Page 193 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

174 INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
two epochs. You could cram two epochs into a single film in one of those
eighteen-part TV serials they make nowadays, but in those days you had
to be extremely concise. So after Happiness I still had so many ideas
and images that I hadn’t managed to use in the limited space available. I
realised that it would be very valuable to make a film, not about an
individual like Khmyr but about the fate of the nation, of the peasantry as
a whole. I thought it would be a good idea to make an epic film about the
fate of the peasantry, which had been very downtrodden in the old pre-
Revolutionary Russia. People were traded like cattle. The landowners
and the exploiters were barbaric. The people paid for it: all progress, every
step forward has been paid for in their blood. This tragedy seemed
insurmountable. So I decided to show that there was no place in Russia
for the muzhik, for the peasantry, on the land. It was a satirical paradox:
how could there be no place for the lord of the land? But it turned out that
there wasn’t, and that’s how I developed the structure of a new comedy,
a new philosophical comedy that I called The Damned Force
[Okoyannaya sila]. The damned force was the peasantry, a gigantic
force…
Question: Why didn’t you make the film?
Answer: Well, they were difficult times. I didn’t persevere very
hard. Other more contemporary themes distracted me. I made a comedy
about contemporary life: partly to test myself, partly to scotch the rumours
that I could portray the old Russia but not the present day. This was The
Miracle Worker [Chudesnitsa, 1937], a good film, but it wasn’t
Happiness, of course. It was weaker, but it had a very great success and
they still have it in Gosfilmofond. Jay Leyda liked The Miracle Worker
better than Happiness.
When I made The Miracle Worker, I realised that all these films,
the usual sort depicting love, the good life and good positive people, were
not for me. I think that a comedy that has some greater philosophical
meaning will succeed, but the kind where Vanya loves Tanya or Tanya
loves Petya and so there’s a triangle–I leave that kind of work to others.
I do not believe that it is true to life. That is not my way.