Boris Barnet

Directing·Jun 18, 1902·Moscow, Russian Empire

Rate

NA/10 avg

Boris Vasilyevich Barnet was a Soviet film director, actor and screenwriter of British origin. He directed 27 films between 1927 and 1963. Boris Barnet was born in Moscow. His grandfather Thomas Barnet was a printer who moved to the Russian Empire from Great Britain back in the 19th century. A student of the Moscow Art School, he joined the Red Army at age 16 and was then professionally involved in boxing. In 1927 he shot his first feature, a comedy film, The Girl with a Hatbox, starring Anna Sten. His 1928 melodramatic film The House on Trubnaya, starring Vera Maretskaya, was rediscovered in the mid-1990s and now ranks as one of the classic Russian silent films. Encouraged in his early efforts by Yakov Protazanov, Barnet emerged in the 1930s as one of the country's leading film-makers. Amongst Barnet's masterpieces, we find Outskirts (1933), a pacifist story acclaimed at the first Venice Film Festival. Barnet's postwar work is exemplified by Secret Agent, the first Soviet spy film. The Stalin Prize-winning film was also years ahead of its time in exhibiting Hitchcockian influence and tricks and helped cement Barnet's reputation abroad. It was Barnet's gift of artistic invention that made him stand out from the crowd of Soviet colleagues. In a Barnet film, a photograph in the newspaper would unexpectedly come alive, and scenes would often end with a detail introducing the next scene. He would begin a scene with a close up, "so that the space is progressively discovered by changing the axis or by camera movement". Among Russian filmmakers professing their admiration for Barnet was Andrei Tarkovsky. After some years of artistic silence Boris Barnet committed suicide in Riga, Latvian SSR. His body was found hanging from a fishing line. He was survived by wife Alla Kazanskaya and daughter Olga Barnet.

Film	Credit
Whistle Stop1963 · Director, Writer	Director, Writer
Alyonka1962 · Director	Director
Annushka1959 · Director	Director
The Wrestler and the Clown1957 · Director	Director
Poet1956 · Director	Director
Lyana1955 · Director, Screenplay	Director, Screenplay
Masters of Ukrainian Art in Concert1952 · Director	Director
Bountiful Summer1951 · Director	Director
Pages of Life1948 · Director	Director
Secret Agent1947 · Gen. von Kühn, Director	Gen. von Kühn, Director
Dark Is the Night1945 · Actor, Director	Actor, Director
A Priceless Head1942 · Director	Director
A Good Lad1942 · Director	Director
Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #31941 · Director	Director
The Old Jockey1941 · Director	Director
A Night in September1939 · Actor, Director	Actor, Director
By the Bluest of Seas1936 · Actor, Director	Actor, Director
Outskirts1933 · Actor, Director, Writer	Actor, Director, Writer
The Thaw1931 · Director	Director
The House on Trubnaya1928 · passerby (uncredited), Director	passerby (uncredited), Director
Moscow in October1927 · Actor, Director	Actor, Director
The Girl with the Hat Box1927 · Director	Director
Miss Mend1926 · Barnet, reporter, Writer, Director	Barnet, reporter, Writer, Director