How do Star Wars, The Godfather, Interstellar and other cult movies quote the classics of Soviet cinema?

For the history of Russian cinema, the Soviet period is a special one. It was then that Sergei Bondarchuk directed War and Peace, for which he received an Oscar, and Sergei Eisenstein forever entered the history of world cinema with the film Potemkin Battleship – there are many such examples in the 20th century, and Soviet tapes still wear cult status (deserved). And they’re often a source of inspiration for modern blockbuster hits—for example, Soviet classics were inspired by George Lucas when he created Star Wars, and Guillermo del Toro, who directed The Shape of Water, from Christopher Nolan when he shot Interstellar. Let’s talk about them!

godfather of Star Wars

That’s how George Lucas, the author of one of the most famous sci-fi epics in film history, named Pavel Klushantsev, a Soviet cameraman, director, and screenwriter. His paintings “Seven Barriers”, “Meteorites”, “The Universe”, “Road to the Stars”, “Planet of Storms”, “Moon”, “Mars”, “I See the Earth!” revolutionized the idea of ​​special effects in cinema.

And by the time George Lucas had no idea who the Jedi were, Pavel Klushantsev was already sending ships to the onscreen stars—even before those flights took place.

Meanwhile, he inspired Stanley Kubrick to create the cult 2001 Space Odyssey (the Hollywood director used zero-gravity shooting inspired by Road to the Stars) and Ridley Scott to Prometheus, and in 1990 he got a special from Robert Skotak. received a letter. He’s an effects artist on Aliens, Terminator: Doomsday, Assaults on Mars, Titanic, and others, who wrote that he couldn’t understand how to do visual effects in Soviet works.

Later, during his first visit to Moscow during the years of perestroika, George Lucas was looking for a meeting with his once idol and muse, but unfortunately, the directors meeting never took place. By that time, Pavel Klushantsev had retired, was almost blind and lived in a small, almost unknown apartment in Leningrad.

“The Battleship Potemkin” in “The Godfather”

Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film about the uprising of sailors on a warship has rightfully gone down in history as one of the movies that changed the cinema. And the scene of the execution of civilians on the Potemkin Stairs was later quoted in many films: for example, in The Godfather, Mo Greene is killed by shooting his glasses in 28 Weeks After, just like a woman in the Potemkin Armored. as civilians run down the stairs, and in “Dawn of the Dead” a car descends the stairs at dangerous speed, as in one of the most popular episodes of a Soviet movie.

Andrei Tarkovsky in the films Lars von Trier and Interstellar

The genius of Andrei Tarkovsky peaked in Solaris in 1972 – it is not surprising that then the pinnacle of the creation of the Soviet director was repeatedly quoted in science fiction. Lars von Trier, for example, pays homage to himself and Tarkovsky’s other works in Antichrist and Nymphomaniac, and Christopher Nolan named Solaris one of his main inspirations when creating Interstellar – by the way, long desert shots in a movie are a modern take. has become a classic.

“Amphibian Man” in “The Shape of Water”

In the early 1960s, Gennady Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev filmed Amphibian Man, which was released seven years after Creatures from the Black Lagoon, but both films served as the starting point for portraying ichthyander in the cinema. And 39 years later, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water appeared on the screens, one of the main films in the director’s career, which won four Oscars in its time. By the way, he himself always dreamed that the main character and the monstrous amphibian would meet, and in this regard, the finale of his film correctly quotes the end of the Soviet tape – the escape of lovers in an attempt to release. ichthyander to the open sea.

“Cranes Fly” in Europe

The “Golden Palm” at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival went to Mikhail Kalatozov’s Soviet film “The Cranes Are Flying”, which “failed” in French film distribution. And then, almost half a century later, the plot of the black-and-white tape originally from the USSR will be partially quoted in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (Amelie’s) Long Relationship with Audrey Tautou and Gaspard Ulliel. This is especially evident in the same sign that the main characters believe: if a letter comes from the front without counting to a certain number, their beloved is still alive.