Ben Meiselman RUSS298K Spring 2007

Isolation and Power

The Theme of the Artist in Ivan the Terrible Part II and The Steamroller and the Violin
Sergei Eisenstein was a pioneer in cinematic theory and technique. Ten years after Eisensteins death in 1948, Andrei Tarkovsky directed his first film as a student at the Soviet State Film School. Tarkovsky went on to become one of the most accomplished Soviet directors and to make his own contribution to film theory. The careers of these two influential directors together span nearly the entire duration of the Soviet Union. This paper will look at the artist figure in Eisensteins last completed film, Ivan the Terrible Part II, and at the artist figure in Tarkovskys undergraduate thesis film, The Steamroller and the Violin. It will put these two treatments into the historical context in which the films were produced and into the context of the directors cinematic theories and careers. Based on their theories and their actual treatment of the artist figure in the two films, this paper will draw conclusions about how Eisenstein and Tarkovsky envisioned the role of the film viewer. A natural question to ask at this point would be whether an artist figure is even present in Ivan II. This paper will focus on the title character Ivan. As a film about an authoritarian ruler created during the regime of another authoritarian ruler, Ivan II clearly invites comparisons between Ivan and Stalin. However, Eisenstein gave Ivan more complexity than that initial comparison would reveal. Eisenstein himself said he also

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used Ivan as a representation of himself (according to class discussion), and therefore Ivan will be examined here as an artist figure. The narrative of Ivan II is primarily about Ivans consolidation of power at the expense of the boyars and their plot to overthrow him. Although the official reception of Ivan I was the Stalin Prize and the official reception of Ivan II was censorship, the two films treatments of Ivan are fairly consistent. Ivans goal throughout is the Great Cause of unifying and strengthening Russia, by means of reclaiming political power from the self-interested boyars. He becomes more isolated and his tactics become more brutal as a result of the successive realization that each of his closest friends (Andrei Kurbsky, Fyodor Kolychev) and relatives (Efrosinia) betray him. In Ivans words,
The people support me. My personal guard forms an iron ring around me. My enemies are kept at bay. But I have no close friends. God refuses me the sweet consolations of friendship. On whose shoulders can I rest my head? With whom can I share my joys and sorrows? I am alone, abandoned.

The scene that includes Ivans flashback to his childhood provides an interesting opportunity to observe not only the films visual portrayal of tsar Ivan, but also the films visual portrayal of Ivans image of himself. The general theme of eyes and surveillance, which pervades the scenery throughout the film, is also played out through Ivans eye movements in this scene. The young Ivan literally turns to face the boyars and stands in front of them defiantly. Ivans physical relationship to other characters is often that of a ruler to ruled, sitting on a throne, but he also prostrates himself in this scene to Fyodor Kolychev. This suggests that the artist is in some way defiant, and can selectively be controlled or be in control. Eisensteins representation of the artist thus involves isolation and the exercise of power. While Ivan uses political power to shape reality, the artist uses creative power to

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shape a representation of reality. Through the visual motif of eyes and especially Ivans eye movements, Ivan II suggests that the artist is in a constant state of close observation of his environment. In The Steamroller and the Violin, the artist figure is a seven year old boy named Sasha who plays the violin. Sasha is tormented by other children and smothered by the authority figures in his life, namely his music teacher and his mother. Sasha befriends a worker named Sergei who operates a steamroller. Steamroller shows the artist to be small, imaginative, isolated, and defiant. Sasha also struggles with his identity as an artist. Visually, Steamroller makes the artist figure appear to be small. Beyond the fact that Sasha is a child, the shot composition frequently minimizes Sashas size in relation to his environment. As he enters the building for his music lesson, the hallway dwarfs him. He sits on a chair that is clearly too large for him in the waiting area. In the lesson itself he stands in front of imposingly tall windows, and he is obscured briefly when his large teacher, who is usually shot from a low angle, crosses the screen. The wheel of the steamroller is taller than Sasha, who stands next to it. The film portrays Sasha as a dreamer. In the films reality, Sasha squints often, especially as a reaction to reflections from mirrors, glass, or water. The viewer also gets to see shots from Sashas point of view, even in his minds eye as he imagines several sequences. In the imagination sequences, Sasha smiles broadly. His music teacher says, What should I do with you? Too much imagination. Imagination is what makes Sasha happy.

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Sasha is isolated from the people around him. Even the two people nearest to him are separated from him. He opens up to the girl in the waiting area of the music lessons by giving her an apple. She accepts his overtures by eating the apple, but when his lesson is over he skulks away without even looking at her. Sashas relationship with Sergei is cut off by Sashas mother, who forbids him from meeting up with Sergei for the movie as promised. Sasha is very disappointed, but he contents himself with an imagined meeting with Sergei on the steamroller. Sasha resists external control. His music teacher wants him to count and to play in rhythm. She makes him start over three times before giving up on his playing according to the dictated tempo. Sasha is either unable or unwilling to do this, but from the quality of his music it seems more like a choice. The teachers attempted imposition of a metronome echoes the counting game played by one of the children who torments Sasha. Sasha takes pride in his music, but he is sensitive about being different from others. At lunch with Sergei, someone asks what kind of worker Sasha is, to which Sergei replies that he is a musician, suggesting that Sasha is not a worker at all. Sasha is offended by this. There is, however, something different about Sasha. Though one of the children who torment Sasha carries a trumpet, it is Sasha who is called musician. Stalins Terror muted or at the very least distorted the artistic process by encouraging self censorship and enforcing actual censorship. This was the environment in which Ivan II was produced. Films were judged based on how well they fit into the paradigm of Socialist Realism. Producing art with an unacceptable political message put the artist personally at risk. Through careful planning, pandering and a bit of deception,

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Eisenstein secured an enthusiastic official response to Ivan I despite its ambiguities. He was not as successful with Ivan II, which was banned and not released until 1958, or Ivan III, which was left unfinished. Eisenstein began directing films in the experimental stage of Soviet cinema in the relatively unfettered 1920s. Although his films were criticized as formalistic and inaccessible, the international success of Battleship Potemkin earned him a high status among Soviet directors. Eisenstein left the Soviet Union to make films elsewhere as the mechanisms of censorship developed in the 1930s. He was compelled by the government to return. His next project was aggressively attacked by the chief of the Soviet film industry, Boris Shumiatsky, and subsequently abandoned. Eisenstein came out with Alexander Nevsky in 1938. Alexander Nevsky was well received by critics and audiences, and it prompted the Soviet Union to commission the production of a film about Ivan IV, which Eisenstein expanded into what he hoped would be a trilogy (Neuberger, Introduction). After Stalins death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev presided over the thaw of the Soviet Unions icy artistic environment (Woll, 4). Although art was still censored and many films that were produced were put on the shelf until Gorbachev instituted glasnost in the 1980s, the personal risk associated with artistic expression was reduced and the range of what was considered acceptable was expanded. In this environment, only two years after Ivan II was released, Tarkovsky directed Steamroller. Tarkovsky enjoyed success with many of his subsequent films, which he continued making until his death in 1986.

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The boy is always dwarfed by whatever is around him. The wheel of the tractor is bigger than he is. Narrative. The other boys make fun of him, torment him. He has a degree of control the music teacher tells him to count but he does not. The worker allows him to drive the tractor. Its not a tractor, its a steamroller, duh. One of the other boys has a trumpet, and yet he is the musician. Hes much smaller than the worker. He sticks up for the little guy whos getting hit with a ball. Reward is a scuffle. Why does he go into that room? He feels safe because the worker is around. He got beat up but in the end he gives the ball to the kid who was getting beaten. Hes always squinting and rubbing his eyes artist as observer Things he watches and is pleased by reflections and clearing away everything came crashing down They meet up in a huge empty lot??? If there are multiple characters in a shot including the boy, he is often in the background. Fragility my mother boils my milk. Trouble cutting the bread, worker does it no problem. Hes shot from below when he begins to play for the worker, with the reflection of the water lighting him up. He looks much bigger when he is practicing his craft. Mother comments on dirty hands SASHA is the kid. SERGEI is the steamroller driver. Ivan Part II You still get a flashback to ivans childhood as he tells the story of his mothers death. Kurbsky is in the polish court, plotting against him, support the boyars, support the dunce Kolychev is in his own court, claiming to be Philip, a man of god Ivans feet dangle as a teen Two advisors. One is bribed by the livonians, the other by the hansa. If they dont return them voluntarily, well take them back by force. Ivan asserts his authority against the boyars also. Seizes the most powerful one. Vows to rule without the boyars, as tsar. I hold great power. The people support me. My personal guard forms an iron ring around me. My enemies are kept at bay. But I have no close friends. God refuses me the sweet consolations of friendship. On whose shoulders can I rest my head? With whom can I

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share my joys and sorrows? I am alone, abandoned. I had a single close friend Anastasia. She has left me. I had a friend, kurbsky he has betrayed me. No not just myself, our great cause. I dont fear the trouble makers I dont fear the sword, poison or betrayal. I fear not for myself, but I tremble for our great cause, a new cause, on which one had hardly embarked. Great tradition of heeding the boyars you lie Ivan is always stooping Inner conflict by what right do you judge, ivan? hes judging kolychev looks straight up who is he talking to when he looks up? God? He figures out that it was efrosinia, but he seems genuinely to not have known it was she that killed his wife? Mother? Even though he always lays these traps Boyar is a prince of the church Kolychev takes up arms not for himself, but for the church, just as ivan takes it up for the greater cause Ivan offers a ploy Eisenstein offers a ploy? Both Eisenstein and Tarkovsky discuss the importance of executing their theories. The work could all have been done in my head. But there is a certain danger in not having to reach final conclusions: its all too easy to be satisfied with glimmers of intuition, rather than sound, coherent reasoning. In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky emphasizes the distinct nature of film as opposed to other art forms, in the sense that stories and ideas that are appropriate to convey in one form might not be as fitting in another form. As a basis for his film Ivans Childhood, Tarkovsky used a short story by Bogomolov. Tarkovsky believed the story had cinematic potential despite the fact that he derived little joy from the detached, detailed, leisurely narrative. Poetic reasoning is closer to the laws by which thought develops, and thus to life itself, than is the logic of traditional drama. (20) Through poetic connections feeling is heightened and the spectator is made more active. (20) linear sequentiality is not as good as associative thinking the artist obliges the audience to build the separate parts into a whole, and to think on, further than has been stated, is the only one that puts the audience on a par with the artist in their perception of the film. 21 an artist is an explorer of lifeone who creates great spiritual treasures and that special beauty which is subject only to poetry. 21

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Eisenstein and Tarkovsky without a doubt use different vocabulary. Eisenstein says that conflict leads to a concept. Tarkovsky says poetic reasoning, the directors subjective interpretation and distortion of reality, leads to a more meaningful reality on screen and in the mind of the viewer. They definitely agree on the uniqueness of film as a medium. Alltogether distinct from any other medium. Tarkovskys essay was written long after he completed Steamroller. So his philosophy of cinema as expressed in the book is probably not quite the same as his philosophy when he directed Steamroller. Masterpieces are born of the artists struggle to express his ethical ideals (27) intellectual versus psychological

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