Optimistic Tragedy (film)

Optimistic Tragedy (Russian: Оптимистическая трагедия, translit. Optimisticheskaya tragediya) is a 1963 Soviet film directed by Samson Samsonov. It is based on the play An Optimistic Tragedy by Vsevolod Vishnevsky.

Optimistic Tragedy
USSR film poster
Directed bySamson Samsonov
Written bySamson Samsonov
Sofiya Vishnevetskaya
StarringMargarita Volodina
Boris Andreyev
Vyacheslav Tikhonov
CinematographyVladimir Monakhov
Music byVasiliy Dekhterev
Production
company
Release date
  • 12 June 1963 (1963-06-12)
Running time
121 minutes
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

Plot

During Russian Revolution of 1917, the Marine squad, led by anarchist leader Vozhak starts the revolt. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party sends a woman Commissar to form Red Army battalion from the marines to take part in the Russian Civil War.

Cast

Production

The film Optimistic Tragedy is based on the 1933 play An Optimistic Tragedy by Vsevolod Vishnevsky, set during the Russian Revolution.

Samson Samsonov directed the film.[1]

It was shot in Sovscope 70 on black and white film stock. The prints were split into three films for exhibition in Kinopanorama 70 in some theatres.

Release

The film was entered into competition at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

The Kino International in East Berlin opened on 15 November 1963 with a grand opening premiere of the film.[3][4]

Reception

Optimistic Tragedy was a Soviet blockbuster of 1963, with 46 million tickets sold.

The film was named Best Film of the Year and Margarita Volodina was named Best Actress of the Year by readers of the Soviet film magazine Sovetsky Ekran.

Richard Porton, in his 1999 book Film and the Anarchist Imagination, describes Optimistic Tragedy as "ingloriously didactic" and "typical of Soviet attempts to rationalize the brutal assault on the Kronstadt communards".[5]

References
  1. Optimistic Tragedy at IMDb
  2. "Festival de Cannes: Optimistic Tragedy". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
  3. "Kino International". Architectuul. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  4. "Das Berliner Kino International: Im sozialistischen Filmhimmel". Monumente (in German). Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz. December 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2022.
  5. Porton, Richard (1999). Film and the Anarchist Imagination. Verso. p. 70.


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