Bezhin Meadow
Bezhin Meadow | |
---|---|
Directed by | Sergei Eisenstein |
Written by | Isaak Babel Sergei M. Eisenstein Aleksandr Rzheshevsky |
Story by | Ivan Turgenev |
Produced by | V. Ya. Babitsky |
Starring | Vitya Kartashov Nikolai Khmelyov Pavel Ardzhanov Yekaterina Teleshova Erast Garin Nikolai Maslov Boris Zakhava |
Cinematography | Vladimir Nilsen Eduard Tisse |
Edited by | Klavdya Alyeva[1] |
Music by | Gavriil Popov Sergei Prokofiev (reconstructed music)[2] |
Production company | Gosudarstvennoe Upravlenie Kinematografii |
Distributed by | Mosfilm |
Release date |
|
Running time | 30 minutes |
Country | Soviet Union |
Language | Russian |
Budget | ₱2 million |
Bezhin Meadow (Бежин луг, Bezhin lug) is a 1937 Soviet propaganda film, famous for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, it tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest and the son's efforts to stop his own father to protect the Soviet state, culminating in the boy's murder and a social uprising.[3][4][5] The film draws its title from a story by Ivan Turgenev, but is based on the (largely fabricated) life story of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932, after he supposedly denounced his father to Soviet government authorities and subsequently died at the hands of his family. Pavlik Morozov was immortalized in school programs, poetry, music, and film.[6]
Commissioned by a
Bezhin Meadow was long thought lost in the wake of World War II bombings. In the 1960s, however, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken.
Plot
Because Bezhin Meadow was repeatedly edited, re-shot, and changed to satisfy the Soviet government authorities, several versions of the film were created.
The most sourced and best-known version focuses on Stepok, a young boy in a collective farming village, who is a member of the local Young Pioneers Communist organization, as are other local children. His father Samokhin, a farmer, plans to sabotage the village harvest for political reasons by burning down the titular meadow, but Stepok organizes the other Young Pioneer children to guard the crops.[5][16] Samokhin grows progressively more frustrated by his son's actions and success. Eventually, Stepok reports Samokhin's crimes to the Soviet government authorities, and is in turn slain by his own father for betraying his family.[3][4] The other Young Pioneers break into the local church, singing songs, and desecrate it in response to Stepok's death.[5][12] The visuals of the film shift during the destruction of the church, with the villagers becoming that which they are destroying—the angry villagers, by the end of the set piece, are depicted as Christ-like, angelic, and prophetic figures.[12]
A later re-editing of the film opens with images of orchards and blue sky, showing a stone obelisk with Turgenev's name on it. It is next revealed that Stepok's mother has been beaten to death by his father. In a dark hut, Samokhin complains that his son has a greater loyalty to the Soviet than his own family, as Stepok enters from the bright day outside. His father quotes from the Bible: "If the son betrays his father, kill him like a dog!" Samokhin is arrested for arson, and Stepok leaves with a Communist functionary. The other arsonists take refuge in the local church, and are soon arrested. The arsonists are nearly lynched, but are saved from the villagers' wrath by Stepok. The villagers transform the church into a clubhouse, symbolically ridiculing religion or the clergy.[10]
In some versions, the destruction of the church was replaced with a scene of villagers fighting the arsonist's fire. In the film, the fire was started when the arsonists threw dried sunflowers and lit matches into the community's fuel storage area. In some cuts, Stepok overhears his father's planning and sneaks out in the night to inform on him; in others, the local Communist Party functionary breastfeeds Stepok's young sister; in still others, Stepok's father says after shooting his son, "They took you from me, but I did not give you to them. I did not give my own flesh and blood." After Stepok's death, the same aforementioned Communist official carries him off, joined by other children, in a funeral march that was said to evolve into a victory march.[10]
The film, as mentioned by Shumyatsky and Eisenstein, is rich in religious iconography and the symbolic struggle between good and evil.[3][14] Additionally, Birgit Beumers writes, "The peasants here are grey-bearded prophets; the young men are broad-shouldered Renaissance apostles; the fleshy girls are earthly Madonnas; the peasant wrecking the iconostasis is a biblical Samson; the chubby young boy in the shirt, raised high under the cupola towards the slanting sun-ray which turns his locks golden, is the young Jesus Christ ascending to the Heavenly Throne."[12] Bezhin Meadow, in its various unreleased versions, was "Dedicated to the bright memory of Pavlik Morozov, a small hero of our time"[10] (cf. A Hero of Our Time).
Cast
- Viktor Kartashov as Stepok (as Vitya Kartashov)
- Nikolay Khmelyovas Peasant
- Boris Zakhava as Stepka's father - first film version
- Yekaterina Teleshova
- Pyotr Arzhanov as Political Commissar (as Pavel Ardzhanov)
- Nikolai Maslov
- Yakov Zajtsev
- Vadim Gusev
- Serafim Kozminskiy
- Stanislav Rostotsky as Boy
- Sergey Averkiyev as Appearing
Original Turgenev story and Pavlik Morozov
The film was based in part on a story by
Morozov's life and death in the village of
The Morozov story was developed into compulsory children's readings, songs, plays, a symphonic poem, a full-length opera and six biographies. There is very little original evidence related to the story; much of it is hearsay provided by second-hand witnesses. In Bezhin Meadow, the child is named Stepok, departing from the original historical lore and information. Among the ironies of Bezhin Meadow's history were that Pavlik Morozov may not have even been a member of the Young Pioneers. Morozov had been called a "disturbed young boy" who was unaware of the consequences of what he was doing and turned his father in to the authorities for having abandoned his mother for a younger woman, rather than for political reasons.[10]
Production
Herbert Marshall argued that by 1931, government interference in Soviet artistic work was already well established, in various forms: from peers of the artists, guided by 'above'; from "the different circles competent to judge it"; and ultimately from the Communist Party and Stalin himself. This all led to the failed production of Bezhin Meadow.[8]
Before production of the film began, the script by
Production on the unreleased film cost 2 million
The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party required that it screen and approve Bezhin Meadow before its release. Multiple versions of the film were banned by the committee, which cited them as "inartistic and politically bankrupt", and claimed that Eisenstein "confused the
After the film's final rejection, Shumyatsky took responsibility for the failure in the Soviet media, with an essay detailing the film's history in
Following the order to stop production of the film from the Soviet government and Shumyatsky, Eisenstein contracted smallpox, followed afterwards by influenza, and the film was destined to remain unfinished. He worked further on the story with the Soviet author Isaac Babel, but no material was ever published or released from their collaboration, and the production of Bezhin Meadow came to an end.[7] The unfinished and unreleased film reels were destroyed during a World War II bombing raid in 1941.[10] In a later published response to Shumyatsky titled "The Mistakes of Bezhin Meadow", Eisenstein pledged he would "rid myself of the last anarchistic traits of individualism in my outlook and creative method".[21][23] Eisenstein finally wrote, "What caused catastrophe to overtake the picture I had worked on for two years? What was the mistaken viewpoint which, despite honesty of feelings and devotion to work, brought the production to a perversion of reality, making it politically insubstantial and consequently inartistic?"[9]
Reactions and legacy
Eisenstein's Bezhin Meadow has had a rich legacy of responses and criticism since its original production. In the wake of Shumyatsky's statements in Pravda, which diminished Eisenstein's reputation in the Soviet Union to the lowest point in his career, others soon weighed in.[15] Some criticism of the film was that it was too abstract or formalist, echoing Shumyatsky's views. Ilya Vaisfeld called the film and Eisenstein's methods "profoundly hostile to socialism", and faulted Eisenstein for presenting enemies in a possibly favorable light. According to Nikolai Otten, Eisenstein's failure was due to filming an emotional scenario, thinking it freed him from studio control. Boris Babitsky, the chief of Mosfilm Studio (the producers of the film), took responsibility for the production's failure, and for not controlling Eisenstein's work or halting filming earlier; Babitsky was later arrested for this. Ivan Pyryev felt that Eisenstein did not want to be a "Soviet person", giving this as a reason for the failure of the film. David Maryan, another director, blamed Eisenstein for looking down on others, taking no pleasure in the achievements of others, and for being a loner. Eisenstein's political status came under attack as well due to the film. G. Zeldovich, of the Principal Directorate for the Cinema, questioned whether Eisenstein should be free to work with film students due to his political unreliability.[10]
Not all of the commentary and examination of Bezhin Meadow was overtly negative, however. In the years after the film closed its production, studios and film organizations in major Russian cities including Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev held seminars to examine the lessons of the film, with some of the sessions lasting days. A former student of Eisenstein, Peotr Pavlenko, defended Eisenstein's work in the wake of Bezhin Meadow. Grigori Alexandrov, a filmmaker Eisenstein had worked with previously, was denounced for "raising himself above the community" because he did not speak out against his associate. Esfir Shub suggested that as Eisenstein was not present in the USSR during the
In the 1960s, it was learned that Eisenstein's wife, Pera Attasheva, had saved splices of film from the
Though production of Bezhin Meadow was never completed, and a full version was never distributed, the film was later considered a celebration of Soviet political purposes and
See also
- 1930s in film
- Cinema of the Russian Empire
- Cinema of the Soviet Union
- List of lost films
- Russian culture
- Soviet art
References
- ^ "Pré de Béjine (Le) — (БЕЖИН ЛУГ)" (in French). Iconotheque Russe Ehess. Retrieved September 1, 2010.
- ISBN 2-87854-305-X. Retrieved September 1, 2010.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ a b c d e f "Rebuke and Reorganization". Time. 1937-03-27. Archived from the original on January 25, 2012. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-05298-6.
- ^ S2CID 162381806.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8050-7461-1, pages 122–126.
- ^ a b c d Jonas, Marty (1998-02-11). "Eisenstein". International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Archived from the original on 2008-02-22. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7100-9287-8.
- ^ a b Seton, Marie (1960). The Mistakes of Bezhin Meadow: Sergei M. Eisenstein. New York: Grove Press. pp. 351–378.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8135-2971-4.
- ^ a b c Barthes, Roland (1977). Image-Music-Text: The Third Meaning. Translated by Stephen Heath. Glasgow: Fontana-Collins.
- ^ ISBN 1-86064-390-6; pages 16–17
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-07285-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-87951-924-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-560-0.
- ^ "Bezhin Meadow Movie Review (1937)". Film 4. Archived from the original on 2006-06-29. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-42195-3.
bezhin meadow.
- ISBN 978-0-8014-8331-8.
- ISBN 978-1-85043-405-4.
- ISBN 978-0-415-04950-4.
- ^ a b Moussinac, Leon (1970). Sergei Eisenstein. Crown Publishers. p. 167.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-167-1.
- )
- ISBN 978-0-333-65684-6.
- ^ Ehrenstein, David (November 2002). "Bezhin Meadow". Senses of Cinema. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (1988-01-29). "At the Movies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
Further reading
- Beyond the Stars: The Memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein, by Sergeı̆ Eı̆zenshteı̆n and Richard Taylor. British Film Institute, 1996, ISBN 978-0-85170-460-9
- Eisenstein and Stalin: When art and politics clash (EIS), 1999 television documentary
External links
- Bezhin Meadow at IMDb
- Bezhin Meadow at AllMovie
- Full text of Bezhin Meadow story by Ivan Turgenev (in Russian)
- Full length film at arjlover.net