The Emotional Camera: Mikhail Kalatozov

Wednesday, February 13, 8pm
I am Cuba
(Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964, Soviet Union/Cuba, 141 minutes, 35mm)
Funded by the Soviet Union in honor of Castro’s victory, I Am Cuba is a breathtaking cine-poem that portrays pre-Communist Cuba as a deliriously decadent, exploited nation in need of revolution. One of cinema’s most astounding pieces of agitprop, this was also a dazzling technical achievement with stunning black and white photography and confounding tracking shots. A cult film resurrected in the 1990s, in part because of Martin Scorsese’s endorsement, I am Cuba is a long feat of filmmaking acrobatics. In Russian and Spanish with English subtitles.

Wednesday, February 20, 8pm
The Letter Never Sent
(Mikhail Kalatozov, 1959, Soviet Union, 97 minutes, 35mm)
The true story of a disastrous expedition of geologists searching for diamond deposits in the Siberian wilderness, The Letter Never Sent has an exceptional cast, but its stars are eclipsed by cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, whose camera takes flight and soars through ice storms, forest fires, and the tundra of Siberia. It's a dazzling, technically brilliant film from the cruelly short partnership of Kalatozov and Urusevsky.

Wednesday, February 27, 8pm
The Cranes Are Flying
(Mikhail Kalatozov, 1958, Soviet Union, 94 minutes, 35mm)
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, The Cranes Are Flying was among the first works produced during the Khrushchev Thaw and one of the first post-war Soviet films screened in the West. Veronica and Boris, a young couple blissfully in love, have their relationship and their country crushed by the onset of World War II. Featuring Ursevsky’s beautifully composed black and white photography, Kalatozov’s masterwork, unmarked by Stalinist propaganda, focuses on the individuals who are flattened by larger forces — the fierce upheaval and anguish of war.

Wednesday, March 12, 8pm
The Red Tent
(Mikhail Kalatozov, 1969, Italy/Soviet Union, 121 minutes, 35mm)
Kalatozov’s final film is an Italian-Soviet co-production about an actual ill-fated 1928 expedition to the North Pole in a dirigible, which crashed, stranding the entire crew. The story is told years after the incident by the Italian General who led the expedition; he sees the ghosts of those who lost their lives because of his decisions. A meditation on hubris and leadership, The Red Tent has breathtaking cinematography, a brilliant score by Ennio Morricone, and a wonderful turn by Sean Connery as the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.