First Love (1970 film)

For plot details, see First Love, the novella by Ivan Turgenev.

• John Moulder-Brown as Alexander
• Dominique Sanda as Sinaida
• Maximilian Schell as Father
• Valentina Cortese as Mother
• Marius Goring as Dr. Lushin
• Dandy Nichols as Princess Zasekina
• Richard Warwick as Lt. Belovzorov
• Keith Bell as Count Malevsky
• Johannes Schaaf as Nirmatsky
• John Osborne as Maidanov

Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote of the film that "despite its pretentiousness, its prettiness, its 1,000 excesses—and to a degree perhaps because of them—it succeeds as vision even while it looks as if it were being suffocated by style."[2] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four and wrote, "The problem in 'First Love' (apart from the fact that the conclusion in no way emerges organically from the material) is that the whole movie is so smug in its sense of tragedy. In his directing debut, Maximilian Schell has taken a Turgenev story and stretched it out with silence, vast characterless landscapes, plenty of birds, some solitude and a visual style that doesn't help much."[3] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film an identical two-star grade and declared, "Schell neglects to pare Turgenev's story to the essential element of a young boy's love for a visiting neighbor, and attempts to include some of the Russian author's social comment on the superficiality of the ruling class. The result is a screenplay with vaulting ambition that is neither sensual nor witty." [4] Variety called it "a sincere, affectionate and exquisitely pretty picture of youthful love—or infatuation—against the leisurely but already threatened backdrop of a world and society that was, but that symbolically also mirrors the present day."[5] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times stated, "At moments 'First Love' is overly elliptical and confusing, though the main advance of the narrative never falters. What is especially noteworthy is the film's power of suggestion and restraint in conveying an atmosphere highly charged with decadent sex."[6] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Cinematographer Sven Nykvist puts on a swell show, performing one stunning feat of luminosity after another, but director Maximilian Schell is compulsively unilluminating about matters of theme and character and historical period and continuity."[7]

• Academy Awards, USA

1971 Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (Switzerland)[8]

• German Film Awards

1971 Won the "Film Award in Gold" for "Outstanding Feature Film"

• San Sebastián International Film Festival

1970 Maximilian Schell Won the "Silver Seashell" award

• List of submissions to the 43rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Swiss submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

• First Love at IMDb