Russian movies Two films about the Russian Revolution

 
Russian movies
Two films about the Russian Revolution

Watching October and Lenin in October allows us to understand the paths of the Revolution from the way filmmakers represented it at different times.

    Published on: 07/13/2023

Source: Diario da Causa Operaria

 

 

It is interesting to note Russia's leading role in times of serious crisis of capitalism. It was like this throughout the 20th century and now, with the war in Europe and the launch of what seems to be a new multipolar world, the country's strength to change the course of history is evident. Looks like it fell to Russia, again, to get rid of Nazis. And I'm not just talking about Ukraine.

Because of this, I chose two Soviet films as the subject of my text this week. The two films have the plot of the Russian Revolution, more specifically the final battle that consisted of the seizure of the Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks in Saint Petersburg, under the command of Lenin, in 1917.

This is  October , directed by Sergei Eisenstein in 1927, and  Lenin in October , by Mikhail Romm, released exactly 10 years later. Both were government commissions to the Soviet film agency, Mosfilm, to mark the anniversaries of this historic event.

Watching them together is an exercise that allows us to understand the paths of the Revolution based on the way the two filmmakers represented it at different intervals. There is clearly a clash between the two versions and this happens in the formal choices.

The plot is practically the same, with the same characters and the same conclusion: in both, the final scene is Lenin's speech celebrating the victory over Kerensky's provisional government. Trotsky is mentioned in both films in the same way: his hesitation in approving the October insurrection, vehemently defended by Lenin and which ended up being the winning proposal, is highlighted.

In 1927, Eisenstein tested the limits of his montage theories and exercised cinema as a form of revolutionary and political representation in its essence. For him and many other filmmakers, cinema was the most significant art form of the 20th century.

His film opens with a dedication to the heroes of those months in 1917 that culminated in the events of October. For him, these heroes were the Russian people. There is not, in  October , a typical bourgeois hero, the protagonist of the action. On the contrary, Eisenstein chooses people from the people to represent revolutionary “types”, creating an effect he calls “typing” in his book  The Shape of the Film .

The workers, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the revolutionary women, the soldiers, the bourgeois, the traitors are represented there. They don't have a definite name or a specific narrative. Even historical characters, such as Lenin, Trotsky or Kerensky, appear at specific moments and not as the focus of the plot. Eisenstein wanted to make the Revolution his main character.

Allied to “typing”, there is also the montage of scenes that are mostly paintings elaborated with care and care that gain symbolic meanings and that seek to break with the illusion of reality to be messages of the revolutionary struggle, whether in the gestures of the actors, or in the frantic composition of weapons that are thrown to the ground. Eisenstein uses images to expose conflicts.

In his film, Romm merely recreates Eisenstein's plot, modifying the latter's formal choices. To begin with, as the title itself indicates, his story focuses on the figure of Lenin and exalts his heroism in leading the Russian Revolution. The film simply follows the rules of bourgeois drama, more specifically of the commercial cinema produced by Hollywood at that time.

Obviously Romm knew what he was doing and must have talked to Eisenstein about it. In 1937, Stalinism and the state bureaucracy were already persecuting everyone who was against his decisions. In the field of the arts, what became known as “socialist realism” was imposed. In cinema, this meant incorporating linear drama as more “realistic”.

Discussions about form established by filmmakers, playwrights and artists within the framework of Russian modernism were considered superfluous, difficult to understand and “enemy of the people”.

Hence the perception, when watching  Lenin in October , that there is something very American about his approach. Even so, Romm tries to escape the trap, adding moments of humor to a subject that should be approached with a certain reverence.

Even the figure of Lenin seems stereotyped and superficial. There's a scene specific to his personality cult, when two characters watch him sleep rapturously.

At another time, the Bolsheviks, inside the Winter Palace, are faced with important works of art. A character warns his comrades: “here are priceless works of art, we need to protect them like that statue of Apollo”. A comrade replies: "And which of the statues is Apollo?" To hear: “It doesn't matter. Use your knives, not guns.”

In this context, Romm's film should be seen as a symptom of the historical moment and the conditions of its production within the transformations of the Russian Revolution when it turned 20 years old. The film lets us realize that the path laid out was no longer revolutionary as it had been years before. Romm's formal choices have a certain inverted symbolism and didacticism.

Today, Russia, a capitalist country, turns to its own contradictions and its own history to defend itself against the harmful impositions of the decadent and dangerous US imperialism. And, as the protagonist, she seems to be changing the world again. We'll know with more certainty where this is going to take us soon.