Ivan’s Childhood

Film Info

Soviet Union
1962
95 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
Russian
Spine #397

The debut feature by the great Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood is a poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth. Moving back and forth between the traumatic realities of World War II and serene moments of family life before the conflict began, Tarkovsky’s film remains one of the most jarring and unforgettable depictions of the impact of war on children.

Cast

Ivan	Nikolai Burlyaev
Captain Kholin	Valentin Zubkov
Lieutenant Galtsev	E. Zharikov
Corporal Katasonych	S. Krylov
Gryaznov	Nikolai Grinko
Masha	V. Malyavina
Ivan's mother	Irina Tarkovskaya
Old man	D. Miliutenko
Soldier with glasses	Andrei Konchalovsky

Credits

Director	Andrei Tarkovsky
Written by	Vladimir Bogomolov and Mikhail Papava
Based on the novella Ivan by	Vladimir Bogomolov
Director of photography	Vadim Yusov
Assistant director	G. Natanson
Edited by	L. Feiginova
Production design	Yevgeny Chernyaev
Music	Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov
Special effects	V. Sevostyanov and S. Mukhin
Sound recordist	E. Zelentsova
Military adviser	G. Goncharov

Disc Features

High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Interview with film scholar Vida T. Johnson, coauthor of The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue
Interviews with cinematographer Vadim Yusov and actor Nikolai Burlyaev
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Dina Iordanova; “Between Two Films,” an essay by Tarkovsky on Ivan’s Childhood; and “Ivan’s Willow,” a poem by the director’s father, Arseny Tarkovsky