“Mother is a moving
picture in every sense, here is a film that stands up as well as when it was
made in 1926…” Kevin Brownlow
Lillian Henley hadn’t even seen this film and yet she was
on a roll of revolutionary rhythms and, sat towards the Bioscope piano’s deeper
notes, created a patient mix of Russo-romantic dynamics that fitted the
narrative like Comrade Trotsky’s best winter coat. I had seen Mother before but this once again showed
how the connection between accompanist and film can make for such a varied
experience. Lillian’s experience as an
actress sometimes gives her a different take on accompaniment and here she was
almost taking a cinematic stroll hand-in-hand with Vsevolod Pudovkin’s tale…. We are so
blessed with such a diverse range of styles and whilst I’d really enjoyed Stephen
Horne and Martin Pyne accompanying at the Barbican this was a different and
none-the-less expressive performance.
Mother was introduced by Kevin
Brownlow who having brought his own 16mm copy of the film, explained how the
director, in his opinion and that of many others, stood alongside Eisenstein
and Alexander Dovzhenko as the leading lights of Soviet cinema.
Pudovkin dropped his university science studies after he saw
Intolerance and resolved to make
films. He used actors in a Stanislavski style and not just non-actors cast for
type as with Eisenstein and the star here is the theatrically-trained Vera
Baranovskaya, one of Stanislovski’s favourite actors, and it’s easy to see why
with a performance of controlled depth and intensity,
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| Vera Baranovskaya |
Pudovkin acknowledged Griffith as his master and yet his
work bears similarities to Abel Gance, whose La Roue he was very influenced by. He talked of producing “a plastic synthesis through editing…” and,
for example, instead of showed a prisoner’s joy at release he focused on the
nervous play of his hands and the corners of his smile cut with a flowing
stream and a child’s joy… “photographing thought” in a very Gance-an way.
Brownlow praised his lightness of touch in the film and use of landscape and
nature all of which make for “an exhilarating experience” in his view.
Tonight’s audience wasn’t going to disagree.
Mother was
banned in Russia, even though set in 1906 it was perhaps too anti-authoritarian…
and could only be seen in private showings. Overseas, the strike certainly made
it a no-no for many westerners. It was banned in the UK because it showed
strikers where to hide weapons… under the floor-boards lads! They’ll never spot
it there!! Nice to know we haven’t changed.
Pudovkin later made Chess
Fever and Storm Over Asia which
he regretted as it showed the English, who he liked, in a bad light. Ah well,
at least we had friends once…
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| Aleksandr Chistyakov |
But this film is all the more powerful for being focused
on a single family and, especially, the relationship between a mother Pelageya
Vlasova (Baranovskaya) and her son, Pavel Vlasov played by Nikolai Batalov one
of the most frequently seen actors in soviet film. Based on the 1906 novel The
Mother by Maxim Gorky and bears similarities to the Bloody Sunday attrocities
in which the imperial guard were ordered to open fire on a demonstration in St
Petersberg in January 1905. That event led to long-term consequences yet this
film is not a simplistic take on revolutionary innocence versus black-hearted
oppression but a tragic story of a nation undermined by a careless, fatal,
malaise.
Pelageya is married to an abusive alcoholic husband
Vlasov (Aleksandr Chistyakov), a man who would steal even the family iron if it
would get him another vodka. He lashes out at his wife and slaps down their
son, Pavel as he comes to her aid.
He is a sad sack of a man who has been defeated by life
and in the local tavern he’s an easy mark for a group of men looking for a
patsy to help them break an impending strike. The problem is that Pavel is one
of the groups organising the action. He meets a girl, Anna (Anna Zemtsova) who
hands him a package, he goes home and hides it disturbing his sleeping mother
just enough for her to see what he is doing.
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| Nikolai Batalov |
Our sympathy shifts as the insurgent's mother becomes a
widow, staring in vacant horror as her husband is carried lifeless into their
rooms. Before long she has discovered what Pavel was hiding, a collection of
firearms, and honest citizen that she is, believes the policeman when he
promises that if her son only tells the truth he will be free. But, the family
are now involved in the legal machinery of the Tsarist state and all other
considerations are discarded as punishment becomes more important than the
crime…
“Righteousness,
justice, mercy… “, the tribunal sits lazily on the question of Pavel’s life,
more concerned with fine horses than the three words they are supposedly guided
by. There will be precious little of any today and Pavel is sentenced to hard
labour. Incredulous, his mother begs forgiveness – she had no idea that her
faith in authority would be so misguided. But she is not alone and soon there
is a plan to free Pavel and other prisoners…
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| The day of the strike |
Pudovkiz is so good on the details as well as the scale.
As Vlasov’s body lies in death, he focuses on mother, then a dripping tap, then
her dead husband, the floorboards, her son and back again: the monotony of
grief and despair all contributing the a shattering narrative that Lillian
understood so well.
On tonight’s undercard we had Will Rogers in a 1924 short
for Hal Roach called Don’t Park There in
which our modest hero struggles to find a parking space, yes, even in 1924.
Some things never change including John Sweeney’s excellence on accompaniment.
Good to get my Bioscope 2019 underway and the coffee and
sausage rolls were also good too!
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