One death is a tragedy ...
Dec. 8th, 2017 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiEarlier this week I went to see The Death of Stalin at Reading Film Theatre. I'd seen posters on the Tube a couple of months ago, which had seemed to build quite a high level of expectation. Could Armando Iannucci's comic film on the death of a mass murderer possibly live up to its hype?
It turns out that the film is both less and more comical than might be expected from the promotional material, and is better for it. The comedy begins with a sound engineer frantically organising musicians and audience to play a concerto again, so that he can provide Stalin with a recording, which was inexplicably not made (on the off chance) during the live performance. When Stalin's body is discovered, not yet dead, the members of the Central Committee fret about what to do: "There are no good doctors in Moscow, remember? We got rid of them". And later, the absurd about-turn in the conversation between Molotov and Khrushchev about Molotov's wife's fate in the gulag as Beria whisks her, newly freed, into Molotov's apartment.
But the film is dark, too, and the piling up of the bodies, often essentially at random, is no laughing matter. Stalin's children are both unhinged in various ways, presumably having lived very abnormal lives. Beria, outwardly charming, is perpetually plotting and shoring up the weak Malenkov, deputy chairman of the Central Committee. Khrushchev, perpetually babbling, is also plotting, and the political story is the power struggle between these two men. Beria's choice to cancel the trains to Moscow provides the pretext for his undoing; it's not explained why he does this, though he insists everything is to "protect public order".
Khrushchev schemes with the committee members to various success, but has more positive response from war hero Marshal Zhukov, whose Red Army has been confined to barracks by Beria's NKVD. Yet although the way Beria ultimately meets his fate - the peremptory charges, trial, and execution - have a delicious irony, there's an end-justifies-means feel to it, especially as all the members of the central committee have been largely complicit in Stalin's and Beria's crimes.
The film is based on a graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, and there is some artistic licence between the story and recorded history. For example, Beria wasn't executed until December 1953; the film might lead you to believe it happens much more quickly than that. But I think it's fair to the spirit of history, if not always the detail.
In his book on the Second World War, Antony Beevor discusses Stalin's "retreat" to his dacha in 1941 after the German invasion, and suggests that he expected to be arrested when the Politburo members came to visit him (although he also speculates that this was a feint to uncover any disloyalty). That's an interesting counterfactual opportunity. I suspect Stalin's reputation within Russia (as opposed to internationally) today rests largely on his role as wartime leader, with other aspects of his ruthless leadership conveniently sidelined; had he not been given that opportunity, but instead been removed in 1941, how would he be viewed today?
The cast works well: I particularly enjoyed the performances of Simon Russell Beale (Beria), Michael Palin (Molotov), Steve Buscemi (Khrushchev) and Jason Isaacs (Zhukov). It's both funny and thought-provoking, which is how it should be.
It turns out that the film is both less and more comical than might be expected from the promotional material, and is better for it. The comedy begins with a sound engineer frantically organising musicians and audience to play a concerto again, so that he can provide Stalin with a recording, which was inexplicably not made (on the off chance) during the live performance. When Stalin's body is discovered, not yet dead, the members of the Central Committee fret about what to do: "There are no good doctors in Moscow, remember? We got rid of them". And later, the absurd about-turn in the conversation between Molotov and Khrushchev about Molotov's wife's fate in the gulag as Beria whisks her, newly freed, into Molotov's apartment.
But the film is dark, too, and the piling up of the bodies, often essentially at random, is no laughing matter. Stalin's children are both unhinged in various ways, presumably having lived very abnormal lives. Beria, outwardly charming, is perpetually plotting and shoring up the weak Malenkov, deputy chairman of the Central Committee. Khrushchev, perpetually babbling, is also plotting, and the political story is the power struggle between these two men. Beria's choice to cancel the trains to Moscow provides the pretext for his undoing; it's not explained why he does this, though he insists everything is to "protect public order".
Khrushchev schemes with the committee members to various success, but has more positive response from war hero Marshal Zhukov, whose Red Army has been confined to barracks by Beria's NKVD. Yet although the way Beria ultimately meets his fate - the peremptory charges, trial, and execution - have a delicious irony, there's an end-justifies-means feel to it, especially as all the members of the central committee have been largely complicit in Stalin's and Beria's crimes.
The film is based on a graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, and there is some artistic licence between the story and recorded history. For example, Beria wasn't executed until December 1953; the film might lead you to believe it happens much more quickly than that. But I think it's fair to the spirit of history, if not always the detail.
In his book on the Second World War, Antony Beevor discusses Stalin's "retreat" to his dacha in 1941 after the German invasion, and suggests that he expected to be arrested when the Politburo members came to visit him (although he also speculates that this was a feint to uncover any disloyalty). That's an interesting counterfactual opportunity. I suspect Stalin's reputation within Russia (as opposed to internationally) today rests largely on his role as wartime leader, with other aspects of his ruthless leadership conveniently sidelined; had he not been given that opportunity, but instead been removed in 1941, how would he be viewed today?
The cast works well: I particularly enjoyed the performances of Simon Russell Beale (Beria), Michael Palin (Molotov), Steve Buscemi (Khrushchev) and Jason Isaacs (Zhukov). It's both funny and thought-provoking, which is how it should be.