Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (Russian: Все́волод Илларио́нович Пудо́вкин) (16 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage. Pudovkin's masterpieces are often contrasted with those of his contemporary Sergei Eisenstein, but whereas Eisenstein utilized montage to glorify the power of the masses, Pudovkin preferred to concentrate on the courage and resilience of individuals.

Biography

A student of engineering at Moscow University, Pudovkin saw active duty during World War I, being captured by the Germans. After the war, he abandoned his professional activity and joined the world of cinema, first as a screenwriter, actor and art director, and then as an assistant director to Lev Kuleshov.

After a few tries with advertising cinema, he directed in 1926 that which will be considered one of the masterpieces of silent movies: Mother, where he developed several montage theories that would make him famous.

His first feature was followed by The End of St. Petersburg (1927), and Storm Over Asia (also known as The Heir of Genghis Khan), titles which compose a trilogy at the service of the bolshevik revolutionary policy.

In 1928, with the advent of sound film, Pudovkin, Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov signed the Manifest of Sound, in which the possibilities of sound are debated, and always understood as a complement to image. This idea would be brought to bear in his next pictures: A Simple Case (1932) and The Deserter (1933), works that do not match the quality of earlier work.

With an interruption due to health concerns, Pudovkin returned to the movies in 1938, with a cycle of historic pieces that are not as successful as earlier works: Victory (1938); Minin and Pozharsky (1939) and Suvorov (1941).

With the end of World War II, under Party criticism, he returned to his earlier subjects. In 1951, Pudovkin was awarded the Stalin Prize. His last work was The Return of Vasili Bortnikov (1953).