Conversations on Cinema and Film Direction

A candid рассказ by an outstanding director about how authentic cinema comes into being.

Romm reflects on literature as the primary source of filmmaking, analyzes the “montage” of Tolstoy’s and Pushkin’s prose, recalls working alongside Eisenstein and Shchukin, and formulates his main principle: cinema is an art of an honest gaze, responsibility, and the ability to notice what remains beyond the frame.

“Conversations About Cinema and Film Directing” is not a manual or a set of dry rules, but a living, open, sometimes bitter, but always precise professional reflection on how great films are born, why literature is the mother of cinema, how montage works in the prose of Tolstoy and Pushkin, and why a director must “see” even what is not on the script page.

Romm speaks in detail about his own films—from “Lenin in 1918” to “Nine Days of One Year”—recalls creative meetings with Shchukin, Vanin, Eisenstein, reflects on the nature of the screen image, the expressiveness of silent action, the danger of clichés, and the dramaturgy dictated by life itself. At the core of these conversations is the conviction that cinema is an art that is responsible, mass, and deeply human. It requires not so much theory as honesty, patience, the ability to look and listen, and a constant readiness to learn.

This book is for everyone who loves cinema as a way of thinking and feeling, who is interested in directing, literature, and art in general.
It will be useful both for beginning filmmakers and for VGIK students, as well as for viewers who want to understand the language of the screen more deeply and catch, beyond the frame, the intention, truth, and human warmth.

“Conversations About Cinema and Film Directing” is not just a book about the craft. It is a master’s confession addressed to the future of art.