Page 177 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

158 INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
shot outside the studio amid the ruins. One might detect here the kind of
theatricality that Noel Burch felt in certain sequences of By the Bluest of Seas (and
which is probably also present in Once at Night [Odnazhdy noch’yu, 1948], which I
have not seen). On the other hand, a more likely influence can be traced in the
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many Anglo-American films available during the war. What Barnet took from
these would have fed his desire to construct each film according to a closed,
coherent system.
Barnet’s characteristic shot structure [découpage] and his organisation of space
are evident here: there is symmetry rather than directional or temporal continuity,
and careful attention to the subdivision of space. In one scene, the hero passes in
front of a hairdressing salon in which we see a manicurist; then the same décor
appears from the inside, looking through the window, anticipating a meeting which
is to take place there. The reception at the Pommers’ is set in an elongated room with
the Nazi son in the distance, while the camera follows and ‘punctuates’ on a
secondary character, Frau Pommer; and the false Eckert (the secret agent, or
‘scout’ of the title) occupies a double office where he can in turn observe his
employees and visitors, or shield himself behind a curtain. Other scenes take place
in front of the cinema, with a path leading to the entrance, a grille on one side
where the meeting takes place, a staircase in front of the entrance and the audience
entering and leaving. Two car journeys by the resistance fighters are seen going
from right to left, then from left to right, and so on. Symmetry, scenes repeated; the
first and last kiss between the hero and his fiancée. Trick effects: a photograph of
generals in the newspaper–one suddenly comes alive. Montage: as in the previous
example, scenes which end with a cue leading directly into the next, or which begin
with a close-up, so that the space is progressively discovered by changing the axis
or by camera movement.
Such a formal system might explain indirectly the fame of this film, which
conventional opinion has attributed to the authenticity of its portrayal of events or
to the public’s interest in the subject, whereas war themes had almost been
abandoned by 1947. In these years of Hitchcockian influence–found in films all
over the world, ranging from early Bergman to Shen Fu’s Cutting the Devil’s
Talons [China, 1953]–Barnet was one of the few to use film narration itself as a
source of emotion, following Hitchcock in treatment as well as imagery, and going
against the then predominantly ‘realistic’ trend.
One should thus look forward, at least with curiosity, to the three films Barnet
made during the ‘very difficult’ period of Stalin’s last years. Although he disliked
these, some Western spectators have praised them in whole or in part, and we do
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not have to share the director’s own estimate. In 1957, The Poet [Poet], filmed in
Odessa, recaptured briefly the open-air freshness of Miss Mend, for example, in
the panic-stricken evacuation of the city when the good citizens abruptly turn into a
lynch mob chasing Bolsheviks. Written by a native of Odessa, Valentin Katayev
(as had been Barnet’s Pages from a Life [Stranitsy zhizni, 1948]), this film
probably reflects as much the charming writer of The Squaring of the Circle