Sergei Parajanov

Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Armenian origin. He is regarded by film critics, film historians, and filmmakers to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

Parajanov studied at Moscow's VGIK under the tutualge of filmmakers Igor Savchenko and Oleksandr Dovzhenko, and began his career as professional film director in 1954. Parjanov became increasingly disenchanted of his films as well as the state sanctioned art style of socialist realism, prominent throughout the Soviet Union. After moving to Ukraine and directing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, his first major work which diverged from socialist realism and gave him international acclaim, he would later disown and proclaim his films made before 1965 as "garbage." Parajanov subsequently directed The Color of Pomegranates, which was met with widespread acclaim among filmmakers, and is often considered one of the greatest films ever made.

Parajanov was a bisexual, which exposed him to increase legal scrutiny from Soviet authorities over his personal life, his films, and political involvement surrounding Ukrainian nationalism. Nearly all of his film projects from 1965 to 1973 were banned by the Soviet film administrations, both locally in Kyiv, Yerevan and federally in the Soviet Union, many without discussion.

Parajanov's films are ranked among the greatest films of all time by Sight & Sound. He won prizes at Mar del Plata Film Festival, Istanbul International Film Festival, Nika Awards, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival and others. A comprehensive retrospective in the UK took place in 2010 at BFI Southbank. The retrospective was curated by Layla Alexander-Garrett and Parajanov specialist Elisabetta Fabrizi who commissioned a Parajanov inspired new commission in the BFI Gallery by contemporary artist Matt Collishaw ('Retrospectre'). A symposium was dedicated to Parajanov's work bringing together experts to discuss and celebrate the director's contribution to cinema and art.

Early life and films
Sergei Iosifovich Parajanov was born on January 9, 1924 in Tiflis, Georgia SSR to artistically inclined Armenian parents Iosif Parajanov and Siranush Bejanova. His Armenian family name, Parajaniants, is attested by a surviving historical document at the Sergei Parajanov Museum. His father was a merchant and owned an antique shop, trading jewelry and valuables. This got him in frequent trouble with authorities, who often raided his business and seized many of his valuables due to the Soviet Union's ban on financial speculation. Because his father could not get his business legalised, Parajanov was often forced to swallow small jewelry pieces, and defecate them once authorities withdrew from their search, saving them from being seized.

Parajanov attended a local railway college, before running away to attend the Tbilisi State Conservatoire. He was later transferred to the Moscow Conservatoire in Russia, where he studied alongside Russian soprano singer Nina Dorliak. Parajanov left the conservatoire to enroll at the directing department at the VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools in the country. He studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko and Oleksandr Dovzhenko.

Parajanov was bisexual In 1948, he was charged with illegal homosexual acts with an MGB officer Nikolai Mikava in Tbilisi, Georgia. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released under an amnesty after three months. In video interviews, friends and relatives contest the truthfulness of anything he was charged with, and believe his sentencing was procured through a kangaroo court due to his tendency for political retaliation and rebellious views. In 1950 Parajanov married his first wife, Nigyar Kerimova, in Moscow. She came from a Muslim Tatar family and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity to marry Parajanov. Kerimova's relatives who disapproved of the marriage, murdered her following her conversion. After her murder Parajanov moved to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he produced a few Russian and Ukrainian language documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films: Andriesh, The Top Guy, Ukrainian Rhapsody, and Flower on the Stone. He became fluent in Ukrainian and married his second wife, Svitlana Ivanivna Shcherbatiuk (1938–2020), in 1956. Shcherbatiuk gave birth to their son, Suren, in 1958.

In a 1988 interview he stated that, "Everyone knows that I have three motherlands. I was born in Georgia, worked in Ukraine and I'm going to die in Armenia."

Break from Socialist Realism
Andrey Tarkovsky's first film, Ivan's Childhood, had an enormous impact on Parajanov's self-discovery as a filmmaker. Later the influence became mutual, and he and Tarkovsky became close friends. Another influence was Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who Parajanov would later describe as "like a God" to him and a director of "majestic style". In 1965 Parajanov abandoned socialist realism and directed the poetic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, his first film over which he had complete creative control. It won numerous international awards well received by the Soviet authorities, who praised the film for "conveying the poetic quality and philosophical depth of Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s tale through the language of cinema," and called it "a brilliant creative success of the Dovzhenko film studio." Authorities allowed the release the film with its original Ukrainian soundtrack intact, rather than redub the dialogue into Russian for Soviet-wide release, in order to preserve its Ukrainian integrity. (Russian dubbing was standard practice at that time for non-Russian Soviet films when they were distributed outside the republic of origin.)

In 1969, Parajanov briefly moved to Armenia, to work on his next film, Sayat Nova. It was shot under relatively poor conditions and had a very small budget. Unlike Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Sayat Nova was not well received by Soviet authorities, who were quick to intervene and ban the film for its allegedly inflammatory content and lack of Socialist realism, Parajanov re-edited the film and renamed it The Color of Pomegranates.

Imprisonment and later work


Since the early 1960's, Parajanov increasingly became the subject of attention by the KGB, for a variety of political activities related to his affinity towards Ukrainian nationalism. He was an active protester following the 1965–1966 Ukrainian purge. In 1969 a report by the Committee for State Security to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist party indicated their belief that Parajanov is a negative influence on his younger colleagues, as well as a key purveyor of ideologically harmful opinion. He was also deemed as someone with a desire to defect if were to travel abroad. In December 1973, he was arrested in Kyiv, and was accused of homosexuality, sodomy propagation of pornography, and was sentenced to five years in a hard labor camp. Three days before Parajanov was due to be sentenced, Andrei Tarkovsky wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, asserting that "In the last ten years Sergei Parajanov has made only two films: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. They have influenced cinema first in Ukraine, second in this country as a whole, and third in the world at large. Artistically, there are few people in the entire world who could replace Paradanov. He is guilty – guilty of his solitude. We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master." An eclectic group of artists, actors, filmmakers and activists protested on behalf of Parajanov, calling for his immediate release. Among them were Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Leonid Gaidai, Eldar Ryazanov, Yves Saint Laurent, Marcello Mastroianni, Françoise Sagan, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Mikhail Vartanov, and Andrei Tarkovsky himself.

Parajanov served four years out of his five-year sentence, and later credited his early release to the efforts of the French Surrealist poet and novelist Louis Aragon, the Russian poet Elsa Triolet (Aragon's wife), and the American writer John Updike. His early release was authorized by Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presumably as a consequence of Brezhnev's chance meeting with Aragon and Triolet at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. When asked by Brezhnev if he could be of any assistance, Aragon requested the release of Parajanov, which was effected by December 1977.

While he was incarcerated, Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost) and some 800 drawings and collages, many of which were later displayed in Yerevan, where the Serhii Parajanov Museum is now permanently located. (The museum, opened in 1991, a year after Parajanov's death, hosts more than 200 works as well as furnishings from his home in Tbilisi.) His efforts in the camp were repeatedly compromised by prison guards, who deprived him of materials and called him mad, their cruelty only subsiding after a statement from Moscow admitted that "the director is very talented."

After his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented Parajanov from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards the artistic outlets he had nurtured during his time in prison. He crafted extraordinarily intricate collages, created a large collection of abstract drawings and pursued numerous other avenues of non-cinematic art, sewing more dolls and some whimsical suits.

In February 1982 Parajanov was once again imprisoned, on charges of bribery, which happened to coincide with his return to Moscow for the premiere of a play commemorating Vladimir Vysotsky at the Taganka Theatre, and was effected with some degree of trickery. Despite another stiff sentence, he was freed in less than a year, with his health seriously weakened.

In 1985, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian intellectuals, he created the multi-award-winning film The Legend of Suram Fortress, based on a novella by Daniel Chonkadze, his first return to cinema since Sayat-Nova fifteen years earlier. In 1988, Parajanov made another multi-award-winning film, Ashik Kerib, based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov. It is the story of a wandering minstrel, set in the Azerbaijani culture. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky and "to all the children of the world".

Death
Parajanov then attempted to complete his final project. He died of cancer in Yerevan, Armenia on July 20, 1990, aged 66, leaving this final work, The Confession, unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Parajanov: The Last Spring, created by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov in 1992. Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi, Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his death. They sent a telegram to Russia with the following statement: "The world of cinema has lost a magician. Parajanov’s fantasy will forever fascinate and bring joy to the people of the world…”.

Legacy
Despite having studied film at the VGIK, Parajanov discovered his artistic path only after seeing Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's dreamlike first film Ivan's Childhood.

Parajanov was highly appreciated by Tarkovsky himself in the biographical film "Voyage in Time" ("Always with huge gratitude and pleasure I remember the films of Sergei Parajanov which I love very much. His way of thinking, his paradoxical, poetical... ability to love the beauty and the ability to be absolutely free within his own vision"). In the same film Tarkovsky stated that Parajanov is one of his favorite filmmakers.

Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni stated that “The Color of Pomegranates by Parajanov, in my opinion one of the best contemporary film directors, strikes with its perfection of beauty.” Parajanov was also admired by American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. French film director Jean-Luc Godard also stated that "In the temple of cinema, there are images, light, and reality. Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple".

Despite having many admirers of his art, his vision did not attract many followers. "Whoever tries to imitate me is lost", he reportedly said. However, directors such as Theo Angelopoulos, Béla Tarr and Mohsen Makhmalbaf share Parajanov's approach to film as a primarily visual medium rather than as a narrative tool.

The Parajanov-Vartanov Institute was established in Hollywood in 2010 to study, preserve and promote the artistic legacies of Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov.

Partially produced screenplays

 * Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Тіні забутих предків, 1965, co-written with Ivan Chendei, based on the novelette by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky)
 * Kyiv Frescoes (Київські фрески, 1965)
 * Sayat Nova (Саят-Нова, 1969, orignal production screenplay of The Color of Pomegranates)
 * The Confession (сповідь, 1969–1989)
 * Studies About Vrubel (Этюды о Врубеле, 1989, depiction of Mikhail Vrubel's Kyiv period, co-written and directed by Leonid Osyka)
 * Swan Lake: The Zone (Лебедине озеро. Зона, 1989, filmed in 1990, directed by Yuriy Illienko, cinematographer of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)

Unproduced screenplays
Among his projects, there also were plans for adapting Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Goethe's Faust, the Old East Slavic poem The Tale of Igor's Campaign, but film scripts for these were never completed.
 * The Dormant Palace (Дремлющий дворец, 1969, based on Pushkin's poem The Fountain of Bakhchisaray)
 * Intermezzo (1972, based on Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's short story)
 * Icarus (Икар, 1972)
 * The Golden Edge (Золотой обрез, 1972)
 * Ara the Beautiful (Ара Прекрасный, 1972, based on the poem by 20th century Armenian poet Nairi Zaryan about Ara the Beautiful)
 * Demon (Демон, 1972, based on Lermontov's eponymous poem)
 * The Miracle of Odense (Чудо в Оденсе, 1973, loosely based on the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen)
 * David of Sasun (Давид Сасунский, mid-1980s, based on Armenian epic poem David of Sasun)
 * The Martyrdom of Shushanik (Мученичество Шушаник, 1987, based on Georgian chronicle by Iakob Tsurtaveli)
 * The Treasures of Mount Ararat (Сокровища у горы Арарат)

References in popular culture

 * Parajanov's life story provides (quite loosely) the basis for the 2006 novel Stet by the American author James Chapman.
 * Lady Gaga's video for "911" visually references The Color of Pomegranates through much of the video. The film poster also appears on the street scene at the end of the video. Gaga's video presents the film's symbols in her own allegory of pain.
 * Madonna's 1995 music video Bedtime Story restages some content from the movie (such as the scene of a young child lying in a fetal position on a pentagram on the floor while an adult covers it with a blanket, and another where a naked foot crushes a bunch of grapes lying on an enscribed tablet), among other artistic inspiration depicting dreams and surrealist artwork in the video.
 * Nicolas Jaar released, in 2015, the album Pomegranates, intended as an alternative soundtrack for The Color of Pomegranates.
 * It also influenced alternative rock group R.E.M.'s music video for "Losing My Religion".

Awards and recognition

 * There is a statue of Parajanov in Tbilisi
 * There is a plaque on the wall of Parajanov's childhood home
 * The street Parajanov grew up on, Kote Meskhi street, was renamed Parajanov Street in 2021
 * There is a house museum dedicated to Parajanov in Yerevan, Armenia

English language sources

 * Dixon, Wheeler & Foster, Gwendolyn. "A Short History of Film." New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. ISBN 9780813542690
 * Cook, David A. "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Film as Religious Art." Post Script 3, no. 3 (1984): 16–23.
 * First, Joshua. Sergei Paradjanov: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. London and Chicago: Itellect; University of Chicago Press, 2016. ISBN 9781783207091
 * Jayamanne, Laleen. Poetic Cinema and the Spirit of the Gift in the Films of Pabst, Parajanov, Kubrick and Ruiz. Amsterdam University Press 2021. ISBN 9789463726245
 * Kim, Olga. “Cinema and Painting in Parajanov’s Aesthetic Metamorphoses.” Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema 12, no. 1 (March 2018): 19–36. doi:10.1080/17503132.2017.1415519.
 * Nebesio, Bohdan. "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Storytelling in the Novel and the Film." Literature/Film Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1994): 42–49.
 * Oeler, Karla. "A Collective Interior Monologue: Sergei Parajanov and Eisenstein's Joyce-Inspired Vision of Cinema." The Modern Language Review 101, no. 2 (April 2006): 472–487.
 * Oeler, Karla. "Nran guyne/The Colour of Pomegranates: Sergo Parajanov, USSR, 1969." In The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, 139–148. London, England: Wallflower, 2006. [Book chapter]
 * Papazian, Elizabeth A. "Ethnography, Fairytale and ‘Perpetual Motion’ in Sergei Paradjanov's Ashik- Kerib." Literature/Film Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2006): 303–12.
 * Paradjanov, Sergei. Seven Visions. Edited by Galia Ackerman. Translated by Guy Bennett. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1998. ISBN 1892295040, ISBN 9781892295040
 * Parajanov, Sergei, and Zaven Sarkisian. Parajanov Kaleidoscope: Drawings, Collages, Assemblages. Yerevan: Sergei Parajanov Museum, 2008. ISBN 9789994121434
 * Razlogov, Kirill. “Parajanov in Prison: An Exercise in Transculturalism.” Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema 12, no. 1 (March 2018): 37–57. doi:10.1080/17503132.2018.1422223.
 * Steffen, James. The Cinema of Sergei Parajanov. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. ISBN 9780299296544
 * Steffen, James, ed. Sergei Parajanov special issue. Armenian Review 47/48, nos. 3–4/1–2 (2001/2002). Double issue; publisher website
 * Steffen, James. "Kyiv Frescoes: Sergei Parajanov's Unrealized Film Project." KinoKultura Special Issue 9: Ukrainian Cinema (December 2009), online. URL: KinoKultura
 * Schneider, Steven Jay. "501 Movie Directors." London: Hachette/Cassell, 2007. ISBN 9781844035731

Foreign language sources

 * Bullot, Érik. Sayat Nova de Serguei Paradjanov: La face et le profil. Crisnée, Belgium: Éditions Yellow Now, 2007. (French language) ISBN 9782873402129
 * Cazals, Patrick. Serguei Paradjanov. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 1993. (French language) ISBN 9782866421335,
 * Chernenko, Miron. Sergei Paradzhanov: Tvorcheskii portret. Moskva: "Soiuzinformkino" Goskino SSSR, 1989. (Russian language) Online version
 * Grigorian, Levon. Paradzhanov. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2011. (Russian language) ISBN 9785235034389,
 * Grigorian, Levon. Tri tsveta odnoi strasti: Triptikh Sergeia Paradzhanova. Moscow: Kinotsentr, 1991. (Russian language)
 * Kalantar, Karen. Ocherki o Paradzhanove. Yerevan: Gitutiun NAN RA, 1998. (Russian language)
 * Katanian, Vasilii Vasil’evich. Paradzhanov: Tsena vechnogo prazdnika. Nizhnii Novgorod: Dekom, 2001. (Russian language) ISBN 9785895330425
 * Liehm, Antonín J., ed. Serghiej Paradjanov: Testimonianze e documenti su l’opera e la vita. Venice: La Biennale di Venezia/Marsilio, 1977. (Italian language)
 * Mechitov, Yuri. Sergei Paradzhanov: Khronika dialoga. Tbilisi: GAMS- print, 2009. (Russian language) ISBN 9789941017544
 * Paradzhanov, Sergei. Ispoved’. Edited by Kora Tsereteli. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2001. (Russian language) ISBN 9785267002929
 * Paradzhanov, Sergei, and Garegin Zakoian. Pis’ma iz zony. Yerevan: Fil’madaran, 2000. (Russian language) ISBN 9789993085102
 * Simyan, Tigran Sergei Parajanov as a Text: Man, Habitus, and Interior (on the material of visual texts) // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics 2019, N 3, pp. 197–215
 * Schneider, Steven Jay. "501 Directores de Cine." Barcelona, Spain: Grijalbo, 2008. ISBN 9788425342646
 * Tsereteli, Kora, ed. Kollazh na fone avtoportreta: Zhizn’–igra. 2nd ed. Nizhnii Novgorod: Dekom, 2008. (Russian language) ISBN 9785895330975
 * Vartanov, Mikhail. "Sergej Paradzanov." In "Il Cinema Delle Repubbliche Transcaucasiche Sovietiche." Venice, Italy: Marsilio Editori, 1986. (Italian language) ISBN 8831748947
 * Vartanov, Mikhail. "Les Cimes du Monde." Cahiers du Cinéma" no. 381, 1986 (French language)