18 Facts About Yevgeni Bauer

Yevgeni Bauer's work had a great influence on the aesthetics of Russian cinematography at the beginning of the 20th century.

Yevgeni Bauer already used the relatively long sequence shots and displacements that would come to be associated with camera virtuosos.

Yevgeni Bauer was born in Moscow in 1865, the son of the Bohemian immigrant musician Franz Yevgeni Bauer and his wife, an operatic singer.

From childhood, Yevgeni Bauer displayed artistic tendencies and participated in his favourite dramatised scenes.

In 1887, Yevgeni Bauer graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

Yevgeni Bauer tried out a number of different professions, first working as a caricaturist, drawing satirical sketches for the press.

Yevgeni Bauer then became a master of art photography, before moving to work in the theatre, as a producer, an impresario, and a professional set designer.

Yevgeni Bauer's first work in the cinema was an order for set decorations for the film "300 Years of the House of Romanov", produced by Alexander Drankov's film company.

Yevgeni Bauer then made another four films for the Moscow branch of the French company Pathe Brothers, and then finally started to work for the Khanzhonkov company, which at that time was the unspoken leader in Russian cinematography.

Yevgeni Bauer worked mainly in the genres of social and psychological drama, such as Daydreams, After Death, A Life for a Life, and The Revolutionary.

Yevgeni Bauer worked with the leading actors of Russian silent cinema, including Ivan Mozzhukhin, Vera Kholodnaya, Vitold Polonsky, Ivan Perestiani, Vera Karalli and others.

Yevgeni Bauer broke his leg on the set and had to work on his next film, The King of Paris, from a bathchair.

However, Yevgeni Bauer started to suffer from complications relating to pneumonia and could not complete this film.

Yevgeni Bauer is considered a leading stylist of Russian silent cinematography and placed particular emphasis on the pictorial aspect of film-making.

Yevgeni Bauer is considered a master of psychological drama, and one of the first Russian directors who developed the artistic side of cinema including montage, mise-en-scene and the composition of the frame.

Yevgeni Bauer made great use of his theatrical experience when making his films, the outcomes of which occasionally prefigured future achievements in cinema.

Yevgeni Bauer was the first to start to consider the placing of lights on the film-set and changed the lighting during the filming, used unusual filming angles, made frequent use of wide spaces, and filmed through "gaseous" material to produce the effect of fog.

Yevgeni Bauer attributed great significance to the composition of each shot, constructing decor and natural shots with artistic expressions of classical landscapes, made use of camera movement to widen the space of the shot, and add a dramatic effect.