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Elem Germanovich Klimov (; 9 July 1933 – 26 October 2003) was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker. He studied at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematograph, and was married to film director Larisa Shepitko. Klimov is best known for his final film, Come and See ( Иди и смотри), which follows a teenage boy in German-occupied Byelorussia during World War Two and which received universal acclaim. His work also includes black comedies, children's movies, and period dramas.
Klimov's second film, Adventures of a Dentist (1965), was a black comedy comedy about a dentist who is derided by his colleagues for his natural talent of painlessly pulling out teeth. The implication, that society inevitably ostracizes those that are gifted, horrified the censors who told Klimov to change it. When Klimov refused, the film was given the lowest classification, "category three", which meant that it was shown in only 25–78 movie theatres.
Next, Klimov began making a film about Grigori Rasputin called Agony. The road to release took him nine years and many rewrites. Although finished in 1975, the final edit was not released in the USSR until 1985, due to suppressive measures partly because of its orgy scenes and partly because of its relatively nuanced portrait of Emperor Nicholas II. It had been shown in western Europe a few years before. In 1976, Klimov finished a film begun by his teacher Mikhail Romm before the latter's death called And Still I Believe....
Klimov's leadership saw the belated release of many of the previously banned films and the reinstatement of several directors who had fallen out of political favor. This period is widely considered as the start of decline of Soviet cinema and the rise of the so-called "" (roughly "black stuff"), works of artists and journalists, who, freed by glasnost, exposed Soviet reality in the most pessimistic possible light. Klimov was still frustrated by the obstacles that still remained in his way and gave up his post in 1988 to Andrei Smirnov, saying that he wanted to make films again.
Klimov completed no more films after Come and See. His plans included an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons, and a film about Joseph Stalin. However, none came to fruition. He said in 2000 that he had "lost interest in making films. Everything that was possible I felt I had already done."
In 1983, he was a member of the jury at the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival.
He died on 26 October 2003 from Cerebral hypoxia, after six weeks in a coma. He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery. Klimov Elem Germanovich at the Celebrity Tombs Klimov Elem Germanovich at the Moscow Cemeteries website
Wife's death
In 1979, Klimov's wife Larisa Shepitko, who recently won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for her 1977 film The Ascent, died in a car accident while directing a film based on a novel by Valentin Rasputin called Farewell to Matyora. His wife's death had a profound impact on Klimov, and all his subsequent films were tragedies. A year after her death, Klimov filmed a 25-minute tribute to his wife entitled "Larisa" (1980), and subsequently finished directing the film she had started. Despite being shelved for two years after completion, Farewell was still released in 1983.
Come and See
Klimov's final film, Come and See, was released in 1985 to worldwide acclaim and won the Golden Prize at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. The film depicts the experiences of a 15-year-old boy joining the resistance in German-occupied Byelorussia in 1943. Speaking of how the film drew on his own childhood experience of the war, Klimov said, "As a young boy, I had been in hell... Had I included everything I knew and shown the whole truth, even I could not have watched it."
Later career
In 1986, fresh from the success of Come and See, and with the changes brought by perestroika in the air, Klimov was chosen by his colleagues to be the First Secretary of the Filmmakers' Union following the V Congress of the Soviet Filmmakers. According to some critics and filmmakers, the congress was conducted by Alexander Yakovlev, one of the grey cardinals of perestroika who was unofficially presented there, consulting the activists from time to time.Natalya Bondarchuk, Sole Days Moscow: AST, 2010, 368 p. Feodor Razzakov, Industry of Betrayal, or Cinema That Blew Up the USSR Moscow: Algorithm, 2013, 416 p.
Personal life
In 1957, Klimov graduated from the Higher Institute of Aviation in Moscow. He considered a career in journalism before settling on cinema. He enrolled at the state film school, the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, where he studied under acclaimed director Efim Dzigan. While a student at the institute, Klimov met Larisa Shepitko, whom he would later marry. Their son Anton was born in 1973.
Filmography
External links
Categories: 1933 Births, 2003 Deaths, Burials In Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, Communist Party Of The Soviet Union Members, Deaths From Hypoxia, Gerasimov Institute Of Cinematography Alumni, German-language Film Directors, Moscow Aviation Institute Alumni, Neurological Disease Deaths In Russia, Mass Media People From Volgograd, People's Artists Of Russia, Russian Film Directors, 20th-century Russian Screenwriters, Russian Male Screenwriters, 20th-century Russian Male Writers, Soviet Film Directors, Soviet Screenwriters, Soviet Male Screenwriters
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