Mikhail Romm - biography

Mikhail Ilych Romm (Russian: Михаил Ильич Ромм; 24 January [O.S. 11 January] 1901 – November 1, 1971) was a Soviet film director.

He was born in Irkutsk. His father was a social democrat of Jewish descent who had been exiled there. He graduated from gymnasium in 1917 and entered the Moscow College for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. From 1918 - 1921, he served in the Red Army during the Russian civil war, first as a signalman and later rising to the rank of inspector of a Special Commission concerning the numbers of the Red Army and Fleet (Russian: Особая комиссия по вопросам численности Красной Армии и Флота) of the Field Staff of the Supreme Military Soviet of the Republic (Полевой штаб Реввоенсовета Республики). As such he travelled a lot and had the opportunity to see much of the life in different parts of the country, something that he later said he "recalled with gratitude". After the end of his military career, Romm received a scholarship from the Soviet government. In 1925 he graduated as a sculptor from the class of Anna Golubkina of the Highest Artistic-Technical Institute and worked as a sculptor and translator. In 1928-1930 he conducted research on the theory of cinema in the Institute for the methods of extra-scholastic work (Institut metodov vneshkol'noy raboty). Since 1931 he worked on the Mosfilm. In 1940-1943 he was an artistic leader for the Mosfilm films production. In 1942-1947 he was the director of a theater studio for movie actors. From 1938 he was a lecturer, from 1948 he was the leader of the actor's-producer department of the VGIK, professor (from 1962). He brought up a whole galaxy of brilliant film-directors, including Andrei Tarkovsky, Grigori Chukhrai, Vasily Shukshin, Nikita Mikhalkov, Georgi Daneliya, Aleksander Mitta, Igor Talankin, Rezo Chkheidze, Gleb Panfilov, Vladimir Basov, Tengiz Abuladze, Elem Klimov and many others.

Dream (Mechta) (1941) starring Faina Ranevskaya and other brilliant actors is considered the pinnacle of Romm’s creation. The film reveals deep spiritual crises, material and spiritual misery of inhabitants of a hostel titled Dream (Mechta). President Roosevelt said it was one of the greatest films in the world.

Romm’s another prominent film was about young nuclear physicists; Nine Days of One Year (1962) turned true revelation for those years. The documentary film Obyknovennyy fashizm (Common Fascism), (aka A Night of Thoughts) (1965) about the Third Reich attracted attention of over forty million viewers. No other historic documentary won such a numerous audience.

He is the author of many books and articles on the theory of cinematographic art and memoir works. He was awarded the Stalin Prize (1941). Romm was an honorable corresponding member of the Academy of the skills of DDR (1967).