Russian Ark

Russian Ark - A unique journey through the Hermitage ( original title Russki Kowtscheg, German Russian Ark ) is a German - Russian film director Alexander Sokurov 2002 left the film in just one turn setting. .

Content

In an unnamed Russian Ark and not shown narrator wanders through the Winter Palace (now a building of the Hermitage ) and encounters numerous real and fictional characters from the past three hundred years of Russian history. The narrator is accompanied by the Marquis de Custine, a French nobleman, who has Russia really traveled in 1839.

Technical Background

The film consists of a single ninety minute, filmed with Steadicam setting, happened in the thirty-three rooms of the museum, while over two thousand actors, most of them extras, are staged.

A film permit for the Hermitage had not been granted since the days of Sergei Eisenstein. The Hermitage usually includes only one day a week, Sokurov and the producers moved the museum management to interrupt the visitor traffic for another day, 23 December 2001. Thus, in this time had to meet film- lit and elaborate Umdekorationen be made to cover the internals modern rooms. The reduction lasted almost as long as the structure. The time window for the entire engine was not higher than two hours.

In order to cope with the major technical challenge to be able to record the movie in a setting without a break, a special hard disk recorder ( df- cineHD ) was used, which was connected to the camera (Sony HDW -F900 ) by cable (HD- SDI). The df - cineHD was developed by the Cologne-based company director's friend and customized for the shoot and made ​​portable ( see Fig.) At this time there was no other system that had grown to the desired requirements ( The Sony HDW -F900 could hold a maximum of 45 minutes on tape). The data is written simultaneously to eight hard disk drives ( Raid 0 ) so that the high data rate could be achieved. A risk during the recording was in the burden on the hard disk by the constant movement, as in a disk fails, the entire film would have been useless.

As the cinematographer Tilman Büttner recording three times after each about five to ten minutes dropped out due to various errors, the next experiment had to succeed, for the life of your camera battery was enough at this time only for a single retry. The eight-member film crew traveled through the army of extras who had not had a chance to rehearse their installation at the original set. They covered a distance a distance of more than one kilometer. Extensive and sometimes demanding dialogue scenes had to succeed from the state. Therefore, the likelihood of further mishaps seemed very high.

The HDTV recording of Russian Ark is in the history of film, the first recording of a movie directly to disk.

The audio recording was made subsequently, as a simultaneous recording was considered too risky.

Awards

Russian Ark won a total of eight film awards and received nine nominations.