Page 29 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

10 INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY
I thought this remark referred to the fact that we never saw the curtain but
none the less, my very best feelings having been offended and prepared to
deliver a rebuff, I enquired: ‘In what sense?’…
‘In cinema they also change the scenes all the time: first you’re in one
room, then another, and then you’re on the street.’ 9

After the performance Aleinikov returned home and there he had another
noteworthy conversation:

In the hostel my neighbour in the next room held out a copy of Cine-Phono.
‘My uncle has started publishing a cinema paper. I told him that you write
for Utro Rossii [Morning Russia] and he wants you to write something about
cinema!’
I leafed through the pages and thought of the perceptive girl against whom
I had taken up arms in vain. Then I remembered the arguments of Valeri
10
Bryusov, whose lecture to the Literary-Artistic Circle I had heard the day
before. He had warned artists of the dangers of naturalism….
Mixing all these impressions together, I wrote a muddled little article, ‘The
Art Theatre’s Production and the Cinematograph’. To liven things up I
began with a report that I had made up about some discussions between the
Moscow Art Theatre and a certain film company. I didactically reminded
Stanislavsky that naturalism, the mere copying of life, was not art…. However,
the author remarked that cinema would be taking a great step forward if it
were to show the achievements of the Moscow Art Theatre on its screens. 11

The lead story that Aleinikov devised ‘to liven things up’ (so that he had some
pretext for abstract arguments) went as follows:

According to rumours a large firm is proposing to film twenty-two scenes
from Boris Godunov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. (Based on
interviews) 12

This newspaper canard had an unexpected consequence. It excited Alexander
Drankov, then a St Petersburg photographer (he and his brother Lev were the
Russian photographic correspondents for the London Times and the Paris
Illustration), who prepared the Russian titles for French films. Drankov was
obsessed with the idea of being first to release a Russian film. The other memoir
source, the actor Nikolai Orlov, recalls how Drankov, suspecting a flirtation
between the Moscow Art Theatre and Khanzhonkov or the Moscow office of
13
Pathé, resolved to forestall them and produce his own Petersburg Godunov:
When the idea came to him, Drankov was influenced by the newspaper
rumours that a Moscow firm was intending to film twenty-two scenes of the
Moscow Art Theatre production of Boris Godunov. Wanting to forestall this