Ivan Pyryev

Ivan Aleksandrovich Pyryev ( _ru. Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Пы́рьев; November 4, 1901, Kamen-na-Obi – February 7, 1968, Moscow) was a Russian film director and screenwriter remembered as the high priest of Stalinist cinema. He was awarded six Stalin Prizes (1941, 1942, 1946, 1946, 1948, 1951), served as Director of the Mosfilm studios (1954–57)Ирина Гращенкова, [http://www.kinobraz.ru/old/piryev.htm "Пырьев Иван Александрович,"] Кинобраз. Accessed 18 July 2008.] and was, for a time, the most influential man in the Soviet motion picture industry.

Pyryev was born in Kamen-na-Obi, now Altai Krai, Russia. His early career included acting on stage directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold in "The Forest" («Лес») and by Sergei Eisenstein in the Proletcult Theatre production "The Mexican." Pyryev also acted in Eisenstein's first short film "Glumov's Diary." Pyryev's early career included production jobs behind the camera, such as work for director Yuri Tarich. [Jay Leyda. "Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film." Princeton University Press, 1983. p.214.] He débuted as a director in the age of silent film, with "Strange Woman" (Посторонняя женщина, 1929). [Leyda, p.273.]

During the 1930s and 1940s Pyryev rivaled Grigori Aleksandrov as the country's most successful director of musical comedies, all of which starred his then-wife, Marina Ladynina. [Dina Iordanova, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5212/is_2000/ai_n19128639 "Ladynina, Marina,"] International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, 2000.] Even during wartime, when the Soviet film industry had been evacuated to Alma-Ata, Pyryev made popular and light-hearted features. [Leyda, p.370.] In "Six O'Clock after the War is Over" the Romantic characters (played by Ladynina and Yevgeny Samoilov), when separated by war, arrange a date at 6 PM on the Victory Day, and the victory celebrations are shown towards the end of the film (which was released in November 1944).

Such films as "The Swine Girl and the Shepherd" (1941) and "Cossacks of the Kuban" (1949) became staples of Soviet televisionclarifyme and proved effective in showcasing the idealized Soviet way of life. The former, shown in the US as "They Met in Moscow", was the last film made in the Soviet Union before the German invasion. The protagonists, a Russian swineherd and a Chechen shepherd (played by Ladynina and Vladimir Zeldin) meet at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and fall in love with each other. The movie is noted for a memorable score by Isaak Dunaevsky and Tikhon Khrennikov. "Cossacks of the Kuban", which launched the star of Klara Luchko, presents a highly glamorized picture of life in a southern kolkhoz.

Following Stalin's death, Pyryev divorced Ladynina and turned his attention to a more serious brand of cinema. He produced two acclaimed adaptations of Dostoevsky's novels, "The Idiot" (1958, starring Yuri Yakovlev) and "The Brothers Karamazov" (1969), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. [OSCAR.com [http://www.oscar.com/nominees/?pn=detail&nominee=12%20-%20Foreign%20Language%20Nominee "Best Foreign Language Film of the Year,"] Accessed 18 July 2008.] Pyryev died at the age of 66 in Moscow. Since "The Brothers Karamazov" was unfinished at the time, the film stars Kirill Lavrov and Mikhail Ulyanov are usually credited with having brought the project to a conclusion. His widow Lionella Pyryeva, who took the part of Grushenka in "The Brothers Karamazov", went on to marry Oleg Strizhenov.

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*imdb name|id=0701576|name=Ivan Pyryev
*ru icon [http://www.pyrev.ru/ www.pyrev.ru: Ivan Pyryev and His Women]