https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHXTr0s-yOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ68bwBScRI
Hard to Be a God (Trydno byt bogom)
Directed by Aleksei German
A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.
So anyone watched this? Or wanted to see this?
I heard about it last year but only saw a trailer just earlier. Seems really quite interesting.
Sources say that that pre-prod started in 1998. filming ocurred from 2000 to 2006, then after a long post-prod (apparently the director mainly focussed on the sound design of the film) it premiered at the Rome Film Festival. It's worth mentioning the director died near the end of post-production.
Will seek this one out.
Also, no relation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYprdmE1dFc
I remember looking forward to this. Knew nothing about the director, didn't know he died.
His first feature was suppressed for a long time in the Soviet era, it's available for free download on the internet archive(subtitles link in first review)-
https://archive.org/details/CheckOnRoads
More fantastic and unsettling footage:
http://vimeo.com/78691142
Weird stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0C_Bi7PQoo
Further information here:
http://www.filmpressplus.com/wp-content/uploads/dl_docs/HARDtobeaGOD-Notes.pdf
QuoteABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Hard To Be a God is a project that Russian master director Aleksei German had been considering since the mid-1960s. German tried to make it as his first film as early as 1964. Instead, he made Trial on the Road in respect to Lenfilm, the historic production company for which the director worked throughout his career. The project was later approved by Goskino, the State agency responsible for organizing filmmaking in the Soviet Union, but in 1968, after the uprising in Prague, the authorization was revoked for ideological reasons. Twenty years later the director returned to the project, but decided instead to make a film that would take him a long time to complete, Khrustalyov, My Car! Ten years later, after stating "I am not interested in anything but the possibility of building a world, an entire civilization from scratch", German committed his efforts to Hard to be a God.The film was shot between the autumn of 2000 and August 2006: it even involved the construction of castles near Prague and on the sets at Lenfilm; the shooting took so long that some of the actors died of old age; the post-production phase took over five years. German died on February 21st, 2013: the film was completed by his wife and closest collaborator, Svetlana Karmalita, and by their son Aleksei A. German.
Here's a quote from his son which really explains what seems so appealing about the footage.
Quote"My father wanted his film to be wider than the frame, to go beyond the screen with odours and tactile sense," German Jr told me. "Generally speaking, he tried to create a sort of 3D film: meaning not the actual technology as such, but rather the effect of immersion into the world he depicted."
Quote from: Lottery on April 18, 2014, 01:15:44 AM
More fantastic and unsettling footage:
got really into that during 0:00 to 1:41. i want to see this. i don't know how i'll see this. thanks for the hot tip
i think your tip is hot
Does anyone have subtitles for this? I would be very thankful.
Quote from: Lottery on April 18, 2014, 01:15:44 AM
Further information here:
http://www.filmpressplus.com/wp-content/uploads/dl_docs/HARDtobeaGOD-Notes.pdf
Just thought I'd let people know that there's some spoilers about the film and it's ending in that pdf.
However, if you've already seen it (I haven't but) there's a nice review/analysis by Russian critic Anton Dolin.
Whoopsie N, I meant to use that as a source rather than explicit further reading. I should have made that clear. Sorry man.
@Decadentor
It's out!? Where did you find it?
Wow!
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edit: just wanted to leave the stills here. All other info can be retrieved from other posts.
The other thread reminded me to post this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7rDpiiOIYA
Crazy, crazy stuff.
I saw it last week and was equally blown away and exasperated. It's a visually astronomic achievement. The sense of immersion and the level of detail in the art direction and the mise en scene with all those long takes, each time bringing beautifully horrid compositions, the way the film puts our own civilization under the microscope, asking what if renaissance had never happened, all that and the acting in general, everything is top notch.
Yet the film has one big problem which is that even though it explains it basic plot early on, in a moment to moment basis is practically impossible to know what the hell is going on. Sometimes you're not sure what character is speaking because of the dubbing, most of the time particular situations are hardly explained, which creates a confusion that may very well sound good on paper, but it's frustrating in a three hour running time. I actually had to rewatch the whole thing because I felt perhaps I was distracted and all the info was there, but in that second view it was clear the film sets it's plot at the beginning and then off it goes assuming you get who is a scientist, who is an authority figure, what role each character plays, etc...
So, it's one of those films that you have to see, and then decide if revisiting will help you enjoy it more.
Tortuga, I merged your post into this thread. You can edit it if you want.
this is a must see. absolutely fantastic.;
Might catch this on this festival in Brussels http://www.offscreen.be/en/offscreen-film-festival-2015/offscreenings/hard-be-god
And I suppose it's safe to say that the film will completely overshadow the early nineties adaptation of the book.
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Then again, that one might be of interest for the Werner Herzog appearance (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097292/), AT LEAST.
I actually downloaded the original version by mistake and it was extremely weird also. Not as much as the new version but still, it should be interesting to see both.
On Netflix now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what a surprise blast from the past this thread is
and what a gargantuan achievement that i've finally seen okay okay. i liked when guts spilled out and i liked how birds kept appearing. it definitely, shall we say, lacks the romance of Long Day's Journey into Night, but i'll give it credit for being a more immense presentation of a dreamlike, rainsoaked reality