Kozintsev G.M. (1905-1973), film director

Categories / Art/Fine Arts/Personalia
KOZINTSEV Grigory Mikhailovich (1905 - 1973, Leningrad), director, script writer, teacher, People’s Artist of the USSR (1964). Studied first at the Kiev Painting High School, and from 1920 at the Higher State Art and Technical Workshops. He united with L. Z. Trauberg to found the Factory of Eccentric Actors in Leningrad in 1921. He directed such performances as Marriage in 1922 and Foreign Trade on the Eiffel Tower in 1923. A director at Sevzapkino (now Lenfilm) from 1924, he collaborated with Trauberg until 1945. He directed 13 films, capturing Leningrad in the years between 1920 and the early 1930s in Adventures of Oktyabrina (1924), Devil’s Wheel (1926), Little Brother (1927), and Alone (1931). His The Overcoat (1926) is a fantasy based on Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories. In the Maxim Trilogy, shot in 1935-39 and awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941, he recreated pre-revolutionary city life. Historic St. Petersburg is also seen in Pirogov, shot in 1947 and awarded the Stalin Prize in 1948, and Belinsky, shot in 1953. Turning to the classics in 1950-70s, he directed Don Quixote in 1957. His major focus, however, was on Shakespeare’s plays. Kozintsev’s Hamlet (1964) was awarded a prize at the All-Union Film Festival and the International Film Festival in Venice, as well as the Lenin Prize in 1965. He also directed King Lear (1971), staged Shakespeare’s tragedies in Leningrad, and in 1962 wrote W. Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. Kozintsev worked as a teacher from 1922, including at the Factory of Eccentric Actors in 1922-26 and the Leningrad Institute of Stage Arts in 1926-32. He was in charge of Lenfilm’s workshop in 1965-71. He lived at 4 Malaya Posadskaya Street from 1939 until 71 (memorial plaque installed). He was buried at Literatorskie Mostky.

Works: Black and Bold Times: Extracts from Workbooks published in Moscow in 1994.

Reference: Добин Е. С. Козинцев и Трауберг. Л.; М., 1963; Ваш Григорий Козинцев: Воспоминания. М., 1996; Караганов А. В. Григорий Козинцев: От "Царя Максимилиана" до "Короля Лира". М., 2003.

V. А. Kuznetsova. Kozintsev Grigory Mikhailovich
Shakespeare William
Trauberg Leonid Zakharovich
Malaya Posadskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 4
Добин Е. С. Козинцев и Трауберг. Л.; М., 1963
Ваш Григорий Козинцев: Воспоминания. М., 1996
Собр. соч.: В 5 т. Л., 1982-1986
"Черное, лихое время...": Из рабочих тетрадей. М., 1994 Factory of Eccentricity
Lenfilm, Film Studio
Literatorskie (Literary) Mostki, the museum-necropolis
1922
1935
1964