Semyon ARANOVICH
Семён АРАНОВИЧ
Semion ARANOVITCH
Alexandre SOKUROV
Александр СОКУРОВ
Alexandre SOKOUROV
USSR, 1981, 80mn 
Black and white, documentary
Altova sonata. Dmitri Shostakovich
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Альтовая соната. Дмитрий Шостакович

 

 Sonate pour Alto. Dimitri Chostakovitch

 Altova sonata. Dmitri Shostakovich

 
Directed by : Semyon ARANOVICH (Семён АРАНОВИЧ), Alexandre SOKUROV ( Александр СОКУРОВ)
Writing credits : Boris DOBRODEYEV (Борис ДОБРОДЕЕВ)
Cinematography : Yuri ALEXANDROV (Юрий АЛЕКСАНДРОВ), Yuri LEBEDEV (Юрий ЛЕБЕДЕВ)
Sound : E. BELIAEVA (Е. БЕЛЯЕВА)
Production : LSDF
Release date in Russia : 1986
 
Site : sokurov.spb.ru/island_ru/documetaries/al'tovaya_sonata/mnp_alt.html

DVD with subtitles
Editor : Ideale Audience

Plot synopsis
This film about the great composer Dmitri Shostakovitch was initially begun by the St. Petersburg film–maker Semion Aranovitch. Sokurov was invited to participate in the editing of archive footage for the film. But it was Sokurov who was to create the composition of the film and defined its emotional mood.
The selection and editing of the authentic documentary material took the film out of a narrow biographical framework and found instead a broad historical context. Sokurov composed a tragic requiem to the destiny of the artist, whose creative work developed and found fruition invevitably opposing itself to the state ideology. This is a film about the triumph of powerful art and about the defeat and death of a weak man burdened by his gift.
This biography of Shostakovitch, which includes the most acute moments of social life in Soviet Russia, had become the foundation for a reflection and an overview of the tragic destiny of the artist, always alone but not separated from his epoch and his homeland.
Alexandra Tuchinskaya Translated by Olga Abramenko with assistance from Benjamin Halligan. http://sokurov.spb.ru
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Message to Man : International Short, Documentary and Animated Film Festival, St Petersburg (Russia), 2017
- Rétrospective Alexandre Sokourov Aix en Provence / Marseille, Aix en Provence (France), 2015
- Tromso International Film Festival : TIFF, Tromso (Norway), 2011
- Alexandre Sokourov : des pages cachées, Paris (France), 2010
- Lenin, Stalin and music, Paris (France), 2010