"Dear Comrades!" and Russia at the Oscars

by Nathaniel R

Russia has announced that Andrey Konchalovskiy's Dear Comrades!, a Grand Jury Prize winner in Venice, will be their selection for the Oscars. This is the third time Russia has selected Konchalovsky to submit them. The 83 year old director is deeply tied to Russian cinematic history. He's the elder brother of Russia's most Oscar-loved director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) and he began his career writing and working for the legendary Andrei Tarkovsky (on Ivan's Childhood and Andre Rublev) in the early 1960s before launching his own directorial career.  He even tried his hand at English language films in the 1980s making Duet for One with Julie Andrews and the underappreciated Shy People with Barbara Hershey. His first Russian submission House of Fools in 2002 was unsuccessul. His second submission, the hugely lauded Paradise  in 2016, got close to the nomination, securing a finalist spot for itself. Will the third time be the charm? The official synopsis goes like so...

When the communist government raises food prices in 1962, the rebellious workers from the small industrial town of Novocherkassk go on strike. The massacre which then ensues is seen through the eyes of a devout party activist.

Hot on the heels of that news NEON has announced that they're grabbed US distribution though no release date has been announced. Let's look at Russia's history with Oscar after the jump...

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) was the Soviet Union's last Oscar win before their collapse in the early 90sSOVIET UNION STATS
Submitting from 1963-1991
24 Total Submissions
9 Nominations 
3 Winners

Most of the films submitted during the Soviet Union era were Russian films though a handful of submissions were from areas we know now as the countries of Kazakhstan, Georgia, Belarus, and the Ukraine. But of the 9 actual nominees all but one were Russian films, the sole exception being Wartime Romance from The Ukraine. The Russian nominees under the Soviet Union were...

• War and Peace (1968) Winner
• The Brothers Karamazov (1969) Nominee
• Tchaikovsky (1971) Nominee
• The Dawns Here Are Quiet (1972) Nominee
• Dersu Uzala (1975) Winner
• White Bim Black Ear (1978) Nominee
• Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) Winner
• Private Life (1982) Nominee

RUSSIA'S OSCAR STATS
Submitting since 1992
28 Total Submissions 
7 Nominations (and 2 Additional Finalists)
1 Win 

Burnt By The Sun (1994) was Russia's second nomination and only win since the collapse of the Soviet Union

KEY SUBMISSIONS 

• Close to Eden (1992) Nominee
• Burnt by the Sun (1994) Winner
• Prisoner of the Mountains (1996) Nominee
• The Thief (1997) Nominee
• The Barber of Siberia (1998) Disqualified
• The Return (2003) The first submission from Russia's most internationally respected auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev. But Oscar passed. They'd later get into him nominating both of his next two submissions.
• Night Watch (2004) Russia tried it by submiting this huge homegrown genre blockbuster about vampires but Oscar is allergic to sci-fi fantasy and horror
• 12 (2007) Nominee
• Leviathan (2014) Nominee
• Paradise (2016) Finalist
• Loveless (2017) Nominee
• Beanpole (2019) Finalist

Most Frequently Submitted Post-Soviet Directors for Best International Feature Film

1. Nikita Mikhalkov (6 submissions, 3 nominated films, 1 of which won)
2. Andrey Zvyagintsev (3 submissions, 2 nominated films)
3. Andrei Konchalovsky (3 submissions, 1 finalist among them, plus the current submission)
4. [TIE] 2 submissions, neither nominated: Fedor Bondarchuk and Karen Shakhnazarov (2 submissions, neither nominated)

Celebrated animator Aleksandr PetrovMost Oscar-Honored Russian Artists

1. Aleksandr Petrov (4 nominations, 1 win in Animated Short)
2. Nikita Mikhalhov (3 nominations, 1 win in Best International Film*)
3. Natalie Wood (3 nominations in acting) she was American, yes, but born to Russian parents, so first generation Russian-American.
4. [TIE] 2 nominations each: Maria Ouspnskaya (Supporting Actress) Andrei Zvyagintsev (Best International Film*)

NOTE: Several other Russians have been nominated (and some have won) a single time but we're only counting multiple nominees in these lists we've been doing to make it more manageable.

* Their nominations are not "official" since they belong to the country rather than the filmmaker -- an annoying Oscar distinction - but we think it should count for the directors who had more to do with the making of the picture than the country they live in.

Comments

[Dan Humphrey]

It's sad that they didn't submit any of the four Tarkovsky films. Back in the bold late-60s early 70s Mirror or Andrei Rublev might have one. Ivan's Childhood seems almost tailor made for an Oscar nomination.

[Peggy Sue]

I can't emphasize enough how much I enjoy this recaps. They're so educational. Lots of titles I haven't seen!

[Jonathan]

I've seen it, and wasn't crazy about it. It's very well directed and shot, but I thought the script's narrowing from a compelling, panoramic political portrait in the first half to a rather trite crisis-of-faith character study in the second was disappointing.

[cal roth]

Yul Brynner was nominated only once, but he won! That makes him more honored than Natalie Wood

[leon]

Also included with Yul Brynner - Lila Kedrova.

And then the 2 times Oscar nominee María Ouspénskaya (Dodworth and Love Affair)..

[Cláudio Alves]

Dan Humphrey -- Ivan's Childhood was submitted by the Soviet Union in 1963.

[Owl]

I thought Zvyagintsev's The Return was one of the best films I have seen. Maybe any film about young brothers always remind me of my own relationship with my older brother. Films like The Return, Gattaca and even A River Runs Through It are fondly remembered. But The Return was the best film I saw in 2004. That and Sokurov's Russian Ark which came out a year earlier.

Happy that Dear Comrades was chosen as Russia's representative to the Academy as it will probably be streamed more prominently. I think the last Konchalovsky movie I saw was a 1991 English-language film called The Inner Circle with Tom Hulce and Lolita Davidovich. I wonder if Dear Comrades is going to be like The Inner Circle or close to The Death of Stalin which I enjoyed. I remembered watching it at IFC with a scholar on Soviet agrarianism and who is an anti-Trotskyist. It was a rather intense conversation because she pointed out various anti-Stalin reforms that were made the butt of jokes in the film (I see the film as a comedy verging on parody rather than a realistic portrayal of post-Stalin Soviet Union but what do I know). The storyline of Dear Comrades is about a Stalin supporter who saw the collapse of the system in a new era. It will be great to see how Konchalovsky weaves a tale that once again brings back the conversations of Stalin, possibly Trotsky. Part of the reason why The Inner Circle worked for me despite mixed reviews was the focus on ordinary lives after the death of Stalin though I think Dear Comrades might be more polemic but I might be wrong. Nevertheless I am excited to see it. Too bad I missed it when it was streaming at the Chicago Film Festival.

I didn't realise that Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala was a Russian submission. As I recall there were not much dialogue in the film. I guess landscape plays a big part too. FWIW, High and Low is my favorite film of Kurosawa, or maybe it's Kagemusha, or ...

[par]

but why was 'the barber of siberia' disqualified?

[TheDrMistery]

I'm really surprised Russia hasn't created a new version of "Crime and Punishment" recently. There were many of them but none is considered definitive. Nowadays it will be easier to pull off.

[NATHANIEL R]

Owl -- yeah, i'm not sure how Dersu Uzala got away with it because in those days the Academy was much more harsh on "international" productions, disqualifying them if they were not "that country enough" etcetera. I mean they still do that on occassion now but it does seem kind of arbitrary as to when they evoke that standard.

[Dan Humphrey]

@Claudio. That makes sense. Ivan's Childhood was actually pretty popular in the US back in its day. I didn't see it listed so I assumed it didn't make it. I didn't notice it wasn't a complete list. I made another mistake. Russia could have submitted five Tarkovsky films, not four. Only the last two were really international co-productions, or just exile productions.

[Manolis]

@ par

"The director has been chosen by his colleagues to represent Russia three other times, for "Close to Eden" in 1992, "12" in 1997, and "The Barber of Siberia" in 1998. But the last film was disqualified when the print did not arrive in Los Angeles on time for screening, an academy official told The Moscow Times."