Roman Lazarevich Karmen[a] (30 November [O.S. 17 November] 1906 – 28 April 1978, born Efraim Leyzorovich Korenman)[b] was a Soviet film director, war cinematographer, documentary filmmaker, journalist, screenwriter, pedagogue, and publicist.[1]
Biography
Karmen was born to a Jewish family in Odessa. His father was the writer Lazar Karmen [uk] (real name Leyzor Korenman) and his mother was the translator Dina Leypuner.
Karmen went to Yan'an in 1939, where he met Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders and filmed during May and June 1939.[2]: 126
Style
Karmen's documentary methods were both influential and controversial; his renowned technical ability captured the emotion of war and the repetition of key shots and framings between film projects became a hallmark, but he would often blur the lines of cinéma vérité by restaging key battles, including the lifting of the siege of Leningrad (Leningrad in Combat [ru], 1942), the Viet Minh victory at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam [ru], 1955), and the 1956 landing in Cuba of militants led by Fidel Castro, re-enacted as a first person documentary.
In 2001, French documentary directors Dominique Chapuis and Patrick Barbéris produced a 90-minute film, titled Roman Karmen: A Cineast In The Revolution's Service.[3] The following year Barbéris (his co-author Chapuis had died in late 2001) published the portrait Roman Karmen, A Red Legend.[4]
