The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov

Rimgaila Salys

Description

Grigorii Aleksandrov’s musical comedy films, created with composer Isaak Dunaevskii, were the most popular Russian cinema of the 1930s and ’40s. Drawing on studio documents, press materials, and interviews with surviving film crew members, The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov presents the untold production history of the films. Salys explores how Aleksandrov’s cinema preserved the paradigms of the American musical, including its comedic tradition, using both to inscribe the foundation myths of the Stalin era in the national consciousness. As the first major study to situate these films in the cultural context of the era, this book will be essential to courses on Russian cinema and Soviet culture.

Sujets

• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Musicals
• Performing Arts
• Sociologie, société et politique
• MUSIC
• Película fotográfica
• Film director
• Multiple signal classification
• General officer
• Musical theatre
• General
• Cultural Studies
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841503479
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov
The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov
Laughing Matters
Rimgaila Salys
First published in the UK in 2009 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2009 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2009 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover design: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Jennifer Alluisi Typesetting: John Teehan
ISBN 978-1-84150-282-3 EISBN 978-1-84150-347-9
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Veselye Rebiata
Happy Guys
Chapter 2 Tsirk
Circus
Chapter 3 Volga-Volga
Chapter 4 Svetlyi put
The Radiant Path
Appendix A A Day of Filming with Director G. Aleksandrov s Circus Crew
Index
Introduction

When the audience wants to laugh, it s no longer a laughing matter for us!
- Nikolai Erdman 1
T he title of this book is, of course, multivalent. Erdman s no longer a laughing matter quip expressed his wry reaction to Grigorii Aleksandrov s invitation to write the script for the first Russian musical comedy film, Veselye rebiata ( Happy Guys ), which was part of a governmental cinema initiative and consequently an invitation one was obliged to take very seriously. Laughing matters bears upon the reasons for the popularity of Aleksandrov s musical films. Laughing matters refers to the sources and technologies of his comedic practice. These meanings of laughing and matters comprise the central issues of the following chapters.
This book is concerned with four Aleksandrov films: Happy Guys (1934), Tsirk ( Circus , 1936), Volga-Volga (1938) and Svetlyi put ( The Radiant Path , 1940). 2 I have devoted one chapter, presenting both history and interpretation, to each film. In the sections on production history I chronicle the untold story of the making of these films: their genesis, the circumstances surrounding their creation, and the evolution and significance of successive scripts. I argue that the content and form of the musical comedy films can best be understood via the deformations caused by the competing discourses that created them. My account is based on both archival research and published sources.
I have examined all surviving scripts; some versions have not survived, but are described at least partially in studio documents or newspaper articles. The designations of the various types of scripts differ from contemporary western terminology because the script development process in Russia did not parallel American practice, nor were the component parts of each category consistent. Soviet directors did not always produce detailed written scripts, nor did studios always require uniformity. For example, after the success of Happy Guys , Aleksandrov was permitted to begin filming Circus without even a completed script. Three types of script are discussed in the following chapters. The literary script ( literaturnyi stsenarii ) was presented to the studio in order to obtain a contract. It is more or less equivalent to the modern scenario, defined as a prose version of the planned plot, sequence of events, and roles, sometimes including partial dialogues. The director s script ( rezhisserskii stsenarii ) was, in theory, authored by the director and is generally equivalent to the modern screenplay, defined as a series of master scenes, providing all dialogue, essential actions, character movements, and sometimes shot and mise-en-sc ne directions. In Aleksandrov s case, the author(s) of the literary script collaborated extensively on plot development and dialogues. The montage script ( montazhnyi stsenarii ) was the final version of the script, which included dialogue, directions for movement, scene length, shot specifics, and music directions. Several increasingly elaborated versions of each category of script were produced as dialogues and subplots were added or changed.
Each of these three categories of scripts required approval by the studio and-to varying degrees at various times-by cinema s central administrative organization, GUKF, the Chief Administration of the Film and Photo Industry (simplified to GUK in 1937 and replaced by the Cinematography Committee in 1938). As a result, at different stages, scripts underwent revisions for both artistic and ideological reasons. A case in point is the development process for Volga-Volga , which was particularly difficult. Multiple versions of the script were required because of Aleksandrov and Nil sen s inadequate initial literary script, because of studio objections to the director s script, and-after a change of leadership both at Mosfil m and GUK during the purges-further revisions to the rough cut of the film.
The analytical section of each chapter deals with topicality and cultural context, narrative development, genre paradigms, comedy, formal filmic devices, the interplay of music and lyrics with narrative, and the encoding of socialist values through myth, fairy tale and folklore, and gender. By emphasizing ideological values in its striving to create a unified culture, Socialist Realism suppressed issues of genre in the arts. Furthermore, national cinemas, with their encoded genre traditions, have never been purely homegrown products, even when closely linked to figurations of nation-state. Scholars have written about the functioning of ideology and myth in the Aleksandrov films, but have largely ignored their roots in the American musical and comedy traditions. Aleksandrov s sojourn in Hollywood, his friendship with Chaplin and visit to Disney Studios are simply mentioned, as is, less frequently, the notebook in which he recorded plots and gags borrowed from American films. 3 I argue that Aleksandrov s films preserve the genre paradigms of the originating model of the American musical, including its associated comedic tradition, using both creatively to inscribe the foundation myths of the Stalin era in the national consciousness. 4
According to Rick Altman, the syntax or deep structure of the American musical consists of a dual-focus narrative strategy of alternation, confrontation, and parallelism between the male and female leads, which is more important than chronological progress. Hero and heroine may appear in parallel or alternating scenes, in duets or parallel solos; they may confront each other repeatedly in various situations. Male and female are further identified with opposing cultural values, which the musical seeks to reconcile. The formation of male and female into a couple invariably parallels the success of a venture or task in the narrative. A secondary couple or a love triangle, consisting of the primary couple and a male or female rival, typically fulfills a comic function. 5 Beginning in the early thirties, American musicals regularly use direct address and include diegetic audiences as a means of both integrating the external audience into filmic space and influencing its perceptions through applause. Although Aleksandrov also employs these filmic operations, Trudy Anderson points out that the Aleksandrov musicals additionally seek to create community through aperture, by extending cinematic space out into the real world. 6 Narrative realism is combined with the formal patterning of music and dance, and the traditional cinematic hierarchy of image over sound is reversed at climactic moments. Altman divides the corpus into three semi-permeable thematic categories-the fairy tale, show, and folk musicals. 7 The latter two, which are concerned with putting on an artistic performance and doing the work of the nation or community respectively, bear on the Aleksandrov films.
Except for World War II musicals, which take place in the present, the American folk musical typically constructs a nostalgic, mythicized version of the national past, as in Oklahoma! and Meet Me in St. Louis . 8 Circus and Volga-Volga , which are hybrids of the show and folk musical, also celebrate national myths, but are instead set in a utopian and mythicized present, while the core events of The Radiant Path , in spite of its proleptic finale, take place in a recent, happier past. Many American show musicals are organized so as to justify a final revue with multiple production numbers 9 ; this is also the case in Happy Guys , Circus , and Volga-Volga .
The Aleksandrov musicals all follow a standard narrative paradigm of the musical film-the transformation of a talented, spunky underdog into a professional, personal, or civic success. While Valentina Serova, Tamara Makarova, Marina Ladynina, and Zoia Fedorova created the image of the wholesome, energetic, impulsive, determined, straightforward and slightly na ve heroine of the thirties and forties, Liubov Orlova made her contribution toward the creation of the type, with a more sophisticated coloration. 10 Both the before and after versions of her heroines are attractive, sympathetic, positive types. But in Aleksandrov s films, cinematic illusion merges with the reality of Orlova s stardom: the underdog country girl is typically transformed into a version of the actress herself, either in the guise of a stage performer or offstage, as an elegant, cultured, modern urban woman. In Circus , however, where the quietly elegant offstage persona of Marion Dixon already corresponds to Orlova s refined tastes, her heroine, who must become fully Soviet, dons the parade dress of a fizkul turnitsa (female athlete) in the final scenes of the film.
As a non-hermetic genre, the musical film often incorporates different types of comedy into its corpus. In my discussion of Aleksandrov s use of both physical and