Dark Eyes (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dark Eyes
Film poster
Directed by	Nikita Mikhalkov
Produced by	Carlo Cucchi Silvia D'Amico Bendico
Written by	Aleksandr Adabashyan Nikita Mikhalkov Suso Cecchi d'Amico Anton Chekhov (stories)
Starring	Marcello Mastroianni Silvana Mangano Marthe Keller Yelena Safonova Marthe Keller Vsevolod Larionov
Music by	Francis Lai
Cinematography	Franco Di Giacomo
Editing by	Enzo Meniconi
Distributed by	RUSCICO
Release dates	September 9, 1987
Running time	118 minutes
Country	Italy Soviet Union
Language	Italian / Russian / French

Dark Eyes (Italian: Oci ciornie; Russian: Очи чёрные) is a 1987 Italian and Russian language film which tells the story of a 19th-century married Italian who falls in love with a married Russian woman. It stars Marcello Mastroianni and Yelena Safonova.^[1]

Source material

The film was adapted from (or rather inspired by) four Anton Chekhov's stories, notably The Lady with the Pet Dog, by a Soviet-Italian team that included Aleksandr Adabashyan, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Nikita Mikhalkov. The latter directed. The title refers to a famous Russian art song.

Cast

Marcello Mastroianni - Romano
Marthe Keller - Tina, Romano's Mistress
Yelena Safonova - Anna Sergeyevna, Governor's Wife (as Elena Sofonova)
Pina Cei - Elisa's Mother
Vsevolod Larionov - Pavel (Russian Ship Passenger)
Innokenti Smoktunovsky - the Governor of Sysoyev (as Innochentij Smoktunovskj)
Roberto Herlitzka - Lawyer
Paolo Baroni - Manlio
Oleg Tabakov - His Grace
Yuri Bogatyryov - Marshall (as Jury Bogatiriov)
Dmitri Zolotukhin - Konstantin (as Dimitri Zolothuchin)
Silvana Mangano - Elisa (Romano's Wife)
Jean-Pierre Bardos - Laying guest (as J. Pierre Bardos)
Nino Bignamini - Buyer
Maria Grazia Bon - His wife

Location

Principal shooting took place at the Montecatini Terme in Tuscany, in the Volga town of Kostroma, and in Leningrad (Vladimir Palace, Peter and Paul Fortress). A few of the actors had previously appeared together in A Cruel Romance, a 1984 Russian film starring Mikhalkov and shot on location in Kostroma.

Reviews

The critics have complained that Mikhalkov's film "conveys more of a foreign idea what Chekhov is about rather than a Russian one".^[2] According to Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dark Eyes is "so sprawling and ungainly that Chekhov is turned into chopped liver". He also dismissed Mastroianni's acting as "shameless mugging and prancing".^[3]

Awards

Mastroianni received the award for Best Actor at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival^[4] and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Safonova was awarded the David di Donatello as Best Actress.

References

↑ "NY Times: Dark Eyes". NY Times.com. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
↑ http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v12245
↑ http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/dark-eyes/Film?oid=1052252
↑ "Festival de Cannes: Dark Eyes". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-19.

External links

Dark Eyes at allmovie
Dark Eyes at the Internet Movie Database

Films directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

A Girl and Things (1967)
And I Go Home (1968)
A Quiet Day During the End of War (1970)
At Home Among Strangers (1974)
A Slave of Love (1976)
An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (1977)
Five Evenings (1978)
Oblomov (1980)
Family Relations (1981)
Without Witness (1983)
Dark Eyes (1987)
Hitch-hiking (1990)
Close to Eden (1992)
Remembering Chekhov (1993)
Anna: 6 - 18 (1993)
Burnt by the Sun (1994)
The Barber of Siberia (1998)
Russians Deprived of Russia (2003)
12 (2007)
Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010)

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.