- Born
- Birth nameArtavazd Ashoti Peleshian
- Nickname
- Artur
- Creator of the "distance montage," Artavazd Peleshian, one of the key Soviet documentary makers, removed the boundaries of feature and documentary films, editing both sequences as a real poetical unity. His "distance montage" was a new step in the development of film editing.
Even his student works [The Earth of the People (1966) and the Beginning (1967)] shot at VGIK, the oldest film school in Moscow, were awarded numerous prizes and he gained recognition among filmmakers. In 1975, he petitioned the Soviet authorities to allow the blacklisted cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov to film his ambitious next project and together they created the masterpiece Four Seasons (1975). It was Pelechian's first film without any archive footage, thanks to Vartanov's exquisite black and white cinematography.
Alongside his very successful solo career, Peleshian was invited to direct archive footage by such masters as Lev Kulidzhanov for Zvyozdnaya minuta (1973) and Andrei Konchalovsky for Siberiade (1979). Mikhail Vartanov directed Osennyaya pastoral (1971) from Peleshian's screenplay.
Artavazd Peleshian is the author of a range of theoretical works, including his 1988 book "Moyo kino" ("My Cinema"). Some of the most important works of Armenia's documentary cinema include Sergei Parajanov's Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967), Mikhail Vartanov's Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) and Artavazd Peleshian's Four Seasons (1975).- IMDb mini biography by: PARAJANOV.com
- Makes poetic films with careful use of music, various b&w constrasts and speeds of film.
- Uses simple allegories to tell stories.
- Depicts man-nature relationship and Armenian culture.
- Artavazd Pelechian leads a reclusive lifestyle in Moscow, Russia, and rarely makes public appearances or gives interviews. He also reportedly refuses to sign contracts.
- Often makes use of telephoto lens to get what he terms a "candid shot."
- Is the author of several theoretical books, the most famous of which is the 1988 Moyo kino (My Cinema).
- His films feature no dialog, instead he replaces them with music and sound effects.
- Makes extensive use of archive footage along side his own images.
- For me, distance montage opens up the mysteries of the movement of the universe. I can feel how everything is made and put together; I can sense its rhythmic movement.
- [on Mer dare (1983)] "It's about what I'm striving for, what we're all striving for - every person, humanity...the wishes and desires of the people to ascend, to transcend..."
- [on Four Seasons (1975)] "I was thinking of everything. It's not specifically the seasons of the year or of people: it's everything."
- [about Sergei Eisenstein] "Eisenstein's montage was linear, like a chain. Distance montage creates a magnetic field around the film... Sometimes I don't call my method "montage". I'm involved in a process of creating unity. In a sense I've eliminated montage: by creating the film through montage, I have destroyed montage. In the totality, in the wholeness of one of my films, there is no montage, no collision, so as a result montage has been destroyed. In Eisenstein every element means something. For me the individual fragments don't mean anything anymore. Only the whole film has the meaning."
- [about Mikhail Vartanov] "My dear friend Vartanov...if you like (the screenplay) Desert, together we can make another masterpiece."
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