The Fall of Berlin (film)

For the 1950 Soviet documentary directed by Yuli Raizman and Yelizaveta Svilova, see Fall of Berlin – 1945.

The Fall of Berlin
A 1950 poster of the film.
RussianПадение Берлина
Directed byMikheil Chiaureli
Screenplay by
Produced byViktor Tsirgiladze
Starring
CinematographyLeonid Kosmatov
Edited byTatiana Likhacheva
Music byDmitri Shostakovich
Production
company
Distributed byAmkino
(United States)
Release date
  • 21 January 1950 (1950-01-21) (USSR)
Running time
  • 167 minutes
    (Original version)
  • 151 minutes
    (Post-1953 version)
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

The Fall of Berlin (Russian: Падение Берлина, romanized: Padeniye Berlina) is a 1950 Soviet war and propaganda film, in two parts separated in the manner of a serial.[1] It was produced by Mosfilm Studio and directed by Mikheil Chiaureli, with a script written by Pyotr Pavlenko and a musical score composed by Dmitri Shostakovich. Portraying the history of the Second World War with a focus on a highly positive depiction of the role Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (played by Mikheil Gelovani) played in the events, it is considered one of the most important manifestations of Stalin's cult of personality, and a noted example of Soviet realism. After De-Stalinization, the film was banned in the Eastern Bloc for several decades.

  1. ^ Peter Rollberg (2009). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. US: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 223–224. ISBN 978-0-8108-6072-8.