Official submission of Soviet Union for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 50th Academy Awards in 1978.
In order to achieve the desired performance from the actors, Larisa Shepitko sometimes talked for a long time with them out in the cold. For example, despite the crew's full readiness, the director would talk for a long time with Boris Plotnikov, whose character she carefully directed during the filming. Shepitko's habit of clearly stating her thoughts contributed to a successful transmission of information; she did not use abstruse terms that might mask the lack of clarity. She waited for the necessary expression of emotion, for the right facial expression and gestures and then suddenly would give the order to start filming. Boris Plotnikov later said that he would have liked to repeat this experience in other films, but never did. On working with Shepitko, Plotnikov spoke of "a meeting with a living genius." Vasil Bykau also shared a similar opinion about the film's director, he called her "Dostoevsky in a skirt." Bykau valued Larisa Shepitko very highly and once admitted that had he met her before, he would have written Sotnikov differently.
The film was nearly banned: regulatory authorities believed that a "religious parable with a mystical tinge" was shot instead of a partisan story. The chances were very high that the film would be shelved, until Elem Klimov (the husband of Larisa Shepitko and also a film director by profession) decided to take a desperate step. While Klimov was preparing for the shooting of the film Kill Hitler (which was released under the title of Come and See in 1985), he met with Pyotr Masherov, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus, who strongly supported the director and even acted as a historical consultant. During the war, the senior official was himself a partisan and moreover in 1942 the German occupiers hanged his mother for collaborating with the partisans. When Klimov, bypassing Mosfilm, invited Masherov to a special preview of The Ascent, Masherov initially was skeptical and was expecting to see "effeminate directorial work." The still somewhat wet film was brought to Minsk directly from the lab, and Larisa Shepitko herself sat at the mixing console . Twenty or thirty minutes after Masherov had started watching, he found he could not tear himself away from the screen, and by the middle of the movie he was crying, without hiding away from the republic's leaders who were present in the hall. At the end of the film, Masherov - contrary to tradition (usually at such premieres opinions were heard first from the lower ranks and then from the highest) - came on stage and spoke for about forty minutes. His words were not recorded by anyone but Elem Klimov testified to his wife that his excited speech was one of the best he ever heard addressed. The Belarusian writer and veteran of the Great Patriotic War Ales Adamovich, who was present at the screening, described Masherov as someone who questioned, "Where did this girl come from, who of course experienced nothing of the sort, but knows all about it, how could she express it like this?" After a few days, The Ascent was formally accepted without any amendments.
Vladimir Gostyukhin described the filming process not as acting but as "death in every frame." For him and Boris Plotnikov, it was extremely important to validate the director's trust, since she had needed to defend their casting choices long and hard in front of the Soviet film authorities. Gostyukhin spoke of Larisa Shepitko's ability to convey an idea to the actors, akin to hypnosis, under which he with Plotnikov - the newcomers to the film studio - could produce the "miracle of transformation." During the first rehearsal Shepitko even sprayed their faces with snow. By the latter's suggestion it was done to collect their attention and will and also to give texture and credibility to their characters. Later it became a kind of ritual, often preceding the next take on the film set. Gostyukhin recalled that he transformed into Rybak to such a degree that even the made-up bruise only fell from his face after three weeks. After the film was shot the actor tried for such a long time to leave his role behind and to become himself again that he refused to star in Shepitko's next planned film, entitled Farewell, despite her persistent requests.