Tarkovsky made a noir? The slow-cinema god started with Hemingway and guns.
The 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 State Institute of Cinematography.
Direction
Tarkovsky's first shadows already predict his obsession with time.
Acting
Tarkovsky cameos as a customer—director already inserting himself.
Cinematography
Surprisingly assured chiaroscuro for student filmmakers.
Director
Marika Beiku
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Tarkovsky's diploma project at VGIK, shot when he was just 24. He reportedly fought with co-director Gordon over creative control.
The film uses long takes in a diner setting—remarkably similar spatial tension to his later masterpiece Stalker, minus the Zone.
SU
