Fedor Ozep: Filmmaker for All Cultures

Abstract

The essay analyzes the work of Russian filmmaker Fedor Alexandrovich Ozep. The author reveals the origins of his film directing and screenwriting activities and the influences on it of Russian literature and cooperation with other filmmakers, such asYakov Protazanov, Yury Zhelyabuzhsky and Boris Barnet. The author’s analysis allows us to trace the main directions of cinema’s popularization of Russian cultural heritage in Europe and the USA and to evaluate the importance of different cultural practices and artistic trends in the filmmaker’s style —in particular, the effect of German expressionism on Ozep’s literary adaptations made abroad. The author describes Ozep’s work of the WWII period and the first post-war years, when the filmmaker became a founder of French Canadian cinema.

Keywords

• screen adaptation
• ozep
• sten
• dostoevsky
• pushkin
• tolstoy