The Cranes Are Flying [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov, Mikheil Kalatozishvili Mikhail Kalatozov

Overview

Based on a play by V. Rusov, the Russian The Cranes are Flying is a love story set during the early years of World War II. With her boyfriend Boris (Alexei Batalov) on the front lines - and no sign of life from him for eons - Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova, Constantin Stanislavsky's grandniece) is raped by Boris's cousin, Fyodor (Vasily Merkuryev), during an air raid, and later accepts his marriage proposal, despite her lack of love for him - hoping that he'll eventually be able to replace her boyfriend. Several subsequent events (both joyous and melancholy) enable the heroine to rebuild her life, as well as restore her own sense of self-value; she is eventually told that Boris has died in action. The Cranes Are Flying won several international awards, and became a staple on the American art-house repertory circuit into the 1970s.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/24/2020
UPC:	0715515243018
Original Release:	1957
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00
Sales rank:	9,745

Special Features

New 2k digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; New interview with scholar Ian Christie on why the film is a landmark of Soviet cinema; Audio interview from 1961 with Director Mikhail Kalatozov; Hurricane Kalatozov, a documentary from 2009 on the Georgian Director's complex relationship with the Soviet Government; Segment from a 2008 program about the film's cinematography, featuring original storyboards and an interview wiht actor Alexei Batalov; Interview from 2001 with filmmaker Claude Lelouch on the film's French premiere at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival; New English Subtitle Translation; Plus: An essay by critic Chris Fujiwara

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Tatyana Samoilova	Veronika
Vasiliy Merkurev	Fyodor Ivanovich
Svetlana Kharitonova	Irina
Konstantine Niktin	Volodya
Valentin Zubkov	Stepan
B. Kokobkin	Tyernov
Ekaterina Kupriyanova	Anna Mikhailovna
Konstantin Nikitin	Volodya
Aleksey Batalov	Boris,Actor
Aleksandr Shvorin	Mark
Konstantin Kadochnikov	Volodia
Antonina Bogdanova	la grand-mère
Vasili Merkuryev	Actor
Boris Kokovkin	Actor
E. Kupriyanova	Actor
Valentina Ananina	Actor
Valentina Vladimirova	Actor
O. Dzisko	Actor
Nikolay Smorchkov	Actor
Tatiana Samojilova	Actor
Moisey Vaynberg	Composer
M. Vainberg	Composer

Technical Credits

Viktor Rozov

V. Rozov

Mikhail Kalatozov	Director,Producer
Viktor Rozov	Screenwriter
V. Rozov	Screenwriter
Mikheil Kalatozishvili	Director

Editorial Reviews

It's a love story, it's a story of betrayal; it's a war drama, it's an anti-war diatribe, it's a tribute to the resiliency of Mother Russia, it's a dark and disturbing psychological melodrama of one woman's one bad choice and its consequences. Since its acclaimed appearance at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the Palm D'Or, and its crossover appeal to Cold War American film audiences and subsequent long run in repertory houses into the 1970s, Mikhail Kalatazov's deliriously charged film has somehow been relegated to the status of a curiosity. It deserves a re-examination, if only because it's a movie that, in a mere 90 minutes, manages to convey an amazing amount of personal and public history. The Soviet Union's entry into World War II is foreshadowed by one of the most lyrical courtships ever filmed, with Kalatazov's camera following Boris and his beloved "Squirrel" (Veronica) through the deserted pre-dawn streets. Veronica, played by the luminous Tatyana Samoylova (the grandniece of legendary acting coach Constantin Stanislavsky) misses an opportunity to see off her lover when his troop train leaves for the front, and she spends the rest of the story waiting for him, while relatives are killed, she is seduced by his cousin (during an air raid!), she is evacuated with Boris's family to Siberia, she is implicitly denounced by Boris's doctor father when he tries to cheer up a soldier patient who has just received a Dear John letter, she contemplates suicide, and she adopts an abandoned boy (named Boris!). If there's an overkill of irony at work in the story's machinations, it's neatly papered over by the prowling camera and striking compositions; Kalatazov is one of the few filmmakers who might be called an expressionistic realist. He has never met a crane shot he didn't like and uses every excuse to follow his characters up winding staircases and through crowds of people indifferent to their emotional turmoil. The film's politics may be muddled (it's not entirely clear here if the war really worth fighting), but the filmmaking is bold and rapturous, just as in Kalatazov's next great work, I Am Cuba.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener