Yevgeni Bauer (1865 – 1917) was a russian film director of silent films, a theatre artist and a screenwriter. His work had a great influence on the aesthetics of Russian cinematography at the beginning of the 20th century.Bauer was born in Moscow in 1865, the son of the Russified Czech musician Franz Bauer and his wife, an operatic singer. From childhood, Bauer displayed artistic tendencies, and participated in his favourite dramatised scenes.
Bauer is considered a leading stylist of Russian silent cinematography and placed particular emphasis on the pictorial aspect of film-making. He is considered a master of psychological drama, and also one of the first russian directors who developed the artistic side of cinema including montage, mise-en-scene and the composition of the frame.
He made great use of his theatrical experience when making his films, the outcomes of which occasionally prefigured future achievements in cinema. Bauer would first 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 placed great emphasis on 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. Bauer's artistic experiments and outstanding expertise gave him a reputation of the leading director in Russian cinema.