Aleksandr Sokurov ─ Russian Ark

Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s feature film Russian Ark is of great significance to Russian and world cinema and Russian culture at the turn of the millennium. Little substantial work is available on Sokurov’s films, despite – since the death of Alexei German – his current status as Russia’s greatest living film director. This volume provides a comprehensive synopsis, production history and in-depth analysis of his best-known film. After establishing a common text through an exploration of Russian Ark’s plot, the film is here framed in its historical, cultural and biographical context before a discussion of the unique production process. Detailing how Sokurov directed 2,000 actors and three orchestras inside the Russian State?Hermitage Museum, the reader will discover exactly how the film’s single 96-minute?Sony Steadicam?HDW F900 sequence was shot. The following analysis considers how Sokurov’s use of characters, time and themes intersect with how he manipulates assumptions about reality and Western culture. How popular and critical audiences received the film both domestically and internationally is also explored, before a conclusion that looks ahead to Sokurov’s subsequent work, and elaborating an assessment of the director’s place in Russian film history, as well as his contribution to world cinema.
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Birgit Beumers is professor of film studies at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales. She is editor of the journals KinoKultura and Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema.