films in order to improve their commerical prospects during the height of the Cold War.

* Valiant Pictures distributed a version of "Ilya Muromets" in 1960 under the title "The Sword and the Dragon". In this version the total running time was reduced from 95 to 83 minutes, and the stereo soundtrack was removed during the English redub. The character names were also made less 'Russian-sounding': 'Svyatogor' was changed to 'Invincor,' and 'Vladimir' to 'Vanda.' The name 'Ilya Muromets' was, however, left unchanged.

* Roger Corman's Filmgroup released "Sadko" in 1962 under the title "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad". The Filmgroup version reduced the total running time from 89 to 79 minutes, re-dubbed it into English, and the character name 'Sadko' was replaced with 'Sinbad.' Notably, the "Script Adaptor" for this version of the film was a young Francis Ford Coppola. In this opening credits of this version, the direction of the film is credited to "Alfred Posco."

* American International Pictures released a drastically shortened version of "Sampo" in 1964 retitled "The Day the Earth Froze". The most heavily altered of the three, "The Day the Earth Froze" had a running time of only 67 minutes, down 24 minutes from the 91 minute runtime of the Soviet original. It was also re-dubbed into English. This film, while not having its character names altered, still had its credits heavily 'de-Russified': Ptushko was credited as "Gregg Sebelious," Andris Oshin was listed in the pressbook as 'Jon Powers' (and was described as a Finno-Swiss ski-lift attendant), and Eve Kivi was listed as 'Nina Anderson' (a half Finnish, half American beauty queen, figure skater, and stamp collector).

Mystery Science Theater 3000

The works of Aleksandr Ptushko are now perhaps best known to native English speakers for their inclusion in the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000". The three re-edited films from Ptushko's epic fantasy period, "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad", "The Sword and the Dragon", and "The Day the Earth Froze" were used as fodder for the show's humorous wisecracks in its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons (episodes 422, 505, and 617).

Though it may be considered a dubious distinction for a film to be aired as part of the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" series, it is worth mentioning that the versions of Ptushko's films which were used were the heavily re-edited and dubbed versions created specifically for American release, radically different from Ptushko's originals in all but their visuals.

It is also worth noting that Kevin Murphy, one of the stars of the program, has professed a love for the "breathtaking" visual style of these films in multiple interviews. [ [http://tom-servo.home.mindspring.com/special-events_interview_kevin-murphy-part1.html The MST3K Review] ] [ [http://www.popmatters.com/books/interviews/murphy-kevin-021226.shtml Popmatters] ] . Paul Chaplin, another writer of the show, has also expressed admiration.

"Sadko" and "Ilya Muromets" have since been fully restored and released on DVD in their original Russian versions by RusCiCo.

Filmography

Original Russian titles noted where possible. See discussion page for source information.

Feature Films Directed

* "Новый Гулливер" ("The New Gulliver", 1935) -- director, script writer
* "Zolotoy Klyuchik" ("The Golden Key", 1939) -- director, producer
* "Каменный цветок" ("The Stone Flower", 1946) -- director, production designer
* "Садко" ("Sadko", 1953) -- director
* "Илья Муромец" ("Ilya Muromets", 1956) -- director
* "Сампо" ("Sampo", 1959) -- director
* "Алые паруса" ("Scarlet Sails", 1961) -- director
* "Сказка о потерянном времени" ("A Tale of Time Lost", 1964) -- director
* "Сказка о царе Салтане" ("The Tale of Tsar Saltan", 1966) -- director, script writer
* "Руслан и Людмила" ("Ruslan and Ludmila", 1972) -- director, script writer

Other Feature Film Work

* "Aerograd" (1935) -- director of combination shots
* " Deti Kapitana Granta" ("Captain Grant's Children", 1936) -- cinematographer and director of combination shots
* "Batyri Stepey" ("Batyri of the Steppes", 1942) -- special effects director
* "Paren iz nashego goroda" ("A Lad From Our Town", 1942) -- special effects production director
* "Sekretar raykoma" ("Regional Party Secretary", 1942) -- special effects production director
* "Front" (1943) -- special effects
* "Nebo Moskvy" ("The Skies of Moscow", 1944) -- director of combination shots
* "Zoya" (1944) -- special effects
* "Nashe Serdtse" ("Our Heart", 1946) -- special effects
* "Tri vstrechi" ("Three Encounters", 1948) -- co-director
* "My Friend, Kolka" (1961) -- artistic director
* "Beat Up, Drum!" (1962) -- artistic director
* "Fuse #3" (1962) -- script writer
* "Вий" ("Viy", 1967) -- script writer, artistic director, director of combination shots

hort Films

* "Propavshaya Gramota" ("The Missing Certificate"/"Lost Literacy", 1927) -- animator
* "Sluchay na stadione" ("An Incident at the Stadium", 1928) -- director, designer
* "Shifrovanny dokument" ("The Coded Document", 1928) -- director, script writer, animator
* "Sto priklyucheni" ("One Hundred Adventures", 1929) -- director, script writer, animator
* "Kino v derevnyu!" ("Cinema to the Countryside!", 1930) -- director, designer
* "Krepi oboronu" ("Strengthen Our Defenses", 1930) -- director, script writer, animator
* "Vlastelin byta" ("The Lord of Family Life", 1932) -- director, script writer, animator
* "Repka" ("The Little Turnip", 1936) -- script writer, artistic supervisor
* "Volk i Zhuravl" ("The Wolf and the Crane", 1936) -- artistic supervisor
* "Lisa i Vinograd" ("The Fox and the Grapes", 1936) -- artistic supervisor
* "Rodina Zovet" ("The Motherland Calls", 1936) -- artistic supervisor
* "Vesyolye muzykanty" ("The Merry Musicians", 1937) -- director, script writer
* "Skazka o rybake i rybke" ("The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", 1937) -- director, script writer, animator
* "Zaveshchaniye" ("The Will", 1937) -- script writer
* "Lisa i Volk" ("The Fox and the Wolf", 1937) -- script writer, artistic supervisor
* "Malenky-Udalenky" ("The Little Daring One"/"Tiny and Remote", 1938) -- script writer
* "Pyos i kot" ("The Dog and the Cat", 1938) -- script writer

References

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External links

*imdb name|id=0699693|name=Aleksandr Ptushko
* [http://www.ruscico.com/eng/persons/110 Ruscico's Ptushko page] - includes small biography and links to purchase DVDs.
* [http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu/2002/if2/ University of Pittsburgh 2002 Russian Film Symposium website] - includes medium length biography and links to essays on "The New Gulliver", "The Stone Flower", "Sadko", and "Viy".


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