Director: Andrei Tarkovskiy, Marika Beiku, Aleksandr Gordon
Country: Soviet Union
Award: none
Movement: none
he Killers is a 1956 student film by the Soviet and Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky and his fellow students Marika Beiku and Aleksandr Gordon. The film is based on the short story The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, written in 1927. It was Tarkovsky's first film, produced when he was a student at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). The Killers is an adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The story is divided into three scenes. The first and third scenes were directed by Beiku and Tarkovsky, the second by Gordon. The first scene shows Nick Adams (Yuli Fait) observing two gangsters (Valentin Vinogradov and Vadim Novikov) in black coats and black hats entering a small-town diner where Adams is eating. They tell the owner, George (Aleksandr Gordon), that they are searching for the boxer Ole Andreson and that they want to kill him. They tie up Nick Adams and Sam the cook, and wait for Ole Andreson to appear. Three customers enter the restaurant and are sent away by George. One of the customers is played by Tarkovsky, who whistles Lullaby of Birdland. The second scene shows Nick Adams visiting Ole Andreson (Vasily Shukshin) in his hide-out, a small room. He warns Andreson about the two gangsters, but Andreson is resigned to his fate and unwilling to flee. The third scene shows Adams returning to the diner and informing the owner of Andreson's decision.
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