During the Soviet thaw and “de-Stalinization” under Nikita Khrushchev, filmmaking regulations became slightly relaxed and film studios in some of the individual republics became decoupled from centralized Soviet production; into this environment came Vytautas Zalakevicius’ Адам хочет быть человеком (US: Adam Wants to Be a Man), a Lithuanian noir that contains some of the most brilliant B&W imagery of any Eastern European film of the era. Cinema’s newfound artistic freedom, however modest, pops off the screen in every scene, Zalakevicius and crew incorporating extensive deep focus, highly stylized production design (industrial detritus and walls of empty liquor bottles serving as abstract backdrops, for example), Dutch angles, extreme closeups, composite shots, oblique compositions, and the kind of intricate light and shadow design associated with some of the greatest noirs (for example, note the sweeping low angle shot as the lovers hide from police during a riot or the dramatic Dutch angle peering through the alley to frame tiny laborers in deep focus on a roof on the next block). Shot on location in the city of Kaunas, where economic desperation is visible on every street corner, the film stars Vitalijus Puodziukaitis as young, handsome Adam, perhaps named for the Bible’s first man, trying to find his way in the world while residing on an old barge with the grizzled “Captain” (Juozas Miltinis); when the boy finally secures stable employment with the emigration office so he can save up the money to set sail for a new life in Buenos Aires, it only leads to more dead ends involving fraud, theft and betrayal. Quite likely influenced by Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds from the previous year, the film moves from one extraordinary mise-en-scene to the next: just two of the countless highlights are a moody nightclub singer performing in front of a band of silhouetted musicians on a slanted stage, and the sudden rainstorm that compels Adam and his beloved Liuce (Audrone Bajerciute) to seek shelter under a bridge as a train roars past overhead.