IVAN’S CHILDHOOD [russIAn: IVANOVO DETSTVO] 175
Mosfilm revived the proj ect and assigned it to Andrei Tarkovsky, a recent VGIK
(Gerasimov All- Russian State Institute of Cinematography) film school gradu ate,
who had applied to direct the film, after being told about Ivan by his friend, cine-
matographer Vadim Yusov, who would go on to shoot the picture.
Production
Shooting on location near the Dnieper River city of Kaniv, in central Ukraine, Tar-
kovsky had to work fast because much of the film’s bud get had already been used
up by Eduard Abalov. From the start of the shoot to the assembly of a rough cut
(16 June 1960–30 January 1961), the film took less than eight months to make. It
also came in 24,000 rubles under bud get, partly because Tarkovsky edited as he
went along, not in post- production ( Johnson and Petrie, 1994, p. 67). Though they
stayed much closer to Bogomolov’s narrative than Papava and Abalov, Tarkovsky
and his uncredited co- screenwriter, Andre Konchalovsky, added four dream
sequences and slightly surreal visual ele ments to limn Ivan’s psychological trauma.
They also added a romance subplot. Such poetic license did not sit well with Bogo-
molov or with the Mosfilm bureaucrats supervising the proj ect. Over the course of
the production they subjected Tarkovsky to 13 “editorial” sessions, presided over
by eminent Rus sian literary artists and filmmakers. All sorts of changes, major and
minor, were suggested, but Tarkovsky’s mentor, director Mikhail Romm, was able
to argue against the cutting of any footage.
Plot Summary
The setting is Soviet Rus sia during World War II. After a brief, idyllic dream
sequence, Ivan Bondarev (Nikolai Burlyaev), a young Rus sian, startles awake inside
a windmill and runs across a decimated landscape. He continues on through a
swamp and across a sizable river. When he reaches the far bank, Rus sian soldiers
capture him and hand him over to Lt. Galtsev (Evgeny Zharikov), who interro-
gates him. The boy adamantly demands that the lieutenant call “Number 51 at
Headquarters” to report him. Galtsev calls the headquarters and is informed by
Lt.- Col. Grayaznov (Nikolai Grinko) that the boy is to be given writing materials
and left to compose a high- priority report. Grayaznov also asks that the boy be
treated kindly while in Galtsev’s care. Cut- together dream sequences reveal that
Ivan’s family has been exterminated by the Germans. Ivan managed to run away
and linked up with a group of partisans, later joining Grayaznov’s troops. Ivan’s
anger over the deaths of his family members has led him to fight on the frontline,
performing recon missions for his army unit. Grayaznov and the soldiers under
his command take a liking to Ivan and try to convince him to enter a military acad-
emy. However, Ivan is dead set on avenging his family and the other poor souls
who died at extermination camps. With interspersed dream sequences, the film
spends the majority of its time in a cellar room where the soldiers wait for new
orders and Ivan anticipates his next mission. The walls of the cellar are covered
with desperate messages from German prisoners. At long last, Galtsev and another
soldier bring Ivan back across the river under the cover of darkness. The remain-
ing soldiers return to the other shore. The scene shifts to Berlin after the fall of the