St. Petersburg in The Movies
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in St. Peterburg. Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in St. Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in St. Petersburg in the first decade of the 20th century, and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in St. Petersburg. Earliest films that became known internationally were often based on famous literary works set in St. Petersburg, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot and a few versions of Anna Karenina (a Russian and a French film, each of 1911).
The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in St. Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers. The filming was made at such locations as Palace Embankment, The Winter Palace, Yusupov Palace, Catherine Palace, Petergof, Pavlovsk Palace, Mariinsky Theatre and other famous landmarks and streets of St. Petersburg.
Soviet-made films, such as the trilogy of "Maksim" by director Grigori Kozintsev may show the complex history of St. Petersburg with some propagandistic tone. Many foreign films, such as Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin, and Anastasia, are focused on the story of the Tsars. Film Noi vivi, based on the novel We the Living by Ayn Rand, comments on Italian politics by way of featuring the October Revolution. The story of Anastasia is best known by the 1956 version starring Ingrid Bergman and the 1997 cartoon. Russian Ark, filmed entirely in the Hermitage, shows the life of the Tsars and their entourage in the original interiors of the Winter Palace. Der Untergang was also filmed in Petersburg because several buildings on Shkapina Street resembled the center of Berlin of 1945. Leningrad about the Siege of Leningrad was released in 2007, and Giuseppe Tornatore's film on the same theme was planned for release in 2008.
St. Petersburg is a set for Interdevochka (also Интердевочка or Intergirl), featuring impressive shots of the city. The cult comedy Irony of Fate (also Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!) is set in St. Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in St. Petersburg (UK, 1996). Onegin (1999 featuring Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler and Lena Heady) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. The Stroll (2003) by Aleksei Uchitel featured many attractions of the city with Irina Pegova playing the role of a mysterious, well endowed and enchanting Russian beauty. Two Brothers and a Bride (2002), originally titled A Foreign Affair and starring David Arquette, is a comedy about brothers seeking a mail order bride in St. Petersburg and end up finding much more. The popular TV series Master and Margarita was filmed partly in St. Petersburg. Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the International Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, since its inauguration in 1993 during the White Nights.
Read more about this topic: Society And Culture In Saint Petersburg
Famous quotes containing the word movies:
“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62)