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Faust wins in Venice
Published: 10 September, 2011, 17:45
Edited: 11 September, 2011, 18:32
Johannes Zeiler as Faust in Aleksandr Sokurov's award-winning drama
TAGS: Movies, Show, Russia, Europe
A drama from nonpareil Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov has picked up the top honors - the Golden Lion award - at the world’s oldest film forum, the Venice International Film Festival.
His signature interpretation of Goethe’s Faust has also won accolades from the World Catholic Association for Communication. Apart from the SIGNIS prize, the Russian filmmaker has also received the Future Film Festival Digital Award.
The director told the journalists that he came to Venice not to receive an award but to “bring his film closer to people.”
“It so happened, however, that we also came to be understood. It rarely happens,” Sokurov added.
He was also quoted as saying that “culture is not luxury, it's a foundation vital for social development. “If culture continues to be, as before, delicate, soft, careful and silent, we will be swallowed, we will cease to exist…We should fight for the culture on all levels, as a society.”
(RIA Novosti / Ekaterina Tchesnokova)
It is expected that Faust will have its Russian premiere in later this fall. The director said, however, that he has no intention to promote his film with any advertising campaigns.
“The film doesn't need an audience. The audience should need the film,” he stated.
According to Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, Faust is one of those films that makes an impact, changing each and every person who watched the film.
Shooting of Sokurov’s latest masterpiece took place in Iceland and in the Czech Republic. Made in German with German actors in the leads, Sokurov said Faust is his research of the German character.
His film marks the final chapter in his tetralogy about the relations between man and power that began with Moloch about Hitler, continued with Taurus about Lenin, then climaxed with The Sun about Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
Films by the Siberian-born St Petersburg-based director have been widely praised by critics from around the world. Sokurov’s thought-provoking dramas have been playing at the most prestigious festivals.
The award-winning director of Mother and Son, Moloch, and The Sun has always been interested by the phenomenon of power and conformity in his films, one of them was a documentary about the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin.
10.09.2011, 16:28
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No Camile or Rodin, No Goethe, No Goya, No Rembrandt and No Beethoven, No Mozart either, No more great genius since the great geniuses wrote such as Faust and other most brilliant creations co-created from the unknown energies.
Why are we backwards culturally? What century are we living in?
When the technology is so free and what Camile, Rodin, Goethe, Goya, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Mozart et al could have co-created with the leisure time as was then supposed to release an even more High Renaissance in our future(s)?
War is our renaissances on earth and that says what it is, no more culture except backward looking. Tragic until the balance returns.
Not one human gets a pass in the dark ages, not one hair that allows the other hairs to be treated as though separate.
Art is art and the universe has spoken about what art is, eternally.
Who is responsible for progress towards the freedom from physical dependency ? Church goers , self flagelleting simple minded people who can only concieve one god and discharging any responsability including guilt for burning and torturing OR self sacrifying individual pushing the boundaries of knowledge and art as they see them rejecting any cosy servitute and often finishing up in jail or the gallows ? Anarchists ( Socrates , Pytagoras , Copernicus - Galileo - Toscanelli - Pascal - Newton - Marx - Lenin - Trosky to mention no one at all ) who rejected any impediment to fulfill our drive to freedom ! And this film pleading for subserviency otherwise you will be chastised ! Absurd !