Circus dir. Grigory Alexandrov, 1936
I think my favorite word in the post is likely to be 'ridiculous'. That's exactly how I feel about many of the things in this film, they are just ridiculous. Not only is it a musical, but it is a Soviet musical, and in the socialist realism style, and on top of that it is set in a circus. It's just the perfect blend of completely over-the-top.
To be honest though, I was pretty entertained by it until the ending. The last 10 minutes-ish almost ruined the whole thing because all of a sudden the socialist part smacks you upside the head. I suppose it had to be in there, but they definitely could have been more subtle and artful about it. I could even kind of go with it up through the: "oh, here we love all the children!" thing with the lullaby in all the different languages for the baby (who was defintely not a baby - he was at least 2!), because that was a nice message. Definitely idealism, but still a very good goal to have, rejecting racism and whatnot. I wonder if Russians would have had much exposure to dark-skinned people at that time? Besides the child, I only saw 2 others in the whole movie - one seemed to be a servant to Mary that took care of the baby - maybe someone she brought with her from America? - and the other showed up in the shot where the circus audience was playing 'pass the baby'. I wonder about the reality of racism in that time. It clearly occurred for other nationalities, like Germans - clearly the 'bad guy' here. Of course, this is the era when Hitler and the Nazis were coming to power. I didn't catch that the competing circus master was supposed to be German until I heard him say 'danke schoen' at the train station counter.
I thought it was funny hearing the actors try to speak in English, even the girl who was supposed to be American wasn't very good. I did catch that there were Russian subtitles when she spoke in English though. They seemed to look upon her more favorably than the evil german director though. I thought it was odd that a 'capitalist' and seemingly 'bourgeios' American was OK to be in the USSR. In the beginning she even makes the sign of the cross, and I was surprised that was shown. There was also the guy that looked and acted like Charlie Chaplin, who was on the 'good' side, which also surprised me. I guess all of that was forgivable, because in the end she chooses to stay in Moscow and be in that ridiculous march and become a good Soviet instead of returning to America.
Technically, I really really enjoyed some of the ways the film transitioned from one scene to another. My favorites were the frost on the window that changed to feathers and then melted into the cityscape; as well as the train whistle and audience whistles to cut between the simultaneous events. I also really liked the shot of Mary and Petrovich reflected in the piano and how it was spun around so that it looked like the original image of the two. I think all of these were very artful techniques and I enjoyed them very much.
For being a musical, I didn't feel like there were really that many songs, but maybe that was because they were more a part of the action of the circus, rather than popping up out of nowhere like they seem to in a lot of classical American musicals. There were a few like that, but only a couple. I thought Mary's voice was a bit annoying, especially at first, but I think that was partly the act and probably also due to the age of the film and the equipment they had at the time. I thought it was really good how they framed her changed emotion through her delivery of the circus number at the opening of the film and then again later when she is going to leave and everything has gone wrong for her.
The only thing that really annoyed me about this (other than the super cheesy ending) was the timing of the subtitles. It took a little while to get used to, since the translation didn't always appear at the same time that it was being said, and sometimes it was difficult to tell who was saying what. Overall, I feel like I could follow the basic story, but sometimes that got frustrating.
I think that's all I'vr got for today...
But Chaplin's on the "bad" side, isn't he--being part of von Kneishitz's retinue? In any case, I suspect he's supposed to serve as a sort of satire on Western humor of the '20s and early '30s.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Soviet attitude toward racism--we're definitely getting a Socialist Realist (ie, highly idealistic) take on it...and the reality of how they relate to other races and nationalities has of course never been simple.
And you're very right about the subtitles being hilariously bad for this film--*almost* in an endearing type of way. I suspect the person (or people) making them had (among some other interesting quirks) not quite learned the technique of timing the lines so they correspond to what's said. Thankfully, at most of the important parts of the film they get it right...