Ivan Mosjoukine
Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin, usually billed using the French transliteration Ivan Mosjoukine, was a Russian silent film actor, writer and director. Born in Kondol, in the Saratov Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Penza Oblast in Russia), Ivan Mozzhukhin was the youngest of four brothers. His mother Rachel Ivanovna Mozzhukhina (née Lastochkina) was the daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest, while his father Ilya Ivanovich Mozzhukhin came from peasants and served as an estate manager for the noble Obolensky family. While all three elder brothers finished seminary, Ivan was sent to the Penza gymnasium for boys and later studied law at the Moscow State University. In 1910, he left academic life to join a troupe of traveling actors from Kiev, with which he toured for a year, gaining experience and a reputation for dynamic stage presence. Upon returning to Moscow, he launched his screen career with the 1911 adaptation of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata. Mosjoukine's most lasting contribution to the theoretical concept of film as image is the legacy of his own face in recurring representation of illusory reactions seen in Lev Kuleshov's psychological montage experiment which demonstrated the Kuleshov Effect. In 1918, the first full year of the Russian Revolution, Kuleshov assembled his revolutionary illustration of the application of the principles of film editing out of footage from one of Mosjoukine's Tsarist-era films which had been left behind when he, along with his entire film production company, departed for the relative safety of Crimea in 1917. At the end of 1919, Mosjoukine arrived in Paris and quickly established himself as one of the top stars of the French silent cinema, starring in one successful film after another. Handsome, tall, and possessing a powerful screen presence, he won a considerable following as a mysterious and exotic romantic figure. Mosjoukine's film stardom was assured and during the 1920s, his face with the trademark hypnotic stare appeared on covers of film magazines all over Europe. He wrote the screenplays for most of his starring vehicles and directed two of them, L'Enfant du carnaval (Child of the Carnival), released on 29 August 1921 and Le Brasier ardent (The Blazing Inferno), released on 2 November 1923. The leading lady in both films was the then-"Madame Mosjoukine", Nathalie Lissenko. Brasier, in particular, was highly praised for its innovative and inventive concepts, but ultimately proved too surreal and bizarre to become financially successful. Ivan Mosjoukine died of tuberculosis in a Neuilly-sur-Seine clinic. All available sources give his age as 49 and year of birth as 1889. However, his gravestone at the Russian cemetery in the Parisian suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois is inscribed with the year 1887.
Loves of Casanova
as CasanovaRepublic of Venice, 1760. Pursued by a vengeful husband, the intrepid womanizer Casanova, who...
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Surrender
as ConstantineLea Lyon, the daughter of a rabbi, lives happily with her father in their Gulicinu village, but...
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The Late Mathias Pascal
as Mathias PascalMathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible...
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Kean
as Edmund KeanBy 1820, Edmund Kean is the most admired Shakespearan actor. But if his art is peerless, his...
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The Night Before Christmas
as DevilBased on Gogol's story. It is Christmas Eve, and the town witches’ son, a blacksmith, seeks an...
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Sorrows of Sarah
as IsaakThis film captures a stage production at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, accompanied by the choir of...
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The Queen of Spades
as HermannWhile hosting a game of cards one night, Narumov tells his friends a story about his...
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Father Sergius
as Prince Kasatsky, later Father SergiusThe story of Prince Stepán Kasátsky discovering his fiancée was the mistress of the Czar, so he...
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Defence of Sevastopol
as Kornilov / associate of the envoy of the Menshkov retinueFirst film ever that was shot by two cameras. Set in 1854-1855, in Sevastopol and Yalta during...
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Behind the Screen
as Ivan MosjoukineFamous Russian screen actors play themselves in this drama about the lives of actors. Thirteen...
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Satan Triumphant
as Pastor Talnoks / Pastor's son SandroPastor Talnoх furiously urges the flock to fight temptations, but he himself becomes a victim of...
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Dance of Death
as Mark Galich, music composerA conductor is haunted by hallucinations during a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse...
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The Burning Crucible
as Zed, le détectiveA woman, named simply "Elle" and her husband, a wealthy industrialist, are not on the best of...
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The Lion of the Moguls
as le prince Roundghito-SingIn the kingdom of the Moguls, Prince Roudghito-Sing, a young officer of the palace, falls in...
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What Is Sex?
as Mr. KuleshovA multimedia sex-ed video about life and love in a world where humans have corkscrew penises and...
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Glory to Us, Death to the Enemy
as Russian officerThis 1914 drama set in the WWI-era relates a heroic act carried out by a war nurse for the Red...
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Michel Strogoff
as Michael StrogoffAdapted from Jules Verne's 1876 novel Michael Strogoff, the film tells the tale of a Russian...
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A Narrow Escape
as Octave de GranierThe marquis de Granier would like his son Charles to end his current relationship for a...
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Cinema in Russia
as Film footageDocumentary film about early years of Russian cinema: its first directors, cameramen, producers...
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The Child of the Carnival
as Marquis Octave de GranierA foundling is left in front of the home of a rich aristocratic bachelor during the Nice...
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In A Lively Place
as The coachmanBased on the 1865 play of the same name by Alexander Ostrovsky.
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The Adjutant of the Czar
as Prince Boris KurbskiDrama of plot and intrigue in Imperial Russia.
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The In-Law
as IvanLusha is suffering from her drunken husband. One day her father-in-law rapes her. Of course, she...
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Casanova
as uncreditedTalkie remake of a 1927 silent about the adventures of the notorious womaniser and venetian...
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L'enfant du carnaval
as uncreditedA desperate mother abandons her child on the door step of a playboy.
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The Peasants' Lot
as PyotrTwo peasants in feudal Russia wish to marry but tragedy strikes. A grim if familiar depiction of...
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Knight's Spirit
as Vladek / Stas MarzinkovskiyA romance in the upper-classes develops as the Bolshevik revolution is at hand.
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The House of Mystery
as Julien VillandritAn imaginative wedding scene shot in silhouette, begins a tale of murder blackmail and romance...
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The Prosecutor
as Eric Olsen, prosecutorProsecutor Olsen's lover, the singer-songwriter Betsy, leaves him for a new passion. And he,...
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Life is a Moment, Art is Forever
as Prince BoleslavAfter a man's wife leaves him for a sculptor, his only comfort is a statue of his wife.
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Les Ombres Qui Passent
as Louis BarclayDirected by Alexandre Volkoff, 1924
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Life in Death
as Dr. RenaudA doctor kills and embalms a woman in order to preserve her beauty.
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The Little House in Kolomna
as Hussar / MavrushaBased on the story by Pushkin. Pretty young Parasha is living with her widowed mother. Parasha...
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The Tale of the Sleeping Princess and the Seven Knights
as Prince Elisei
A Terrible Revenge
as Petro the wizardA couple of lovers deal with an evil presence that is threatening them.
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Wicked Night
as Georges Vinogradov, a studentA young man discovers the reason his new bride killed herself.
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Petersburg Slums
as uncreditedFive-episode adaptation of the eponymous Russian novel, directed by Pyotr Chardynin et al.
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At Midnight in the Graveyard
as uncreditedA group of young people made a bet, according to the terms of which they had to visit a cemetery...
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Sergeant X
as Jean RenaultA military wife remarries after she thinks her Russian husband has died in battle, and when he...
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The 1002nd Night
as TaharAn Arabian prince falls in with a group of downtrodden rebels and faces the wrath of an...
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Uncle's Apartment
as KokoA man rents out his uncle's room to all kinds of people.
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Manolescu, the Prince of Adventures
as ManolescuGeorge Manolescu (Ivan Mouskojine) plays a confidence man who works his way from Paris to New...
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Woman of Tomorrow
as Nikolay, Anna's husbandA female doctor is so busy with her work that she has too little time for her fiancé. He falls...
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Little Ellie
as Norton, city's mayorA perverted town mayor who murders a young girl and, overcome by guilt, commits suicide. Based...
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Accession of the Romanov Dynasty
as uncreditedA significant part of the 1912 production "A Life for the Tsar" was used in this film.
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The Secret Courier
as Julien SorelA silent adventure based on the classic novel by Stendhal "The Red and the Black".
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Nitchevo
as uncreditedA commander suspects his wife of infidelity, when she turns to a subordinate officer to help her...
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The Dagger Woman
as Sakhovskiy, the painterIvan Savonsky, popular society artist, meets Olga Kartoff, a young woman high in social circles,...
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Beggar Woman
as PoetA great stage performer falls ill and loses her voice and beauty, and she and her admirer's...
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Alcoholism and Its Consequences
as AlcoholicAlcoholism and its Ill-Effects was considered to be one of the most popular science propaganda...
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In The Wild Blindness Of Desires
as NikolayA man in love with a married woman plans to kill her husband. By mistake he kills her brother,...
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The Precipice
as RayskiyBased on the novel of the same name by Ivan Goncharov. Raisky falls in love with his second...
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Ivan Mosjoukine, or the Carnival Child
as Self (archive footage)The brilliant and dramatic fate of the great Russian actor Ivan Mozzhukhin, who became a star of...
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