Ivan's Childhood
Short description
Set during the Second World War on the Eastern Front, Ivan's Childhood centres on a twelve-year-old boy, Ivan Bondarev, whose mother and sister were killed by German forces and whose father died in the fighting. Left alone, he attaches himself to a Soviet military unit and is sent across the lines to gather information about the enemy. His commanders, including Captain Kholin and Lieutenant Galtsev, come to care for him and want him moved to safer ground, but Ivan refuses, insisting on continuing the work he has taken up.
The film was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, who wrote the screenplay with Andrei Konchalovsky and Mikhail Papava, and it was his first feature, made in the Soviet Union and released in 1962. Nikolay Burlyaev plays Ivan, with Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Nikolay Grinko and Dmytro Milyutenko in supporting roles. Running 95 minutes, it is a drama of war seen largely through a child's experience.
Critical and audience response has been strong over the decades. On IMDb it holds 8 out of 10 from roughly 43,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.8 out of 10 from about 859 votes. A critics' rating of 9.1 out of 10 from 27 reviews places it somewhat above the audience scores. In Tarkovsky's filmography, it precedes Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia and The Sacrifice.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film inspired French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to write an essay.
- The film was released in wide Soviet distribution with a delay of four years.
- Tarkovsky played the role of one of the soldiers.
- The dreams used in 'Ivan's Childhood' are Tarkovsky's real dreams.
- According to Tarkovsky, as stated in his book 'Sculpting in Time', he did not consider Vladimir Bogomolov's novel particularly successful, but was confident that the short story format would be easier to adapt for film.
- Production period: June 15, 1961 – January 18, 1962.
- Tarkovsky asked Vladimir Vysotsky to audition for the role of Captain Kholin, but the artistic council, after reviewing Vysotsky's audition, decided that it was unsuccessful. As a result, Valentin Zubkov played the role of Kholin.
- Initially, a different director was planning the film adaptation, with different actors, and the film crew was also different. However, at some intermediate artistic council, after viewing the filmed material, they concluded that the film was helpless, weak, and unnecessary. Then Tarkovsky unexpectedly appeared with a proposal to shoot a completely new film with the remaining money and within the remaining timeframe, on the condition of a complete rejection of the old concept, actors, and so on. In the end, only the scriptwriters – Bogomolov and Papava – remained, although their script was reworked by Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky.
- The film is based on Vladimir Bogomolov’s story “Ivan.”
- A direct allusion to 'Ivan's Childhood' appears in Jarmusch's film 'Dead Man': the episode where Nobody and William Blake enter a birch forest is analogous to the episode with Captain Kholin and Masha.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
