Page 112 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY 93
6
PARIS–MOSCOW–MARS
Although the Martian scenes occupy little more than a quarter of the film, they
have constituted the film’s main claim to fame. But the question posed by Rotha
and others still stands: is their fantastic décor ‘motivated’? Certainly Rotha’s
unfavourable comparison with Callgari can be rebutted: the stylisation of Aelita
represents just as much ‘the thoughts of a distorted mind’ as does that of the German
film. Indeed the relationship between the two films seems to have been quite
explicit, at least for those involved. According to Huntly Carter, an early traveller to
Soviet Russia and writer on its theatre and cinema, Alexandra Exter personally
43
cited Caligari as her main inspiration. This would be consistent with the
assumption that Caligari pointed towards an explicitly cultural strategy for
European national cinemas, faced with growing American trade hegemony and
protectionism. Only by creating ‘cultural difference’ could they hope to compete
with the efficiency and universal appeal of American entertainment cinema. So, in
place of the ‘Expressionism’ of Caligari, Aelita deployed the latest fruits of the close
relationship that linked avant-garde Russian artists with the theatre. But this
‘motivation’ scarcely does justice to the remarkable integration of architecture,
décor, costume and indeed acting, which remained unequalled until Lang’s
Metropolis [Germany, 1926]–a film backed by much vaster resources and
reputedly in part inspired by Aelita. 44
Here again, the impetus may well have come from Protazanov, who had spent
his French sojourn amid the Russian émigrés of the Ermolieff [Yermoliev] group
who were close to the avant-garde cinéastes then pre-occupied with introducing
45
modernist art and design into their productions. In Paris Protazanov would
certainly have been aware of the activities of Louis Delluc, prophet of photogénie
and organiser of the first French screenings of Caligari in 1921, and of Ricciotto
Canudo, promoter of Le Club des Amis du Septième Art (CASA), which brought
together artists, architects, poets and musicians to contribute to raising the artistic
46
level of cinema. He might even have known of L’Herbier’s production
L’Inhumaine, started in September 1923, which combined the Art Deco
architecture of Robert Mallet-Stevens with a kaleidoscope of striking décors,
costumes and artefacts, including a laboratory set designed and built by the Cubist
painter Fernand Léger. 47
Léger was also one of the circle of French artists whom Alexandra Exter
already knew from pre-war visits to Paris and, when she moved there permanently
in the same year as Aelita, she soon began teaching at his Académie de l’Art
48
Moderne. We may never know the exact sequence of events that led to Exter’s
involvement in Aelita, but it is clear that, whether this was cause or effect, it brought
to the production both a cosmopolitan awareness of design trends in Western
Europe and a distinctive Russian tradition, namely that of the Moscow Kamerny
Theatre. For it was at the Kamerny that Exter had played a leading part in
realising Alexander Tairov’s vision of an ‘emancipated’ theatre in the three