Sergei Parajanov (Armenian: Սարգիս Հովսեփի Փարաջանյան Sargis Hovsepi Parajanyan; Russian: Сергей Иосифович Параджанов Sergej Iosifovich Paradzhanov; also spelled Paradzhanov or Paradjanov, (January 9, 1924 - July 20 1990), is considered by many to be one of the most original and critically-acclaimed filmmakers of the 20th century. His work reflected the ethnic diversity of the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaidjan) where he was raised.

He was born to Armenian parents Iosif Paradjanyan and Siranush Bejanyan, in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1945, Parajanov traveled to Moscow, enrolled in the directing department at VGIK, one of the oldest and highly respected film schools of Europe, and studied under the tutelage of directors Igor Savchenko and Aleksandr Dovzhenko.

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, to terrible consequences: she was later murdered by her relatives in retaliation for her conversion. As a result of this tragic event Parajanov moved to Kiev. There he produced several documentaries (Dumka, Golden Hands, Natalia Uzhvy) and a handful of narrative films based on Ukrainian and Moldovan folktales, such as Andriesh, Ukrainian Rhapsody, and Flower on the Stone. He became fluent in Ukrainian, remarried (Svetlana Ivanovna Sherbatiuk in 1956) and had a son (Suren, 1958).



In 1964 he directed Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which won numerous international awards including the prestigious BAFTA award given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Despite the numerous awards it received and its frequent comparison with Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin, Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors did not conform to the strict standards of the Soviet board of censors. Unwilling to alter his film, Parajanov was quickly blacklisted. However, this film proved that Parajanov was a man with no analogy in the world of art and a poet of God.

Parajanov departed Kiev shortly afterwards for his cultural motherland of Armenia. In 1968, Parajanov embarked on Sayat Nova, a film which many consider to be his crowning achievement. Soviet censors intervened once again and immediately banned Sayat Nova for its allegedly inflammatory content. Parajanov re-edited his footage and renamed the film, The Color of Pomegranates.It remains his best-known and the most emblematic film. There has never been a film where soul and high art blend together like in Color of Pomegranates and no film has had such sublime magic like this one. It best justifies critic Alexei Korotyukov's remark: "Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God."

By December 1973, Soviet authorities grew increasingly suspicious of Parajanov's perceived subversive proclivities and sentenced him to five years in a hard labor camp. An eclectic group of artists, filmmakers and activists protested on his behalf, but to little avail (among them, Yves Saint Laurent, Francoise Sagan, Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Luis Bunuel, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky). Parajanov served four years out of his five year sentence, and many credit the poet Louis Aragon's petition to the Soviet government as instrumental in Parajanov's early release. His good friend Mikhail Vartanov was one of the fighters in Parajanov's case, too. While incarcerated Parajanov produced a large number of miniature doll-like sculptures (some of which were lost). Three days before he was sentenced, Andrei Tarkovsky wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, asserting -”In the last ten years Sergei Paradjanov has made only two films: Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. They have influenced cinema first in the 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 Paradjanov. He is guilty - guilty in his solitude. We are guilty of not thinking of him daily and of failing to discover the significance of a master.”

Upon his return from prison to Tbilisi, the close watch of Soviet censors prevented him from continuing his cinematic pursuits and steered him towards artistic outlets which 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 which can be seen at Parajanov Museum in Yerevan. The Museum was opened in 1991, a year after Parajanov’s death. It contains more than 200 works of the artist as well as furnishings of his home in Tbilisi.



In the 80's, after being released from prison, Parajanov completed two near-masterpieces. By 1984, the slow thaw within the Soviet Union spurred Parajanov to resume his passion for cinema. With the encouragement of various Georgian intellectuals, Parajanov created the multi-award winning Legend of Suram Fortress based on the novella by Daniel Chonkadze, a return to cinema after an interlude of fifteen years since Sayat Nova first premiered. 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 Azeri culture. Parajanov dedicated the film to his close friend Andrei Tarkovsky and "to all the children from the world".

Parajanov then immersed himself in a project that ultimately proved too monumental to withstand his failing health. He died of cancer in Yerevan, Armenia, on July 20 1990, aged 66, leaving his final masterpiece, The Confession unfinished. It survives in its original negative as Paradjanov: The Last Spring, assembled by his close friend Mikhail Vartanov in 1992. He left behind a book of memoirs, also titled "The Confession".

Such luminaries as Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi, Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci were among those who publicly mourned his passing. In a telegram that came to Russia: "The world of cinema has lost a magician".

Parajanov was a genius with more than talent - his rare visual interpretation of culture encompassed everything he had seen or felt or endured. His work was universal, unlimited, original with no direct analogies in the art world. Parajanov, a contemporary and collaborator of Fellini, amazes the viewer with imagination, beauty, fantasy and artistry.

References in popular culture

Parajanov's life story provides (quite loosely) the basis for the 2006 novel Stet by the American author James Chapman.

Filmography

• Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) (segment "The Confession") http://www.parajanov.com/lastspring.html
• Ashugi Qaribi (1988) ... aka Ashik Kerib (1988) (Soviet Union: Russian title)
• Arabeskebi Pirosmanis temaze (1985) ... aka Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme (1985)
• Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa (1984) ... aka The Legend of Suram Fortress (1984)
• Sayat Nova (1968) ... aka The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
• Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967)
• Tini zabutykh predkiv (1964) ... aka Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1967) (USA)
• Tsvetok na kamne (1962) ... aka Flower on the Stone (1962)
• Ukrainskaya rapsodiya (1961) ... aka Ukrainian Rhapsody (1961)
• Pervyj paren (1959) ... aka First Lad, The (1959)
• Dumka (1957)
• Natalya Ushvij (1957)
• Zolotye ruki (1957) ... aka Golden Hands (1957)
• Andriyesh (1954)
• Moldovskaya skazka (1951)

Influences and his influence

Despite having studied film at prestigious VGIK, he discovered his cinematic genius only after seeing Andrei Tarkovsky's dreamlike first film Ivan's Childhood. Almost all great filmmakers have a limited audience. Parajanov had many admirers of his art but, like in case of Orson Welles (another unique and very different artist) his unique own vision didn't attract many followers, aside from Peter Greenaway. "Whoever tries to imitate me is lost", he reportedly said once.

See also

• Art film
• Cinema of Armenia, Cinema of Georgia

Quotes

"Direction is about truth. It's about God, love and tragedy"

"Tarkovsky, who was younger than I by ten years, was my teacher and mentor. He was the first in Ivan's Childhood to use images of dreams and memories to present allegory and metaphor. Tarkovsky helped people decipher the poetic metaphor. By studying Tarkovsky and playing different variations on him, I became stronger myself... I did not know how to do anything and I would not have done anything if there had not been Ivan's Childhood."

"He is like a god to me, a god of the aesthetic, master of style, one who created the pathology of an epoch." (on Pasolini)

"His incredible gift for fantasy is astonishing. But it only goes in one direction -- towards mystification. He possesses a headstrong passion to make his characters larger than life." (on Fellini)

"Only good can overwhelm the evil"

"Beauty will save the world"

"La vie est une fenetre"

Scripts and projects

• "Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha."
• "Faust"
• "The Confession"
• "Ara the Beautiful"
• "David of Susan"
• "The Martyrdom of Shushanik"
• "The Tresures of Mount Ararat"
• "Intermezzo"
• "Demon"
• "Miracle of Odense"
• "Golden Edge"

External links

If you like to know more about this unique artist, see:

• Official Site (Parajanov.com)
• Parajanov at The Internet Movie Database
• Parajanov Museum in Yerevan, Armenia
• Exhibition of collages and projection of films from the 04/20/07 to the 05/20/07 at the Musée d'art moderne de Saint-Etienne
• [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/6672 The Parajanov Case, March 1982]
• Sergei Parajanov's 75th birthday
• THE CINEMASEEKERS HONOR ROLL
• Interview with Ron Holloway
• Film about Parajanov Museum in Yerevan
• Actress Sofiko Chiaureli and many others about him
• Arts: Armenian Rhapsody
• Excerpted from “Paradjanov’s Films on Soviet Folklore” by Jonathan Rosenbaum
• For those who want to know more about Parajanov
• Sayat Nova music, Yerevan, May 2007 Traditional ensemble performing Armenian Music