As per our current Database, Mikhail Vartanov has been died on 31 December, 2009 at Hollywood, California, USA.
When Mikhail Vartanov die, Mikhail Vartanov was 72 years old.
| Popular As | Mikhail Vartanov |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
| Age | 72 years old |
| Zodiac Sign | Pisces |
| Born | February 21, 1937 (RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]) |
| Birthday | February 21 |
| Town/City | RSFSR, USSR [now Russia] |
| Nationality | USSR [now Russia] |
Mikhail Vartanov’s zodiac sign is Pisces. According to astrologers, Pisces are very friendly, so they often find themselves in a company of very different people. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back. Pisces is a Water sign and as such this zodiac sign is characterized by empathy and expressed emotional capacity.
Mikhail Vartanov was born in the Year of the Ox. Another of the powerful Chinese Zodiac signs, the Ox is steadfast, solid, a goal-oriented leader, detail-oriented, hard-working, stubborn, serious and introverted but can feel lonely and insecure. Takes comfort in friends and family and is a reliable, protective and strong companion. Compatible with Snake or Rooster.
Vartanov was blacklisted for his debut film, The Color of Land (1969), where he portrayed his dissident friends Paradjanov (imprisoned in 1974) and Minas (assassinated in 1975). When Vartanov's artistic freedom was restored 20 years later, he responded with Minas: A Requiem (1989) and Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) - his masterpiece, which was admired by some of cinema's most important luminaries, including Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
For bravely campaigning for the release of the imprisoned Parajanov, Vartanov was fired from the Soviet Armenia's sole film studio and deprived of his only source of income (the film industry, like all others, was fully government funded and controlled).
Parajanov reacted with a letter written to Vartanov from the Ukrainian prison, "You and your purity are colliding with circumstances and predators".Thanks to the tireless petitioning of his (V.G.I.K.) classmate Artavazd Peleshian and Gennadi Melkonian, Vartanov was able to work as their cinematographer and exquisitely lensed two films that became classics: Seasons (1975) and Mulberry (1979).
Not until Paradjanov was taken off the blacklist in 1984 (due to lobbying by celebrities) was Vartanov also permitted to direct. Even though these were studio-imposed films, such as Roots (1984), he breathed into them his trademark soulfulness.
The publication of his revered Unmailed Letters essays in the top literary magazines, spurred new writings, as well as their translations all over Europe, notably in Cahiers du Cinema in 1986. His fierce Erased Faces (1987) terrified the colleagues who doubted the permanence of the Gorbachev reforms.
In the war-torn and blockaded Armenia of the early 1990s, which was plagued by severe shortages of food, water, transportation and electricity, Vartanov's health, already compromised by decades of harassment, worsened.
Despite the serious limitations, he persisted and, for the first time, independently produced what became his final film.When in Moscow, in 1993, he accepted the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts Award for Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992), in a characteristically modest move, he simply bowed, and uttered not a single word to the millions watching the live broadcast.
Festival invitations for his masterwork enabled Vartanov's escape to California, but his early films remained inaccessible and under the control of his old suppressors for the rest of his life. He did not witness the first retrospective and exhibition of his films and art at the Busan International Film Festival, which took place just three years after he passed away in Hollywood.
Deeply soulful poetic documentaries, featuring brief or no narration, lensed with Russian 35mm Konvas cameras.
