Page 124 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE: YAKOV PROTAZANOV AND SOVIET CINEMA 105
circumstances of his early life, however, it is reasonable to surmise that
Protazanov might have been a little bemused to find himself at the centre of a
controversy in which he was cast at the age of 42 as a representative of the ‘old
order’. 7
Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was born in Moscow in 1881, on his mother’s
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side the member of a well-to-do merchant family named Vinokurov. His father, a
somewhat shadowy figure of whom Protazanov’s conservative grandfather
disapproved, was from Kiev, and probably an accountant by profession. The
Vinokurovs were not the prototypical, traditional merchant family, although they
did have some patriarchal and authoritarian characteristics. Contrary to the
stereotype, Protazanov’s mother was reasonably well educated, preferred to speak
French at home, and took her children to the theatre.
Protazanov early evinced an interest in the theatre and was especially attracted
by the glamour of the actors who frequented the Vinokurov residence (where the
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Protazanovs lived) since several relatives were in the ‘business’. And yet, despite
the somewhat eccentric cast to this merchant family, there seems to have been no
question that Protazanov would attend any school other than the Moscow
Commercial School, though his interests and inclinations lay in other areas. After
graduating from the school in 1900, he apparently hoped to enter the Petersburg
Technical Institute to study engineering, but some reversals in family fortunes
forced him to work in an office instead.
This experience as a wage earner was so disagreeable that Protazanov noted in
his own brief memoirs that he was looking for the first opportunity to escape from
‘slavery’. The opportunity finally came in 1904 when he received a 5,000 rouble
inheritance from his father’s aunt. Protazanov left the country in June 1904 and did
not return permanently until 1907. With his characteristic dry humour he observed
that ‘I didn’t finish with slavery, but I did finish off my inheritance very quickly.’ 10
Protazanov travelled all over Europe, but it was his trip to Paris that altered the
course of his life. While there, he added the Pathé studio, centre of pre-war
European cinema, to the standard tourist itinerary. To the surprise (and even
horror) of his family and friends, Protazanov fixed suddenly and irrevocably upon
movie-making as his career of choice. Yet, given his background and character,
cinema held obvious attractions.
Protazanov was something of a rebel, chafing at the strictures of the office job to
which he had been assigned by family tradition. Given that he was apparently little
interested in politics (as demonstrated by his European junkets during the
Revolution of 1905—7), the revolutionary road that served so many of his
generation did not attract him as an outlet for rebellion.11 At the turn of the
century movies were considered a bastard ‘art’ and film-making was an outré
profession, if one even dared to call it a profession. It offered Protazanov the
opportunity to thumb his nose at his respectable family, throw off the chains of his
regimented job, and indulge in his interest in theatre. That cinema held out the
promise of making a great deal of money while having a good time also attracted him
to film but, given the course of his career, one should not overemphasise this point. 12