Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for The Ascent (1977) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Lyudmila Polyakova, Viktoriya Goldentul, Sergei Yakovlev DIRECTOR: Larisa Shepitko CINEMATOGRAPHY: Vladimir Chukhnov MUSIC: Alfred Schnittke PRODUCTION: Mosfilm

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for The Ascent (1977). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Casting

Shepitko decided to use unknown or little-known actors whose past roles would not cast a shadow on their characters in The Ascent. Because of this, she rejected Andrey Myagkov, who wanted to act in the picture. The same fate befell Nikolai Gubenko. Vladimir Vysotsky, who yearned to play Rybakov, also did not pass selection. At the time when the castings for The Ascent were taking place, Vysotsky was starring in the film The Negro of Peter the Great. Production of that film took place at the Mosfilm sound stage, adjacent to where the auditions were being held, and during his breaks Vysotsky often went to see what was happening at Shepitko's sound stage.

The actor for the role of Portnov was selected based on the image of Sotnikov. Larisa Shepitko wanted to find someone similar in external characteristics to Plotnikov, saying, "They are similar, but Portnov is an antipode to Sotnikov based on internal beliefs. This should be a very good actor. Their duel, yes, yes, the fight with Sotnikov - the eternal conflict, the everlasting battle between spirit and lack of spirituality ... Dying, suffering Sotnikov wins because he is strong in spirit. He dies and rises above his tormentor."

Anatoly Solonitsyn at first did not see anything interesting in what he thought of as a "supporting role", and which he considered a "rehash" of what had been filmed earlier. Initially, the actor did not even understand what was wanted of him despite the fact that he diligently played the "enemy," a "man with a bruised heart," or a "man without a future" as was required. But he felt that the character would turn out to be little but a caricature, as in cheap popular literature. Only a long conversation with the director allowed him to understand her vision of Portnov: the personification of the negative side in the eternal history of man's struggle with the animal inside himself in the name of the supreme value – namely, the value of the spirit.

▸ Pre-Production

Before The Ascent, the director Larisa Shepitko shot the film You and Me. Production of You and Me took place under an atmosphere of severe stress. Technical and organizational difficulties led to the necessity of calling an ambulance for the director's health. The release of the film was not any easier; the censors deleted critical scenes and Shepitko had to fight for every single one of them. This struggle was not always successful. Despite the fact that the film has gone to the Venice Film Festival, the removed scenes were a terrible blow to Shepitko, who believed that changing an important moment leads to the loss of main ideas.

▸ Production

The next step was the need for the script's approval from the State Committee for Cinematography. By that time Shepitko had already gained a reputation of an inconvenient director. In 1973, when she raised the topic of making the film, the answer from an official of the State Committee for Cinematography was a firm negative. The director did not spark a confrontation but she also did not offer any other projects.

For help in overcoming the resistance of the authorities and the State Political Directorate, Shepitko turned to Gemma Firsova with whom she had studied at VGIK. Firsova was an administrator of an association of military-patriotic films. She was affected much more by the script than by the novel and the day she met Shepitko, she went to meet the Minister of Cinematography Philippe Ermash. In a conversation with Ermash's replacement (in her memoirs Firsova did not call Boris Pavlenok by his name), Firsova said that she took the script under her responsibility, with a lie that "everything will be fine with the State Political Directorate." Ermash's replacement reacted skeptically to the pleas, and the subsequent process from script approval to acceptance of the film's actors was accompanied by considerable difficulties. The main accusation was that Shepitko allegedly made a religious parable with a mystical tone from the partisan story; this was considered an insurrection in the atheistic Soviet cinema.

From the moment she read the story Sotnikov, it took Larisa Shepitko four years to prepare and to obtain permits from the authorities to begin shooting the picture.

▸ Filming & Locations

Filming began on Jan. 6, 1974 – the birthday of the director Shepitko (according to other sources filming began on January 5) - in the vicinity of the town of Murom. The first scenes were shot on location in the middle of fields, forests and ravines despite the fact that the weather was forty degrees below zero. According to Boris Plotnikov the frost and the virginal snow were mandatory conditions which Vasil Býkaŭ had set out in his story.

In order to achieve the desired performance from the actors, Shepitko sometimes talked for a long time with them out in the cold. For example, despite the crew's full readiness, the director would talk for a long time with Boris Plotnikov, whose character she carefully directed during the filming. Shepitko's habit of clearly stating her thoughts contributed to a successful transmission of information; she did not use abstruse terms that might mask the lack of clarity. She waited for the necessary expression of emotion, for the right facial expression and gestures and then suddenly would give the order to start filming. Boris Plotnikov later said that he would have liked to repeat this experience in other films, but never did. On working with Shepitko, Plotnikov spoke of "a meeting with a living genius." Vasil Býkaŭ also shared a similar opinion about the film's director, he called her "Dostoevsky in a skirt." Býkaŭ valued Larisa Shepitko very highly and once admitted that had he met her before, he would have written Sotnikov differently. Gostyukhin recalled that he transformed into Rybak to such a degree that even the made-up bruise only fell from his face after three weeks. After the film was shot the actor tried for such a long time to leave his role behind and to become himself again that he refused to star in Shepitko's next planned film, entitled Farewell, despite her persistent requests.

The production designer Yuriy Raksha later spoke about the situation as follows:

[Filming] Filming began on Jan.