Tolstoi mit den Augen des Films

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s books and biography was a subject of many researches – including documentary films, but this film is dedicated to his reflexion on the film writing and to how Tolstoy showed a precocious interest for rising cinematographic art. An interest for the new art of cinema is confirmed here by extracts of the first programs of cinema which Tolstoy assisted, of letters, drawn comments in diaries and stories of his contemporaries. At the same time, his life inspired adapters very quickly, and the first documentary about the writer was made in 1912 by Yakov Protazanov and was dedicated to last days of his life. This picture was taken very poor by the writer’s family members, who made everything possible to ban the films from showing in Russia. But the writer himself was indeed fascinated by the rising new art and its possibilities. Artem Demenok’s documentary shows that the great writer even might have had the intention of writing something for cinema himself.