Fyodor OZEP
Федор ОЦЕП
Fiodor OZEP / OTSEP
USSR / Germany, 1929, 82mn 
Black and white, silent, fiction
The Living Corpse
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Живой труп

 

 Cadavre vivant

 Zhivoy trup

 
Directed by : Fyodor OZEP (Федор ОЦЕП)
Writing credits : Boris GUSMAN (Борис ГУСМАН), Anatoli MARIENGOF (Анатолий МАРИЕНГОФ)
Based on Tolstoy's play of the same name
 
Cast
Boris BARNET (Борис БАРНЕТ) ...Le voleur
Gustave DIESL (Густав ДИССЛЬ) ...Viktor Karenine
Viola GARDEN (Виола ГАРДЕН) ...La sœur de Lisa
Vera MARETSKAYA (Вера МАРЕЦКАЯ )
Porfiri PODOBED (Порфирий ПОДОБЕД)
Vsevolod PUDOVKIN (Всеволод ПУДОВКИН) ...Fedia Protasov
Daniil VVEDENSKY (Даниил ВВЕДЕНСКИЙ) ...Artemiev
Mariya YACOBINY (Мария ЯКОБИНИ) ...Lisa Protasov
 
Cinematography : Anatoli GOLOVNIA (Анатолий ГОЛОВНЯ), Philip ZHUTSY (Филипп ЮТЦИ)
Production design : Sergey KOZLOVSKI (Сергей КОЗЛОВСКИЙ), Vladimir SIMOV (Владимир СИМОВ)
Music : Verner SHMIDT-BOELCKE (Вернер ШМИДТ-БЕЛКЕ)
Produced by : Villi MÜNZENBERG (Вилли МЮНЦЕНБЕРГ)
 

Plot synopsis
Fedor Ozep, the director of the Russian classic The Queen of Spades, used the occasion of his directing this 1928 German co-production of yet another Tolstoy tale as his means to escape from the Soviet system. In the movie, Fedya Protassov (Vsevolod Pudovkin) is doing everything in his power to free his unhappy wife (Mariya Yakobini) from the bondage of marriage so that she can remarry and finally achieve some measure of happiness in life. Unfortunately, the powerful Russian Orthodox church works hard to make any such arrangement impossible, and in the end the only means by which he can bring this about is to commit suicide. The prints and original musical score to this film were restored and shown once more in 1990.
Clarke Fountain, www.allmovie.com
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- The Golden Age of Soviet Cinema : 1924-1930, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Festival international du film restauré à la Cinémathèque française, Paris (France), 2012
- Rencontres internationales du cinéma du patrimoine, Vincennes (France), 2010
- Revolutionary Images : Premiers chefs-d’œuvre du cinéma russe et allemand à Beyrouth, Beirut (Lebanon), 2010
- The Times BFI London Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2008
- Europalia Russia 2005, Brussels (Belgium), 2005

Photos and videos