THE SOVIET CINEMA

By C. DE LA ROCHE

WITH the end of the war, a phase in Soviet cinematography is ending too. It is notable as a period when the entire film industry was concentrated on a single purpose—the nation's war effort. And though the films produced during the war do not in themselves represent any major advance in filmcraft, the trends which had been taking shape before the German invasion, and which the impact of war had at first interrupted, emerged more clearly and further advanced towards the end of the war. These trends are closely related to developments in the nation's thought and life. There is an "organic unity " between the people and their art, as Professor Eisenstein puts it, and because the cinema is considered the most important of all the arts for the Soviet State, the significance of any developments reflected in Soviet films extends far beyond the field of cinematography.

The Soviet cinema was born together with the Soviet State, inheriting no traditions from the past. Its first function was to document the historic events of the day, and •for a long time the

documentary influence dominated fiction films. From the be- ginning the public was accustomed to participate in productions where, especially in Eisenstein's films, the crowd was the hero. And today the public follows a film from the earliest stages of its produc- tion through correspondence, the Press and other criticism. Film studios are dispersed throughout the Union. The industry, production and distribution alike, is planned and controlled by the All-Union Cinema Committee of Moscow, but, in addition to the major studios of Moscow and Leningrad, newsreel, documentary and feature studios were constructed during the five-year plans in Kiev, Minsk, Tbilisi, Alma-Ata—in short, in the large centres of all the national republics. This is another factor in widening the contact, between the fieople and the cinema.

And so, developing as an integral part of the country's life during the years of intensive construction, Soviet films concentrated on themes of nation-wide interest, whethei contemporary, historical or classical. The content of any work of art was considered as im- portant as its form, and no subject was deemed worthy of screening unless it had value for society. The first major development of the feature film was in the direction of historical recon- struction of recent events or the interpretation of their impact on human life in realistic fiction (Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, Pudovkin's Mother). And until well after the advent of the sound film, the characterisation of the Soviet hero was achieved in broad, bold outlines which had something of the simplicity of legendary figures. The power of those , films lay in the dynamic use of setting, action and story ; the characters were symbols. This was not accidental. Soviet art had deliberately discarded egotistical individualism. Abstract psychology had no place in characterisations of people who were active in the life of society. But this never meant that the whole nation consisted of symbols; or that the heroes themselves had no individuality. And the next step in the development of cinematic thought was the search for the new hero, the struggle to achieve a deeper and richer characterisation of people as individuals within the life of society. This despite many brilliant achievements where, as in the case of the biographical film Chapaev by the Vassiliev brothers, Donskoi's

Gorki trilogy,' etc., consummate acting did create beautiful characterisation.

By the end of the nineteen-thirties the scope of the Soviet cinema had broadened enormously ; there was a wide range of genres, a new generation of artists and directors was maturing, and still among the ever lively criticisms there recurred, voiced by Pudovkin among others, a protest against too much naturalism. The fundamental

principles of Soviet art in the style of Socialistic Realism had been established firmly ; the time was now ripe to strengthen and elaborate the creative technique achieved. But if a consistent thread in the development of the Soviet cinema is discernible, this does not mean that during its 25-years history there have not been numerous experiments. On the contrary, it is the enthusiasm with which new ground is constantly being explored that produced such unique films as Dovzhenko's Earth.

Something similar to the development outlined above happened at an accelerated tempo during this war—from documentary to factual reconstruction, to a far more advanced and defined movement towards a new approach to characterisation. The German invasion gave the film industry a jolt, both physical and moral. All the studios in the Western Republics, including the largest in Moscow, evacuated to Central Asia. Newsreel units, of course, were the first to deliver pictures which recorded events so tremendous in themselves, and of such terrible significance, that for a while no treatment of them other

than the documentary seemed appropriate. A fine full-length docu- mentary, One Day of War, shot by 16o cameramen at the front and in the rear, was one of the first major war films. Reviewing it in Pravda,

the playwright, K. Simonov, defined what the public expected of its war films: "Art must always be truthful. In wartime it must be particularly truthful. Because the authors of the film succeeded in showing the most important thing—the spiritual strength of the nation and its faith in victory—they were able to show likewise the monstrosity and agony of war." Red Army man and factory girl alike could see that the film had hidden nothing, that their sacrifices had been understood. Documentaries were made of every major campaign, of Partisans, of the big diplomatic conferences, of death camps left by the Germans in liberated areas, of the first public trial of war criminals in Kharkov. And the war pictures are as grim as is war.

But the connection between these recorded events and their profound effect on human lives could only be fully interpreted in

feature films, and here, as in the past, the characters at first tended

to be symbols ; the indomitable spirit of the partisans in Donskoi's Rainbow, the comradeship and valour of Red Army mcn in Two Soldiers, by Lukov—these characters and these stories achieved

their purpose because they gave a truthful formulation of the dominat- ing qualities shared by thousands of others. For this they were praised by Soviet critics. But the need to define the character of " the new man," revealing at once the spirit of the generation and the personal conflicts of various individuals, was voiced more

urgently than ever in film circles. S. Gerasimov (director of The New Teacher and Masquerade) wrote : " Every one of our fighting men has a biography, a complicated detailed life, and each of them finds his way to courage along different roads."

In the midst of war a separate script studio was set up in Moscow to assist leading scenarists and young talent. In 1944 the evacuated studios returned to their own quarters, work was further intensified, and Soviet critics noted a more searching treatment of the characters' build-up in several of the later pictures, among them S. Gerasimov's

Mainland and I. Pyriev's 6 p.m. and After the War. Meanwhile some important historical pictures were being completed. Kutusov, by V. Petrov (who directed Peter I) was approved by the historian,

Academician Tarle, and by film critics for the admirable composition

of the old General's role. Then came S. Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, a historical canvas on a grand scale, reinterpreting the character of

the Czar and the significance of his reign to Russian history.

If war and patriotic films predominated, this does not mean that lighter subjects were excluded. S. Gerasimov summed up the

conclusion of a long controversy by writing: " In wartime the existence of every style known to art is justifiable." However, in spite of such charming comedies as G. Alexandrov's Volga Volga and J. Protazanov's Adventures in Bokhara, there were few in this

category, and the deficiency is an old problem for Soviet film studios. To encourage humorous writers, a competition in comedy scripts was arranged by the Script Studio in 1944, and special stress is laid on the development of comedies in the film plan for 1945.

This plan is interesting and ambitious. In it war-themes and films on reconstruction still predominate, and historical subjects are given an important place. But hardly less attention is paid to bio- graphical studies, comedies and versions of the classics. A stereo- scopic film of Robinson Crusoe has gone into production—the result of S. Ivanov's invention of a new stereoscopic system which he perfected during the war. Soviet cinematography is on the move. Vital enthusiasm animates the film workers who have matured in recent years ; and the cevelopment and expansion of the film industry, which was both interrupted and stimulated by the war, is gathering speed. From the films now being completed, audiences outside the borders of the Soviet Union are likely to get a broader view of the Soviet people, and to find they have a good deal more in common with it than was revealed in earlier films.