Tolstoi and Protazanov

PETER ROLLBERG George Washington University

1 Iakov Aleksandrovich Protazanov (1881-1945) belonged to the sizeable cohort of Russian filmmakers who viewed cinema as intrinsi- cally linked to literature and for whom the classical literary heritage al- ways was the most noble challenge to the new art of moving pictures.1 In the early phase of Protazanov's career, his ability to respond to literary masterpieces with both creative inventiveness and faithfulness earned him the reputation of a serious artist working in an otherwise du- bious medium; in its last phase, Protazanov's loyalty to the aesthetic standards of the 19th-century classical heritage secured his popularity with audiences but also made him a pariah in the eyes of admirers of So- viet avant-garde films. Iakov Protazanov was an enormously prolific director. The 100 feature films he completed in the course of three decades include adaptations of works by Aleksandr Pushkin (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, 1911; The Queen of Spades, 1915), Fedor Dostoevskii (Nikolai Stavro- gin, 1915), Anton Chekhov (A Work of Art, 1914; Ranks and People, 1929), and Leonid Andreev (Anfisa, 1912; The White Eagle, 1928). The masterpiece Girl Without a Dowry (Bespridannitsa, 1936) based on Aleksandr Ostrovskii's drama, was one of the most influential films of the 1930s, indeed one of the signature films marking the neoclassical turn in Russian-Soviet sound cinema. But no author was as important to Protazanov as Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi. Beginning with the early drama

191 The Devil (D'iavol, 1914) and continuing with a large-scale adaptation of War and Peace (Voina i mir, 1915), Family Happiness (Semeinoe schast'e, 1916), and Father Sergius (Otets Sergii, 1918), Protazanov time and time again turned to the works of Tolstoi, regardless how dif- ficult to adapt these works were. Protazanov joined the Russian film industry in 1907 when it was still in its infancy and heavily dependent on foreign investment and tech- nology. The first Russian "movies" were produced on the cheap, in the course of a few days, or weeks at best; directors routinely churned out twenty pictures and more per year. As the industry had an insatiable craving for narratives, the classical literary heritage proved a welcome source of plots that were well known, loved, and free of charge as well. Moreover, the popularity of Pushkin, Chekhov, Dostoevskii, and Tolstoi was so immense that film companies specializing in adaptations attract- ed viewers' attention simply by using the writers' names in their adver- tisements. Another aspect was cinema's need to gain respectability: "kinemo," as the early silent cinema was called, emerged as a technical sensation and the medium of choice for the culturally unassuming, most- ly illiterate strata of the population; when it began to mature, cinema had to strive for recognition by discriminating middle class audiences, in particular the urban intelligentsia. Literary adaptations were regarded as one legitimate way to achieve recognition. To Russian producers, Lev Tolstoi's oeuvre seemed especially well-suited to meet a variety of ex- pectations - its artistic status was beyond doubt, as was its commercial potential - Tolstoi's works were sold in millions of copies all over the world, while the writer's controversial persona was surrounded by an air of dissidence and even a whiff of the risque. Thus, between 1909 and 1918, Russian companies produced 27 films adapted from 18 works by Tolstoi,2 targeting both domestic and foreign markets. A telling example for the simplistic narrative techniques of early silent literary adaptations and their minimal aesthetic standards is the screen version of Resurrection that was produced by the Russian branch of Pathe Freres in 1909: it reduced the novel to a film of less than 15 minutes! However, within a few years, Russian viewers began to de- mand more adequate "film illustrations" - as literary adaptations were called - and the quality levels of casting, set decorations, acting, as well as of the overall production values grew accordingly. In 1915, the writer Lev Nikulin witnessed how audiences at a screening of Iakov Pro- tazanov and Vladimir Gardin's War and Peace whispered in awe during

192 a number of magnificent scenes filmed by cinematographer Aleksandr Levitskii.3 Indeed, within a few years, Russian silent cinema was increasingly respected as a legitimate medium capable of visualizing, translating, and, to some degree, interpreting canonical literary texts. Although some purists continued to view any adaptation of classical literature as sacrilege, there is reason to believe that Lev Nikolae- vich Tolstoi might have taken a more generous position. In the last years of his life, Tolstoi revealed a lively interest in cinema, reflecting upon its negative features as well as its positive sociocultural potential. In a conversation with Leonid Andreev, he even expressed an interest in writing for cinema. "You know, I have been thinking about cinema all the time. Even at night I woke up and thought about it. And I decided to write for cinema. Of course, there has to be a reciter who will read the text."4 In the last years of his life, on several occasions Tolstoi agreed to be filmed for newsreels. The most tenacious entrepreneur in getting Tolstoi in front of a camera was Aleksandr Drankov who secured the writer's permission to film the celebrations marking Tolstoi's 80th birthday. The result was the short documentary The Day of Count LJV. Tolstoi's 80th Birthday (Den' 80-letiia grafa L.N. Tolstogo, 1908). Four years later, to mark the second anniversary of the writer's passing, Pathe Freres released on 6 November 1912 In Memory of the Second An- niversary of LJV. Tolstoi's Death (V pamiat' dvukhletiia so dnia smerti L.N. Tolstogo). The film was compiled from footage shot by French cinematographer Georges Meyer in 1909 and 1910 and supplemented by new documentary footage from Iasnaia Poliana.5 More than any other Russian filmmaker of the silent period, Iakov Protazanov embodies cinema's eagerness to unite forces with classical literature.6 The first two screenplays that he wrote for the company "Gloria" were The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Bakhchisaraiskii fontan, 1909),7 based on Pushkin's poem and May Night, or the Drowned Woman (Maiskaia noch', ili utoplennitsa, 1910), based on Gogol's short story. In 1911, working for the "Torgovyi dom 'Timan i Reingardt'" (Thiemann and Reinhardt), Protazanov penned a screenplay based on Lev Tolstoi's comedy The First Distiller (Pervyi vinokur). (Unfortu- nately, it is impossible to assess the quality of these five to fifteen- minute long films since none have survived). That same year, Pro- tazanov embarked on a full-fledged directing career making his debut with a drama based on a folk song, Pesn' katorzhanina, followed by a literary adaptation, The Song of the Vatic Oleg (Pesn' о veshchem

193 Olege), based on Pushkin's poem. For the next thirty years, Protazanov would alternate unabashedly commercial pictures with ambitious literary adaptations that required a keen sense of compatibility of classical texts with the narrative specifics of cinema. Protazanov possessed this sense like few others. He also had an exceptional intuition in regard to the public's taste, including the ap- peal of sensational topics. His third film as director was again a literary adaptation, Leonid Andreev's drama Anfisa (1912), for which Andreev himself wrote the screenplay. Its success was reassuring, and when producer Paul Thiemann was approached with the idea of making a bio- graphical film about Lev Tolstoi's last years, he entrusted this daring project to his young protege, Iakov Protazanov. The resulting picture, The Departure of a Great Elder, although not a literary adaptation, dealt with the power of literature and the dramatic circumstances in which it was created, as well as with the ideals that it conveyed and their consequences. Protazanov's daring and directness in approaching the personal drama of Lev Tolstoi caused a sensation - and a scandal.

2 At the film's beginning, we see Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi briskly walking in the forest: an imposing elderly man in peasant garb display- ing youthful energy despite the cane in his hand. This first shot from Iakov Protazanov's The Departure of a Great Elder8 (Ukhod velikogo startsa) looks so authentic that one can easily mistake it for a documentary shot. Indeed, the film's set designer, Ivan Kavaleridze,9 a gifted sculptor with great enthusiasm for cinema, devoted enormous skill to creating Tolstoi's appearance with a maximum believability. The authenticity was supported by the two cameramen's skillful emulation of well-known documentary images of the late writer. Indeed, one of them, Georges Meyer, had shot a documentary at Astapovo station in 1910 and in Iasnaia Poliana in 1912. Thus, it is sometimes impossible to tell whether one sees staged or live images, especially since some documentary footage was edited into the film. The Departure of a Great Elder was a large-scale project. With its roughly half hour duration (800 m),i° it exceeded the typical length of a feature film in those years.11 The screenplay was written by Isaak Ten- eromo, a "third-rate writer"12 (according to film historian Semen Ginzburg), who had, however, met Tolstoi in person on several occasions and talked to him about the cultural potential of cinema. It was

194 Teneromo who initially approached Thiemann with the idea of a feature film that would thematize Tolstoi's escape from Iasnaia Poliana and his death at Astapovo station. The proposal was artistically tempting and, from the point of view of genre, pioneering. Although some silent pictures already had been made in the genre of the so-called biopic,13 i.e., fictionalized biographies of famous historical figures, none had dared to include characters that were still alive. The Departure of a Great Elder also promised to be a commercial success since anything associated with Tolstoi's life and works generated considerable attention in Russia and abroad. Nonetheless, the picture's alternative title, The Life of L.N. Tolstoi (Zhizn' L.N. Tolstogo), was promising too much as the film in reality concentrates on Tolstoi's final year and includes only a few brief flashbacks showing his pedagogical experiments and work as a cobbler. The plot structure is episodic: each explanatory caption (for example, "L.N. Tolstoi and the leading Tolstoian, V. Chertkov"; "Mental crisis. Departure from Iasnaia Poliana," etc.), is followed by an episode visualizing the announced event or situation. Protazanov who worked on his new project with youthful brio, un- derestimated the severity of the public reaction to the film. Even before it was released, the amount paid by the distributor - the company "I. Er- mol'ev, A. Zarkhin i A. Segel'" from Rostov-on-the Don - to the production company Thiemann & Reinhardt made headlines: 40,000 rubles for a film was an unprecedented sum, about eight times as much as the usual fee for a feature film.14 Moreover, the Tolstoi family, in particular Sofia Andreevna, expressed unease about the project. To avoid a public confrontation, on 11 November 1912, Thiemann organized a closed screening for a small number of people, including relatives and friends of the late author. According to the newspaper Peterburgskii listok, Tolstoi's son, Lev L'vovich, stated: "Unfortunately, I have to say that the rumors circulating in the city about the outrageous mockery of my late father's name are absolutely true (chisteishaia pravda). I have watched with my own eyes this disgusting film from beginning to end and did my utmost to prevent its release. In Russia it will not be demonstrated. This I can say with certainty."15 The press was split on the matter: some papers took the filmmakers' side, others claimed to defend the rights of the family. One of the more objective articles reported: "The screenplay for this film was written by a person who was close to Tolstoi, who knew the intimate life of the whole family and pursued the goal of clarifying the tragedy of the

195 great writer's soul. (...) The final events of L.N. Tolstoi's life were conveyed with photographic exactitude." According to this article, Tol- stoi's children found that their mother's personality was depicted in an unsightly light. For that reason, they asked for the film not to be demonstrated, at least not in Russia during countess S.A. Tolstaia's lifetime. The film's owner (...) acquiesced. Thereafter, S.A. Tolstaia under- took a number of steps so that the censors would not give permission for the film's release. But these steps were unnecessary. The film will be screened abroad in the nearest future.16 This report coincides with several other testimonies, including Protazanov's own account in which he added that Teneromo's screenplay was read and carefully edited by several people who had known Tolstoi closely and who made sure that nothing vulgar and offensive would be shown in the film.17 Despite all their efforts, Protazanov and the producers were accused of cheap sensationalism in pursuit of crude financial purposes. Some facts indeed may corroborate that The Departure of a Great Elder was just as exploitative and marred by shameless cronyism as were so many other early silent movies; thus, the involvement of the producer's sister, Elizaveta Thiemann, who was hired as "co-director" and also played Tolstoi's daughter, justifiably could raise eyebrows. But other facts con- tradict that impression, such as the enormous attention devoted to the quality of the acting and the authenticity of the settings which was atyp- ical of sensationalist movies. Likewise, Thiemann's unhesitating agree- ment to not release the film in Russia, without waiting for the censors' verdict or taking legal steps of his own, also demonstrates a more civil disposition than one would expect from a ruthless businessman. Although Protazanov was never naive in commercial matters, it is clear that he held the deepest respect for Tolstoi and his legacy. Fa- mously discreet in talking about himself and his work, the filmmaker made an exception for his embattled early creation. Rather than dis- missing it in hindsight as forgivable juvenilia, Protazanov defended his film in later years, trying to dispel the impression that all he had wanted was to profit from sensational subject-matter. Thus, despite the often aggressive newspaper campaign against his film, he remained loyal to it, stating: "Among my early projects, this picture had the most fasci- nating, the most moving underlying idea."18 When the film was produced, the majority of its protagonists were

196 still alive - Sofia Andreevna, Mania Nikolaevna, Aleksandra L'vov- na, and Vladimir Chertkov. It was certainly very unusual for Russian society to watch famous contemporaries as characters of "real-life dra- mas" on the screen, and to some degree incompatible with common notions of honor. Soviet film historians have judged The Departure of a Great Elder with particular harshness.19 Romil Sobolev wrote: "The film was not released due to protests from the Tolstoi family, but in ac- tuality it was really a bad film: given the quality of cinema at the time, it wais simply impossible to truthfully and deeply explore the complex drama of L. Tolstoi."20 Semen Ginzburg echoed contemporary outrage over Protazanov's film by denouncing the motives leading to its production as philistine (meshchanskoe) curiosity: "The reason why Philistines love to see details of a great man's private life is because it reduces him to their own low level."21 However, a century later, Pro- tazanov's approach seems not as intrusive or inappropriate; "docudra- mas" regularly recreate real events using fictitious elements on the heels of those events, and the claims of celebrities to their privacy have become increasingly immaterial, or even a calculated part of advertis- ing campaigns. Thus a more objective assessment of The Departure of a Great Elder is possible. The film consists of 45 shots.22 On average, each shot is roughly 40-50 seconds long; Protazanov's editing is in tune with the slow narrative pace characteristic of early Russian cinema. Regarding the camera work, the episodes are conveyed statically; cuts within an episode are rare (except through a caption), and only seldom does a change of viewpoint occur, be it through panning or editing. Never does the camera approach its subjects more than to medium shot range; in other words, the film has no close shots. While this, too, was typical of the aesthetics of early Russian cinema, the predominance of long, medium long, and medium shots defines the film's style as a quasi-documentary biograph- ical drama, not a psychological study. Viewing the film today, it is obvious that Protazanov was eager to direct The Depature of a Great Elder because of his fascination with the new medium and its unexplored possibilities. To reconstruct and recreate real events in a way that believably resembles reality must have seemed nothing short of miraculous to the viewers, and electrifying to the artists involved. The work of art designer Ivan Kavaleridze and cin- ematographers Georges Meyer and Aleksandr Levitskii23 deserve spe- cial mention. Kavaleridze, a Ukrainian sculptor, had met the Tolstoi in

197 person and was working on his bust. Together with a prominent make- up artist named Solntsev, he transformed actor Vladimir Shaternikov's face - which had no resemblance to that of Tolstoi - into a veritable mask, achieving an astonishing degree of verisimilitude, a process that took two to three hours before the shooting could begin. Kavaleridze also created a number of decorations whose Spartan simplicity was in accordance with Tolstoian concepts. Meyer and Levitskii used double exposure for soft transitions from past to present in the episode in which Tolstoi tells his sister about his life, and, most famously, for the finale in which Christ welcomes Tolstoi to heaven. Although double exposure had been used before, in Departure of a Great Elder it serves a strictly artistic purpose, not just the creation of an illusion.24 Was Sofia Andreevna right in agonizing over the release of De- parture of a Great Elderl Surely, her depiction is the most unflatter- ing of all characters in the film: harsh, hysterical, theatrical, and greedy. To create such negative portrayal of a prominent person was certainly an assault on her reputation, although there is little doubt that it was based on common perceptions of Tolstoi's wife by the Russian public. The other characters were depicted with indubitable respect and dignity. Therefore, the assertion that all characters appear in a cartoonish distortion, as stated by some contemporary newspapers and later supported by Ginzburg and other scholars, simply does not withstand scrutiny. Furthermore, the claim that Protazanov focused on purely private details from Tolstoi's life is patently untrue. Rather, the episodes pre- ceding Tolstoi's departure from Iasnaia Poliana are of social and philosophical relevance. In the first major scene, a group of peasants ask Tol- stoi for permission to use his land without charge. The countess refuses their request, and Tolstoi apologizes to the peasants, saying: "The land belongs to the countess. I am not the owner (Ne khoziain ia...)" The peasants leave, visibly upset and accusing the writer of hypocrisy. In a subsequent scene, Tolstoi is shown as he secretly writes his will, as- signing authority over his works to Chertkov, when the countess furi- ously interferes. Later, Tolstoi allows a poor widow to gather wood in the forest; yet, mounted guards hired by Sofia Andreevna beat the woman and take her into custody - Tolstoi is ashamed. In the film's second half, Tolstoi tells his sister, a nun at Shamordin monastery, about the plight of his last years but also about the promising beginnings of his social experiments: engaging in physical labor (herding cattle),

198 teaching peasant children, and working as a cobbler... None of these episodes were private in nature, and none were made up by the filmmakers, as some newspapers claimed; rather, they were widely reported at the time and caused considerable resonance in Russia.25 While the aforementioned episodes accurately reflected the conflicts endured by the writer when trying to live up to his pro- claimed principles, the scenes of Tolstoi's attempted suicide and the following "Simulated Suicide by S.A. Tolstaia" - as the intertitle an- nounces - are more speculative and, especially in the second case, denunciatory. But, apparently as a counterbalance, Protazanov in- cluded a scene of reconciliation between Sofia Andreevna and Lev Tolstoi on his deathbed in Astapovo, which was a well-meant ges- ture but historically inaccurate. These objections notwithstanding, The Departure of a Great Elder compares favorably to later Tolstoi biopics such as Sergei Gerasimov's pseudo-idyllic Lev Tolstoi (1984), for Protazanov was willing to confront essential issues of Tolstoi's worldview and their consequences. Arguably the most impressive part of this film is its finale. In an extremely long, very slow panning shot we see a panorama of Astapovo station: a network of railroads and buildings forming a barren landscape and conveying an air of gray sadness and hopelessness. This shot, together with a later one of Lev Tolstoi on his deathbed, is non-fictitious, and some- thing in these documents' respectful restraint signals that we are no longer dealing with staged life but with reality in all its uncomfort- able rawness. The contrast to the following shot - Christ admitting Tolstoi into Heaven - could not be starker, connecting unadorned re- alistic prose with open religious pathos. Despite the financial and public relations fiasco suffered on De- parture of a Great Elder 26 Protazanov returned to the genre of biopic one year later. How Beautiful, How Fresh Were the Roses... (Как khoroshi, как svezhi byli rozy...) tells the story of Ivan Turgenev's love affair with a serf girl; it features, among other historical characters, Pauline Viardot and Lev Tolstoi who again was played by Vladimir Shaternikov. In 1914, Protazanov's colleague, Vladimir Gardin, directed an adaptation of Kreutzer Sonata (Kreitserova sonata), introducing a narrative frame in which Pozdnyshev tells Tolstoi his story on a train. However, the performance delivered by Mikhail Tamarov was far less convincing than that of Shaternikov, who had tragically perished in the first weeks of World War IJ 3 The beginning of the war changed the working conditions for Rus- sia's film industry profoundly, mainly by cutting off the flow of foreign pictures which had supplied about 80% of the Russian market. The out- break of war also caused a significant shift in the country's cultural at- mosphere, stimulating - at least initially - the production of films with an explicit patriotic message. Following anti-German demonstrations in Moscow, the inscription at Thiemann and Reinhardt's building as well as the posters advertizing their new pictures were hastily changed. The company's main owner, the German national Pavel Gustavovich Timan (Thiemann), found himself under pressure to prove his loyalty to his host country. He was eager to oblige with a grandiose picture that would out- shine all other companies. Therefore, when he heard about a planned adaptation of Tolstoi's War and Peace by the second-rate producer Taldykin, Thiemann reacted with a so-called sryv, i.e. a disruption of another company's timetable by releasing a picture similar to that of the competitor just a few days earlier, thus securing the lion's share of the ex- pected profits - a common practice in Russia's film industry at the time. Another producer, the cultured and equally commercially shrewd Alek- sandr Khanzhonkov, had the same idea. Thus, at the beginning of 1915, three companies began a race for the earliest release of War and Peace F Thiemann entrusted the project to his most successful directors, Iakov Protazanov and Vladimir Gardin. Both were used to working within tight schedules and immediately began to write the screenplay, cast the performers, and gather items for the historical decorations, inviting stars of the Moscow Art Theater and tapping into their proper- ties department as well. Meanwhile, Petr Chardynin, who was directing War and Peace for Khanzhonkov, feverishly pursued his version which featured great names of silent Russian cinema such as Vera Karalli and Ivan Moz- zhukhin. Protazanov and Gardin made up for the lack of large studio space (which Khanzhonkov had provided for his director) by renting the spectacular "Napoleon Hall" in the restaurant Iar for one day so they could shoot the scene of Natasha's first ball with utmost lavishness. The two directors worked simultaneously not just during the day, but at night as well. Interestingly, in order to save time and money, none of the three competing companies filmed any battle scenes, focusing instead on the characters' private lives and a few episodes in the Russian and French armies' respective headquarters. After six days of shooting,28 Pro-

200 tazanov and Gardin's film was ready as a negative; the positive was printed immediately, in the morning of 13 February 1915, and released in several copies in the evening of the same day.29 Thanks to Pro- tazanov's and Gardin's efficiency, Thiemann presented a full-length feature version of War and Peace, part I, two weeks earlier than Khanzhonkov. The latter was forced to rename his film into Natasha Rostova whose box office returns were, not surprisingly, moderate com- pared to Thiemann's blockbuster. (Part II of the Thiemann/Pro- tazanov/Gardin version was released on 14 April, 1915, again to great acclaim). The third competitor, Taldykin, and his director, Anatolii Ka- menskii, decided not to release their adaptation in Russia at all; however, they were able to sell it abroad and thus recover the costs.30 Pro- tazanov and Gardin's War and Peace successfully ran in most of Russia's film theaters and was released internationally by Pathe.si Since none of the three silent screen versions of War and Peace have survived, it is hard to judge their aesthetic quality. Moisei Aleinikov, Protazanov's loyal collaborator in the 1910s and 1920s, later wrote about his picture: The one accomplishment that these adaptations had in common was the relative closeness of their personae to the characters in the literary originals. This is particularly true of [Protzanov's] films based on the works of L. Tolstoi. In this regard, the personae of War and Peace were particularly distinct and memorable: Pierre Bezukhov (portrayed by the Moscow Art Theater actor N. Rumi- antsev), Natasha Rostova (O. Preobrazhenskaia), Prince Andrei (N. Nikol'skii), Kutuzov (G. Novikov), Napoleon (V. Gardin), and others. Their thoughtful interpretation of the roles created a number of impressive visualizations of the novel. This was greatly supported by the contribution of the designer and sculptor I. Kava- leridze who was in charge of make-up and costumes. But Aleinikov concedes that the film merely provided illustrations of War and Peace without capturing the complex transformations of its characters.32 In 1916, Protazanov once again turned to Tolstoi, this time to the novel Family Happiness (Semeinoe schast'e). It is hard to imagine how silent cinema was able to transfer the peculiarities of the 1859 original - a two-part narrative told in the first person by its female protagonist - in a meaningful way onto the screen. Indeed, Family Happiness seems to be among the least "filmable" works in Tolstoi's oeuvre, resisting any

201 attempt of pure visualization and making sound a vital necessity for di- alogues and first-person narration. Like War and Peace, Protazanov's Family Happiness no longer exists; the critical responses are limited and contradictory. In his fundamental study of early Russian cinema, Semen Ginzburg calls the film a failure: "...'Family Happiness' (...) did not rise above the usual level of mediocre 'film illustrations'."33 Ginzburg gives no supporting arguments for this assessment; it is not even clear where he might have seen the film which had been lost for decades. Moisei Aleinikov, who followed Protazanov's work closely since the mid-1910s and who worked for Iosif Ermol'ev's company that produced Family Happiness, judges the film quite differently: In this picture, the director succeeded in conveying major ideas of the great author about love and passion: that they do not represent the entirety of human life, that love and youthful passion pass but human happiness does not, as long as the conscience is not stained by betrayal, dishonesty, and duplicity (...). The film Family Happi- ness was distinguished by the simplicity, laconic style, and lucidity that are characteristic of Tolstoi's narration. Among the performers, V. Oriova was particularly memorable. Her Masha - a sensitive, vir- tuous woman - was close to many contemporary viewers because of her emotional confusion and struggle with herself. The happiness ac- quired by the heroine brought the viewer joy and encouragement.34

4 Protazanov's Father Sergius, shot in 1917 and released in 1918, was his last Tolstoi adaptation35 as well as the last large-scale picture directed by him in pre-Communist Russia. By general consent, it is also the greatest Russian silent film prior to the Soviet era.36 Protazanov had reached a point in his career when he enjoyed un- paralleled artistic freedom. Iosif Ermol'ev, his producer after his fallout with Thiemann in 1915, knew that he could fully trust the director's intuition and backed him financiallyt o an extent that was unimaginable in the case of other filmmakers. Father Sergius was a more ambitious project than any of Protazanov's previous pictures, not only in regard to budget, length, number of sets, and stellar cast, but also to the film's underlying concept which had a philosophical depth without analogy in the director's best earlier work. Aleksandr Volkov, Protazanov's friend and also an experienced director, wrote the script. Shooting began in February/March 1917 and lasted almost until the end of the year. As the

202 film was made during the brief liberal interlude between tsarist and So- viet censorship, one of the main legal hurdles - a tsar could not be featured as the character of a feature film - was no longer valid, and the central plotline involving Tsar Nikolas's affair with Mary Korotkova which drives Sergius into seclusion, could be shown in full. Location shooting took place in Zvenigorod, Novyi Ierusalim, and in Moscow's "Dvorianskoe sobranie" in which the grandiose ball scene was filmed. Ivan Mozzhukhin's performance in the title role stands out as one of the greatest accomplishments of Russian cinema, flawlessly capturing Kasatskii/Sergii's development from temperamental teenager to silver- haired hermit. Equally convincing are Natal'ia Lisenko as the widow Makovkina, Vladimir Gaidarov as Nikolas I, and Vera Orlova as the young, mentally deranged temptress. The film's premiere took place on 30 April (17Л old style) 1918.37 Shortly thereafter, Protazanov left Moscow for the Crimea as a member of Iosif Ermol'ev's entourage. His departure and subsequent emigration to France turned Father Sergius into his unintended Russian swan song .38 At first sight, the director's choice of Tolstoi's late novella may seem surprising. What significance could the personal disappointment of a young nobleman in his adored tsar have at a time when the entire empire was crumbling? Why should contemporary Russians, demoral- ized by political instability, destruction, and disorientation care about a self-centered maximalist from a bygone epoch? However, despite its historical setting, "Father Sergius" was not viewed as a story belonging to another age. World War I, perceived as the fiasco of a civilization, had demonstrated the relevance of Tolstoi's ideas in the most painful way, and Sergii's feeling of moral and spiritual exhaustion was shared by millions. The effects of Tolstoi's moral and social impulses were felt as if the writer was still alive. Conspicuously, Protazanov had begun to ponder the possibility of adapting "Father Sergius" for the screen at a time when the novella had just been in print for a few years - in 1915.39 In other words, for him, Tolstoi's late work was very much a contemporary text, not an arcane masterpiece.40 And Protazanov's directorial approach revealed just that - the view of a contemporary. Tolstoi's "Father Sergius"4! has been interpreted in a number of ways, predominantly as an anti-tsarist and anti-religious work exposing the Orthodox Church as a corrupt institution feeding on the naivete of the faithful.42 Some Western critics saw the story's main theme as a man's struggle with his sexual desires.43 In Protazanov's film, hypocrisy and

203 corruption are depicted with the same unprecedented candor as the sexual motif. The latter appears most powerfully in the scene of Sergii's attempted seduction by the widow Makovkina in which the clash between physiological drive and normative self-restriction is visualized by divid- ing the frame in half, violating the realism of the set but making the conceptual point abundantly clear. When Sergii chops off a finger, Pro- tazanov shows the self-immolation in a close shot which renders the act of symbolic self-castration even more obvious than in Tolstoi's text because of its shockingly graphic depiction. Tolstoi's novella is sufficiently ambiguous to allow for a number of interpretive approaches.44 First and foremost, Prince Kasatskii's evolution from devoted cadet to anonymous beggar is that of a searcher for life in accordance with truth and decency. The longer Kasatskii explores society, the more disenchanted in its institutions he becomes. Tolstoi leaves no doubt that this disenchantment applies to all institutions, not just tsarist or religious ones; the motif of successive disenchantment with society per se already was formulated in some of his earlier works and represents an important part of his worldview. From an existential- psychological viewpoint, Father Sergius can be read as a reflection on the process of maturation and acceptance of life's imperfection, i.e., as a case study of normal, albeit prolonged and torturous personal growth. However, Kasatskii/Sergii's heightened self-awareness in his struggle for self-perfection becomes obsessive and narcissistic, at times moving into the realm of the pathological. A more metaphysical approach can interpret the story as a drama of unchosenness: Kasatskii/Sergii, eager to distinguish himself from the rest of the world, seeks not so much spiritual and moral perfection as he craves attention and recognition as a chosen one - and collapses when he realizes that he is not. His desire to remain chaste, then, can be understood as a form of inverted arrogance that is the opposite of the Christian ideal of humility and selflessness. A strong argument in favor of the latter interpretation is the focus on Pashen'ka in the novella's finale: without being aware of it - or, rather, because of her unawareness - this poor music teacher embodies the very ideals for which Kasatskii had been striving in vain. Protazanov's film preserves some of the disturbing ambiguities of the original text, avoiding any explicit message of "right" and "wrong." As a matter of fact, his interpretation of Tolstoi's novella is more deliberately non-didactic than the original. This may be the reason why Protazanov decided to exclude the culminating episode of the

204 novella, Sergii's encounter with Pashen'ka.45 Ginzburg, whose overall praise of the film is convincing, assumes that the director was influ- enced by fashionable decadent pessimism to the extent that he could not identify any constructive solution for his central character. The film's finale, he states, "is perceived [by the viewer] as a new circle of the psychological and physical torments of the main character."46 Irina Grashchenkova, who has analyzed Protazanov's spiritual and religious views with great sympathy, views the film's final shots - Sergii/Kasatskii amidst a group of convicts sent to Siberia - as the prophetic anticipation of a new age of exile and concentration camps 47 For Tolstoi, Pashen'ka embodied the positive alternative to Sergii's proud ethical maximalism, shown in her modesty, kindness, and life- long self-sacrifice. This conclusion was the only element of Tolstoi's work that Protazanov either found impossible to convey on the screen, or that he deemed no longer plausible. Stylistically, Father Sergius represents all the strengths of Russian classical silent cinema while also retaining some of its weaknesses. Se- men Ginzburg's claim that in Father Sergius Protazanov used cinematic innovations more daringly than in his previous films stands uncor- roborated; from a cinematic point of view, The Queen of Spades (1916) is far more innovative and inventive. But for Protazanov, experimenta- tion was never an aim in itself; rather, formal considerations had to be based on functional principles. His adaptation of Father Sergius pos- sesses narrative grandeur and majestic pace but does not break new cinematic ground. Its supreme goal was to show the essence of a life in its catastrophic evolution. Thus, in order to capture the main character's strained relations with society, the range of shot types is dominated by medium and full shots. Several of the 142 shots that make up the film are extremely long in duration, making the film inconvenient for an un- prepared viewer who is used to modern fast-paced montage. But it is precisely this deliberate slowness that gives the cinematic vita - or anti- vita - of Prince Kasatskii/Sergii its unhurried dignity. It may well be that, having witnessed the horrific world war, the abdication of the last tsar, and the introduction of liberal bourgeois leg- islation, Protazanov sensed that the Russia of old was about to disap- pear forever. This could explain why his cinematic interpretation of Tol- stoi's Father Sergius, in its dark tonality and rhythm, resembles a requiem - a quality that has secured this silent Tolstoi adaptation a unique status in the history of Russian film.

205 Notes 1 Major Russian filmmakers for whom the classical literary heritage was of supreme importance were Vladimir Petrov (1896-1966), Sergei Gerasimov (1906- 1985), and Sergei Bondarchuk (1920-1994), among others. 2 See U.A. Gural'nik, Russkaia literatura i sovetskoe kino (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Nauka," 1968), p. 285. 3 L. Nikulin, "V tsarstve tenei (iz proshlogo). Iskusstvo kino, 1949, №5, p. 42. Quoted in Gural'nik, Russkaia literatura i sovetskoe kino (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Nau- ka," 1968), p. 285-86. 4 In Cine-fono, 1910, < 16; quoted in M. Aleinikov (ed.), Iakov Protazanov (Mosk- va: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo "Iskusstvo," 1957), p. 9. 5 Information provided by the Russian film historian Vsevolod Vishnevskij quoted in Letopis' rossiiskogo kino 1863-1929 (Moskva: Materik, 2004), p. 117. 6 The work of Vladimir Gardin (1877-1965) in the 1910s was also dominated by literary adaptations. However, Gardin never shared Protazanov's stylistic ambition; rather, he was perfectly content with aesthetically pedestrian "film illustrations" such as Anna Karenina, Kreutzer Sonata (both 1914) and numerous others. 7 It is not clear if the actual film was ever released. 8 In translating the word "starets" from the title, I have opted for "elder" instead of "old man" which commonly has been used in English sources on Protazanov (cf. De- parture of a Great Old Man, for example, in Ian Christie and Julian Graffy (eds.), Pro- tazanov and the Continuity of Russian Cinema [London: British Film Institute, 1993]). "Elder" conveys more precisely the notion of "wise man" and has a spiritual connotation. My thanks go to Prof. Galina Shatalina for her advice on the issue. 9 Ivan Petrovich Kavaleridze (1887-1979) was a prominent Ukrainian sculptor who began to direct films in the late 1920s. His early pictures were unusual because of their static appearance, with actors arranged in sculpture-like positions. 10 Other sources indicate the film originally was longer, namely, 952 m. See Velikii kinemo (Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2002), p. 125. 11 The typical length of a film in the early days of Russian cinema was between 180- 400 meters, i.e. approximately five to ten minutes in duration. 12 S. Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Iskusstvo, 1963), p. 146. 13 For example, the patriotic Zhizn' i smert' Pushkina (1910) by Vasilii Goncharov. 14 Cf. Veritas, "40000 r. za fil'm!," Vestnik Kinematogrqfii 1912, №50, pp. 3-4; quoted in Velikii kinemo, pp. 125-26. 15 Peterburgskii listok, 8 November, 1912, quoted in Mikhail Arlazorov, Pro- tazanov (Moskva: "Iskusstvo," 1973), p. 39, and in Letopis' rossiiskogo kino 1863-1929, p. 119 (with the date given as 12 November). 16 Rannee utro, 13 November 1912, quoted in Letopis' rossiiskogo kino 1863-1929, p. 119. 17 "Protazanov о sebe." In M.N. Aleinikov (ed.), Iakov Protazanov, pp. 300-301. 18 Quoted from Mikhail Arlazorov,.Protazanov, p. 38. 19 The only exception is Mikhail Arlazorov's cautious endorsement; cf. Mikhail Ar- lazorov, pp. 38-40. 20 R. Sobolev, Liudi ifil'my russkogo dorevoliutsionnogo kino (Moskva: Gosu- darstvennoe izdatel'stvo Iskusstvo, 1961), p. 93. 206 21 Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, p. 146. 22 The number depends on whether one counts a caption after which the previous shot continues as an actual cut or not. If the insertion of captions is seen as "creating" more shots, the overall number of shots in The Departure of a Great Elder is slightly higher. 23 Levitskii, who later became one of the most influential Soviet cameramen, was first hired by Path6 as assistant to the experienced Georges Meyer inl910. Inl912he was already an independent cinematographer. 24 M. Kushnirov falsely claims that Levitskii in Departure of a Great Elder "for the first time in our country applied double exposure to create the illusion of a ghost." (M. Kushnirov, "A.A. Levitskii." In: Desiat' operatorskikh biografii [Moskva: "Iskusstvo," 1978], p. 26). As a matter of fact, double exposure was used in 1910 by Petr Chardynin in the Pushkin adaptation Queen of Spades to show the ghost of the dead countess. 25 This argument was used in defense of the film in the newspaper Utro Rossii, 11 November 1912, as quoted by Arlazorov, op.cit., p. 40. 26 Protazanov's film was never shown in Russia but was sold abroad. Decades later, a copy - albeit without the original captions - was found in a Western archive, ac- quired by the Soviet state film archive, Gosfil'mofond, and remastered in 1989. 27 Cf. M. Arlazorov, Protazanov, pp. 54-57. 28 This number is given by Arlazorov; Protazanov himself stated that for both parts of War and Peace, 18 days of shooting were needed; cf. M.N. Aleinikov (ed.), Iakov Protazanov, p. 306. 29 Vladimir Gardin vividly describes the organizational methods and the resulting physical exhaustion that he and Protazanov underwent. Cf. M.N. Aleinikov, op.cit., pp. 316-18. 30 Cf. Arlazorov, op.cit., p. 57. 31 S. Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, p. 166. 32 M.N. Aleinikov (ed.), Iakov Protazanov, p. 16-17. 33 S. Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, p. 298. 34 M.N. Aleinikov, "Zasluzhennyi master sovetskogo kino." In: M.N. Aleinikov (ed.), Iakov Protazanov, p. 25. 35 The Devil (D'iavol), made by Protazanov from one of Tolstoi's late stories, was released in October of 1914. The film is lost, and reviews could not be found. 36 Romil Sobolev believes that Protazanov's Queen of Spades (Pikovaia dama, 1916) deserves that honor, but he stands relatively isolated with his view. 37 Shortly after the premiere of Father Sergius in Moscow, the producer Ermol'ev and his crew went to Crimea and in 1920 to Paris; Ermol'ev took the film's negative with him and released it in France. Cf. S. Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, p. 376. 38 He returned to Moscow in 1923, agreeing to a deal brokered by Moisei Aleinikov, and going on to become the Soviet Union's first prominent filmdirector . For his firstSo - viet picture, the pro-Communist science fiction extravaganza Aelita (1924), Protazanov was given a budget of unprecedented enormity. Following His Call (Ego prizyv, 1925) which referred to Lenin's legacy, he directed popular comedies such as The Tailorfrom Torzhok (Zakroishchik iz Torzhka, 1925) and the crudely anti-religious Holiday of St. lor gen (Prazdnik sviatogo Iorgena, 1929). Among his later efforts, the Ostrovskii adaptation Girl Without a Dowry (Bespridannitsa, 1936), Savalat Iulaev (aka Eagle of the

207 Steppe, 1940), about the Bashkir liberation struggle, and the folklore-inspired comedy Nasreddin in Bukhara (Nasreddin v Bukhare, 1943) stand out. 39 The novella was first published in Posmertnye khudozhestvennye proizvedeniia L.N. Tolstogo, vol. П, Moskva, 1911. 40 The idea for the novella dates back to December 1889; the firstversio n was written in 1890, and Tolstoi continued to work on it until 1891. He resumed work in 1898; as he writes in his diary, this return came "very unexpectedly." (Gusev, Letopis 'zhizni i tvorch- estvaL'va Nikolaevicha Tolstogo, 1891-1910 [Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1960], p. 288). As usual, Tolstoi was sometimes pleased with it ("Oba dnia pisal Ottsa Sergiia. Nedurno uiasniaetsia." Ibid.), sometimes frustrated ("ne khorosho," op.cit., 289). He considered publishing it in order to raise additional funds for the dukhobory. Cf. L.N. Tolstoi, Sobranie sochinenii v 20 tt. (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Khu- dozhestvennaia literature," 1964), vol. 12, p. 508. Ultimately, he gave up on that plan, although Maksim Gor'kii wrote about an encounter with Tolstoi in 1900 when the writer had related the novella to him in the most vivid manner. Quoted in N.N. Gusev, op.cit., p. 362. 41 Although formally the novella can be considered unfinished, a statement that Tol- stoi made to S.T. Semenov sheds an interesting light on his view of aesthetic complete- ness. He said that "if he dies without having corrected (ne popraviv)... such works as "Khadzhi Murat" and "Father Sergius," they will not lose anything from that (oni nichego ot etogo ne poteriaiut)." Quoted in N.N. Gusev, Letopis' zhizni i tvorchestva L 'va Nikolaevicha Tolstogo, 1891-1910, p. 513. 42 Cf. S.A. Rozanova's remarks: "The off-putting face of the official Church is ex- posed by the writer with persuasive power and truth. (...) [the novella] depicts the true reality of autocratic Russia sharply and harshly." In: L.N. Tolstoi, Sobranie sochinenii v 20 tt, vol. 12, p. 492. See also Irina Grashchenkova, "Iakov Protazanov - rezhisser pravoslavnogo kino?!" Kinovedcheskie zapiski, < 88 (2008), p. 183. 43 For example, Laura Engelstein states that "...Protazanov makes the same point about the imbrications of sex and power that Tolstoy wanted to convey." Laura Engel- stein, Father Sergius (review), The Russian Review, vol. 51, No. 2 (1992), pp. 263-4. R.F. Christian calls "Father Sergius" "the third of the major stories on the theme of sex" R.F. Christian, Tolstoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 234. 44 For a history of the novella's creation and the conceptual transformations it underwent, see V.A. Zhdanov, Ot "Anny Kareninoi" к "Voskreseniiu" (Moskva: Kniga, 1967), pp. 232-57. 45 In a later adaptation of the novella by Igor' Talankin (1978), the episode with Pashen'ka plays a key role. See my comparison of three different adaptations in Peter Rollberg, "Tri ottsa Sergiia." Kinovedcheskie zapiski, < 88 (2008), pp. 32-43. 46 S. Ginzburg, Kinematografiia dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii, p. 379. 47 Irina Grashchenkova, "Iakov Protazanov - rezhisser pravoslavnogo kino?!" Ki- novedcheskie zapiski, < 88 (2008), p. 183,-

208