Transcript Soviet Film in the 1930s

“LIFE AS IT SHOULD BE”
SOCIALIST REALISM OF THE 1930S
Soviet Cinema in
the 1930-s
• 1933 – The government
makes plans for a “Soviet
Hollywood.” All-union
council for comedies is
created.
•Search for new,
ideologically acceptable
forms and themes
•1935 – Union of
Filmmakers; selfcensorship
•Emergence of musical
comedy
•Back to star system
LiubovOrlova
Marlene Dietrich
LyubovOrlova
(1902-1975)
Jolly Fellows (1934)
 Venice Film Festival Best Director and Best
Music Awards (1934); proclaimed one of 6
best movies ever.
 Genre: “Jazz-comedy”
 Plot: a cowherd (mistaken for a foreign
celebrity) and a cleaning girl from Odessa
region are talented musicians; they find
their way to Moscow, rehearse posing as a
funeral orchestra and perform, with a jazz
band, in the Bolshoi Theatre.
Jolly Fellows (1934)
First Soviet musical comedy
 Director: Grigori
Aleksandrov
 Script: Grigory Aleksandrov,
Vladimir Mass, and Nikolai
Erdman (a comedy writer,
arrested while the film was
being shot, his name
deleted from the credits)
 Music: Isaak Dunaevski
 Starring: Leonid Utyosov,
Lyubov Orlova. (Orlova’s
first lyrical-comedic role)
Liubov Orlova in Jolly Fellows
Jolly Fellows (1934)
Grigori Aleksandrov (1903-1983)
 Actor and film-director;
 Started his career in the
Proletkult Theatre with
Eisenstein; participated in
all Eisenstein’s theatrical
projects and films as
assistant director and actor
 In 1929-1932 traveled with
Eisenstein to the USA,
Mexico and Europe to study
the technique of making
sound films
The Circus (1936)
 Grand-Prix in Paris (1937)
 Orlova’s acting style borrowed from Marlene Dietrich (The
Blue Angel by J.Sternberg, first German sound film)
 International context: “Charlie Chaplin” clown in the circus
(Chaplin’s Circus 1928)
 Eccentric acting, the theme of circus, grotesque (the image
of the evil German) – inherited from Eisenstein’s aesthetics
Orlova and Aleksandrov
Grigori Aleksandrov
 Learned the technique of shooting musical
films from Walt Disney (first, the phonogram is
recorded, then the film is shot to the
phonogram)
 Makes a film (International, 1932) on Stalin’s
personal order
 Jolly Fellows: theoriginal title was Jazz
Comedy
 The public excited, the critics enraged
 Stalin’s approval; the genre thrives;
Aleksandrov and his wife LyubovOrlova reign in
the Soviet cinema.
The Circus (1936)
 Director: Grigori Aleksandrov
 Music: Isaak Dunaevski
 Starring: Lyubov Orlova, Sergei Stolyarov
 Synopsis: American actress Marion Dixon and
her German manager are on tour in Moscow.
Her number includes tap-dancing and a canon
shooting her to the trapeze. The Moscow circus
makes a (better, futuristic) copy of this act.
Marion falls in love with a Russian; the German
manager blackmails her with her mulatto baby;
the Soviet people surprise him (and Marion)
with lack of racism; Marion stays in Moscow.
The Circus
 Soviet realism: the reality “as it should be”
 Soviet values opposed to “Western” ones;
proletarian internationalism. The lullaby scene;
Solomon Mikhoels, the Jewish actor later killed
on Stalin’s orders.
 Dialogue with Hollywood: James Whale’s Show
Boat (1936), the issue of racism (a female star
is forced to leave the show: with her “impure
blood,” she breaks the law forbidding
interracial marriage); Paul Robson sings “Old
Man River”
The Circus (1936)
Forward to the shining future!