Page 181 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

162 INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
‘Because if you ever manage to become honest, which would surprise me,
you can remove the word “Soviet”. Now I am a “Soviet director”, although I
only became one recently.’
Then we had a drink and he told me: ‘Above all, don’t watch my films
twice.’ ‘Why?’ I enquired. ‘Because they are made for one viewing and
afterwards, when you go for a walk and remember them, they become
better. I am not’, he told me, ‘a chemist like Eisenstein, who poisons slowly.’
I fell in love with him the first time I saw By the Bluest of Seas. It was in
the editing class given by Felonov, an excellent teacher, who told us: ‘There
is no logic to this film, none at all, and no measurement, but it is very well
filmed.’ (He was used to measuring everything and thought that all films
were calculated.) ‘It is very well made. I am not teaching you the craft in order
to follow this example. I noticed how much you liked it’ (I had badgered him
to let me see it again on the editing table) ‘so here it is, but don’t take it as an
example. Even though it is better made than, say, Ivan the Terrible.’
He was a poet at a time when cinema had thrown out all its
simple, unmannered poets, in order to implant mannerism. Dovzhenko’s
poetry is really mannerism, with those apples around the old man dying….
Barnet’s films like The Girl with a Hatbox and Trubnaya were very much
influenced by their epoch. They were light-hearted and very funny. They
were ironic and even carried their propaganda well: ‘Things are bad,’ they said,
‘but they will improve and this will only be temporary.’
Ideologically, he belonged to that company of film-makers, but morally he
didn’t take part in their games. Why do I say that? Because a director who
had gone through it all and been broken by the demands of the time, who
had started to make films about the kolkhozes, said of him that he was an
enemy. Just like that. Indeed he was distrusted by all his colleagues, for what
he had done? What did By the Bluest of Seas amount to? In our epoch of
construction, with all its serious and weighty problems, what’s all this about a
wave which sweeps a woman into the cabin of a boat? This really has
nothing to do with reality!
I have the impression that professionals, the same ordinary technicians
who still work at Mosfilm who had contact with him, adored him as a person.
This was in contrast to those directors who exemplified what a film-maker
should be. Happy, straightforward, generous, a drinker and a child, all at
once. He had no anxiety about being humiliated; he could say, ‘I don’t know
how that’s done.’
This is a craft which should be plied happily if at all possible. But you
never get good results if, as in France, you try to please the producer. Barnet
made a charming, silly film, Lyana. He was dead-drunk and surrounded by
gypsies singing and dancing through the shoot. He had a wonderful time.
Rather than conform, if one has to film something stupid, better not to take
part in the shooting. Just opt out. 22