Part of the Title is Appropriate

Film: Ivan Groznyj 1 (Ivan the Terrible, Parts 1 and 2)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on rockin’ flatscreen

Strap in, folks. This one is rough. I don’t expect them all to be winners, and when the film was listed in “The 50 Worst Films of All Time,” I expect even less. But this one is really, really rough.

Ivan Groznyj 1 (Ivan the Terrible, Part 1, although this review will cover the secondpart as well) is, no surprises here, the story of Ivan the Terrible. It’s not the whole story, though, because this was originally thought of as a trilogy. Part 2 was suppressed, though, and Sergei Eisenstein died before he could get to the conclusion.

Workers of the World, Unite

Film: Czlowiek z Zelaza (Man of Iron); Oktyabr (October)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen (Czlowiek); DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player (Oktyaber).

The world, in reality, spins through space, pulled into its constant orbit by the gravity of the sun, and to a lesser extent by gravitational forces exerted through the rest of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. But societies, governments, and countries don’t spin. They exist on a sort of pendulum that swings back and forth from one extreme to the other. We’re seeing that in American politics right now, but even in times of the pendulum being relatively centered in the U.S., we can see the same phenomenon in other countries and cultures around the world. When the pendulum gets too far in one direction, revolution results.

Czlowiek z Zelaza (Man of Iron) is the story of one such revolution, in this case one that was huge news around the world when I was quite a bit younger. The Solidarity movement in Poland was the first time I remember a crack appearing in the Iron Curtain of eastern Europe. The name that everyone heard was Lech Walesa, and Walesa does appear in this film in stock footage (and briefly in a marriage scene between two characters), but he is not the main focus. Instead, we concentrate on Maciek Tomczyk (Jerzy Radziwilowicz). Tomczyk is the son of Mateusz Birkut, the subject of Andrzej Wadjz’s earlier film Czlowiek z Marmaru. (It’s also worth noting that Jerzy Radziwilowicz played Birkut in that film, and in this film—he plays the father and the son.)

Much of the story comes from the point of view of Winkel (Marian Opania), a journalist sent by the Polish government to to a hit piece on Tomczyk. The reason is that Tomczyk is leading a workers’ strike. Winkel is fed as much information as he can get, and poses as a sympathetic ear to the strikers to learn as much as possible about Tomczyk as he can. Initially at least, Winkel is hampered by the fact that the striking workers have called a moratorium on the sale of alcohol, which presents a real problem for the alcoholic Winkel, causing him to spend most of the film either rtrying to scrounge booze or suffering from severe withdrawal. In an early scene, for instance, he drops a bottle, mops up the spilled vodka with a towel, wrings it into a glass, and drinks it.

Since Winkel’s job is to find out everything he can about his target, a great deal of the film is told in flashback through the memories of the people Winkel interviews. Much of this is told through stock footage and historical footage of the actual striking workers, both in the early 1980s with the Solidarity strike and the earlier shipyard strike in 1970. The 1970 strike becomes important, because it informs a great deal of what happens through the rest of the film. We learn, for instance, that Mateusz Birkut was killed in the 1970 riots around the strike at the shipyards, and now Tomczyk is essentially causing the same strike to take place in the film’s present. We see Tomczyk hauled off in a straightjacket, allowing the government to manufacture the story that he is mentally ill.

Of course, the truth lies somewhere not quite exposed in the film. Winkel learns a great deal of the reality of the Solidarity movement, but also knows that his career (if not his life) will be jeopardized by a favorable report on the movement. The film quite obviously sides with the workers and against the communist system, a piece of irony, since the original communist movement was an appeal to the workers as well.

Czlowiek z Zelaza was made at a strange time in Poland’s history. The film was created and distributed during a short period during which such criticism of the government was allowed. It is surprising, in fact, how critical the film is of the Polish regime, essentially exposing it as a corrupt institution and in need of the continued rebellion by the workers.

Essentially, while Tomczyk may be the focus of the film, it is Winkel who is the real subject. Suffering from DTs and desperate for a drink, he experiences all of the fear and paranoia we might expect from a man living under the heel of an oppressive government and operating in the position he has. His every possible move is one of betrayal; anything he does will either betray him to his government or to the ideals he is learning throughout the film. It’s an interesting study in the life of this man.

And let’s not forget for a moment that despite the let-up in Polish censorship at the time, that creating a film this critical of the ruling class was amazingly ballsy. Even if the film weren’t interesting from a character and historical perspective, it would be worth watching for that alone.

Of course, if the Bolshevik Revolution hadn’t happened in the middle of World War I, there’d have been no need for the Polish workers to strike or create Solidarity. Sergei Eisenstein’s Oktyabr (October) is a heavily propagandized version of the Soviet upheaval and eventual takeover in Russia. The film was shot 10 years after the revolution with the communist regime firmly in place. Thus unlike Czlowiek z Zelaza, this is a film that takes an intense pro-communist stance, blaming all problems on the bourgeoisie and giving all virtue to the workers who took the reins of state.

The plot of the film really doesn’t stray too far from the basic history of the coup—those in power resist and use the power of the provisional government to continue the war against Germany. Slowly, we see the Bolsheviks rising up, forcing the hand of the government to act essentially locally, but by then, it’s too late.

Plotwise, this is a difficult movie to comment on, because it follows such a specific path. There are no real surprises here if you’re aware that the communists took over Russia in October, 1917. Knowing this, and knowing that this film is intended in many respects as a propaganda piece for the Soviet Union, it’s not difficult to see where it’s going at all times. It’s going to the actual coup by the Bolsheviks, and said Bolsheviks will have an almost melodramatic flair, being always good, right, true, and moral while their enemies will be the opposite at all times.

So, since the plot is essentially a cleaned up version of history, it makes more sense to discuss the way that Eisenstein filmed this story instead. Oktyabr is firmly rooted in the montage style, and Eisenstein makes liberal use of dramatic close-ups, almost always shot from underneath to imply both power and nobility of the Bolsheviks so filmed. The film was released in the same year as Abel Gance’s Napoleon, and the two show some distinct similarities in the way that rapid cuts and almost subliminal scene lengths are used to heighten dramatic moments.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t spend at least a little time discussing the score by Dmitri Shostakovich. It is consistently loud, overwhelming, and laden with brassy instruments, adding both a martial air and a feeling of great importance to everything happening on the screen. It’s frankly a little overwhelming.

This is a hard film to recommend, really. It’s worth seeing only by true students of film or those deeply interested in the Soviet montage style. For those with the patience to delve into what Eisenstein did with the look and feel of the film, with the cinematography—the crowds of running extras, the fact that there are times when it becomes difficult to tell if Eisenstein actually filmed something himself or used stock footage, it’s pretty remarkable. But I also think there’s a good chance that all but the most serious student will find this rough going.

Why to watch Czlowiek z Zelaza: Gripping history that consistently repeats itself.
Why not to watch: If you’re not old enough to remember Solidarity, you may not care.

Why to watch Oktyabr: Because it’s Eisenstein.
Why not to watch: If you know history, there are no real surprises.

Message Overload

Films: Stachka (Strike)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Say what you will about Sergei Eisenstein, he knew which side of the bread the butter was on. When the Bolsheviks took power, Eisenstein began creating films that fed directly into the Soviet propaganda machine, either by extolling the power of the workers, decrying the evils of the Czarists, or both. Stachka (Strike) does a little bit of both, but leans heavily on the side of attacking the bourgeoisie, those capitalist controllers of the means of production who got Karl Marx in such a dither.

Stachka is actually a very simple story. The workers at a capitalist-owned factory in the pre-Bolshevik days are not particularly happy. Things boil over and reach a breaking point when one worker is falsely and unfairly accused of stealing a micrometer, an item that comes with the hefty price tag of 25 rubles. Unable to clear his name or prove his innocence and unwilling to attempt surviving without his job, the worker commits suicide.

This event proves to be the catalyst for a strike. The workers make a series of what would today be considered completely reasonable demands—fair treatment, eight-hour work days (six for minors) and a wage increase. These demands are gone over by the heads of the factory, who in typical silent melodramatic style are the epitome of fat cat industrialists. In fact, some of them have become so wealthy from the sweat of the workers that they are indeed extremely obese. These men sit around in a posh room and puff giant cigars and enjoy delicate treats. Naturally, they come back with the statement that the demands cannot be met—not a single one will be given in on.

Instead of negotiations, the bourgeoisie try to send in their own agitators to return the strikers to work. Finally having had enough, the strikers resist such propaganda efforts and continue the strike. Then, in a move that seems positively modern, Czarist troops arrive and gun down everyone they can find in a scene that quite literally compares the poor slaughtered Proletarians with slaughtered cows.

This is Eisenstein’s first film, and it shows. Certainly Bronenosets Potyemkin was just as filled with propaganda and anti-capitalist moments, so the political ideas evidently took a look time for Eisenstein to outgrow. So while the impact of this film is the same as its later masterpiece, it doesn’t change the fact that his later films are substantially better. This is almost certainly comes from Eisenstein’s overall level of competence and comfort as a filmmaker.

His work is very stylized, in part from the era it was made in, in part from the form of the silent, and in part because it is very, very Russian. Some elements of the film smack of surrealism. The Czarist spies at the factory are named after animals and look like the animals that they are named after, for instance.

It helps that the story here is a good one, or at least one filled with a lot of dramatic possibility. The shots, while sometimes a bit ham-fisted, show a lot of promise that would be realized in some of Eisenstein’s later work. Here, though, this promise is tarnished by the metaphorical sledgehammer with which Sergei applies his message. The bourgeoisie factory owners are so stereotypically fat cattish that they are almost cartoons who care nothing of the suffering of the poor, oppressed workers. While no doubt true at some level, the depiction here is pretty extreme.

All in all, a good film. If for no other reason, it shows the earliest available Eisenstein work, which shows the rudimentary beginnings of a man who would become an important film pioneer.

Why to watch Stachka: All directors start somewhere, but not all directors are Sergei Eisenstein.
Why not to watch: The premise is far more interesting than the film.

Ahoy, Proletarian Masses!

Film: Bronenosets Potyomkin (The Battleship Potemkin)
Format: DVD from Bettendorf Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.


Sometimes, you can tell the where and when of a film within the first few moments of footage. I commented earlier, for instance, that Amelie could only be a French movie, and I stand by that assessment. In this case, Sergei Eisenstein’s Bronenosets Potyomkin is undeniably Russian, and undeniably filmed within a decade of the Russian Revolution.

The movie begins with a battleship heading home after defeat in the Sino-Russian War. What we discover immediately is that the ship is at war with itself. The officers of the ship are brutal, petty, angry, and lord their power over the enlisted men. This happens immediately in the film when an officer beats a young sailor for hanging partway out of his hammock. The next day, the men complain about the quality of the meat they are being forced to eat.

We’re given a close-up of the meat through the pince-nez of the medical officer, and the meat is crawling with worms. The officer, however, states that the meat isn’t rotten, but merely infested with maggots, which can be rinsed out with brine. Based on the quality of the meat, some of the men refused to eat the borscht. Based on this, a sailor named Vakulinchuk (Aleksandr Antonov) believes that the men are being treated worse than Russian POWs in Japanese camps. Insurrection is mounting.

Soon, all hands are called to the deck, and the captain calls out anyone who refused to eat the borscht. A small group is left standing alone, and, due to their insubordination at the refusal of food, they are going to be executed by firing squad. A group of guards are brought on deck and the condemned are covered in canvas to make the shooting of them easier for the troops. Additionally, a Russian Orthodox cleric tells the men under the canvas to repent.

This is where the action changes abruptly—the troops don’t want to shoot their shipmates. Vakulinchuk tells the men with the guns to ignore their orders, and they do. Mutiny takes hold of the men on the ship, and they rebel, tossing officers into the sea and taking control of the ship. While this takes place, the priest is knocked down a staircase and pretends to be dead, and an officer gets hold of a gun and shoots Vakulinchuk in the back of the head, making the man who started the revolt its first martyr.

Now under the control of the rank-and-file, the Potyomkin sails into Odessa. Vakulinchuk’s body is placed in a tent on the docks under a sign that says (depending on the translation) either “for a spoonful of borscht” or “for a bowl of soup.” The tragic death of the rebel leader infects the people of Odessa, who now wish to support the men of the rebellious battleship. This leads to a classic confrontation between the citizens of Odessa and the Cossacks, who attack down the Odessa steps with guns blazing. The Potyomkin sails off, leading to another confrontation, this time with the bulk of the Russian Navy.

Potyomkin is thought of as Eisenstein’s masterpiece. I can’t as yet speak to that, since my Eisenstein vocabulary is extremely limited. It is, like most silent films, highly stylized. There are great moments throughout, but it is the scene on the Odessa steps that is rightfully the most famous. What is fascinating to me is not the staging or the action here, but the evidence that the film vocabulary has changed dramatically since Eisenstein filmed this. For a modern audience, it’s evident that this scene could not have happened as filmed unless the steps in question are about a mile high. People run down the stairs en masse over and over, and yet there are still people at the top, far above the Cossacks chasing them.

This isn’t a complaint, but an observation. When Eisenstein made Potyomkin, his audience was not nearly as versed in film as a modern audience and expectations were dramatically different. What a modern audience notices about a sequence like this is not what an audience in the 1920s would have seen.

The emotional center of the film is its firm belief in the proletarian sailors and people of Odessa. The officers on the ship are uniformly cruel, stupid, arrogant, and sadistic. The same is true of the Cossacks, who shoot children and stomp on the bodies of the fallen. The sailors themselves are downtrodden, but filled with revolutionary spirit. In short, Bronenosets Potyomkin is a victory of the proletarian masses over their bourgeoisie masters. The impotence of the church (Marx's opiate of the masses) as represented by the cleric is pure communist dogma. Looked at in this light, it comes as no shock that the film was made a year or so after the death of Vladimir Lenin.

Worth watching? Yep, if only for the cinematic history wrapped up in its short running time. This is not a movie to watch for the compelling story, no matter how compelling you find the story. This is a film that has been copied and studied for years—you’ll see pieces of its composition, design, and full scenes in other films everywhere you look.

Why to watch Bronenosets Potyomkin: A large chunk of cinematic style started here.
Why not to watch: Hooray for communism!