Death Of Stalin (2017) – A Great Film Excluding 30 Min of Beginning
Watching Death Of Stalin (2017) requires a bit of handling and prior notification for a person who extensively studied the history of USSR. I couldn't stand the first 30 minutes of the film.
I cannot understand why people cannot make any film about Stalin without sound like religious nuts or belittling USSR in WW2 (e.g., make jokes out of Stalingrad). You can state bad things about Stalin without saying nice things about the people who fought his army in Stalingrad. When all the western world were happy that finally a bureaucratic figure, dedicated to domestic issues instead of the world, took power in Russia and brings back to the normality (the revolution is dead, the state begins), socialists, again and again, mentioned the problems and atrocities of Stalin in 20s and 30s.
Haven't you heard anything about the Moscow Trials? Or Trotsky?
And why anybody who is simply against Stalin is religious and talking about ever-lasting life? You know how belittling is this to people who died in that area. As a side note, please remember that religion has a much better position during Stalin than Khrushchev's.
Intellectuals were the primary victim of Stalin wrath and vengeance. Any egoistic, power hungry, lucky to be chosen head of state would hate intellectuals. But Stalin liked and supported musicians and novelists here and there. He liked music. It is not a weakness or greatness. It is just a characteristic of many European politicians of that era. Some of the best Russian musicians belong to the Stalin era. Stop to be grumpy! Grow up! Do not need to spoil or darken it or prove everyone wrong. He had plenty of vices.
Characters
Death of Stalin (2017) becomes excellent since the moment Stalin dies in the film. Acting is great; the script is coherent and has terrific pacing. Steve Buscemi acted wonderfully. I was awed by how well he gets the character. The rants and behaviours by Simon Russell Beale are fantastic. The director is dedicated and precise.
The character of Molotov was such a difference from reality! (see Churchill 's note on Molotov's characteristics). But Michael Palin played Molotov, and of course, he has his head in the cloud. It is OK. Palin is great.
I don't mind the historical inaccuracies. The Wikipedia page has mentioned very few of them. But that's OK. The spirit and direction of the film were accurate, and the plot needed all the mentioned differences.
The portrayal of children of Stalin was the film fan service and was based on the trend tropes.
Stalin's children weren't important when Stalin was alive, and certainly nobody remembered/cared about them since the moment Stalin died. Audience need to know a bit more about communist attitude towards family. For instance, not attending father's funeral and instead go back to work wasn't a bad thing during Stalin era: when revolutionary attitudes were still fresh. The out of camera announcement of the arrival of the daughter of Stalin and showing heads of USSR running towards her like puppies were just ridicules and weird. Nobody cared about Stalin children starting from Stalin himself. Out of all great WW2 leaders, only Stalin's son died in WW2. None of the Soviet leaders family or kids had any importance for the head of USSR, members of Politburo, tail wagging, as the film demonstrated, for the Stalin's daughter.
The film created extreme polar positions: one kid is the saint: ever calm, ever kind, ever sacrificing, ever thinking about others first, ever loved... The other one was the bumbling village idiot.
The film compensated this by clearly showing Stalin children have no influence or function whatsoever. One of them worked as the ever exposition person and the other one as the comic relief person of the intense situations.
Khrushchev's Portrayal
The film accurately demonstrates the world of Stalinist apparatchiks without their master. And I loved that the film hinted that Khrushchev was shown as the jester and ended up as the cynical, ruthless Godfather's Al Pacino. What an excellent character development and arc. Great job!!
The film had many small hints that the masses wouldn't be noticed, but for people who are already familiar with these historical names and is invested enough to check the most accessible knowledge source, Wikipedia, has many small rewards and intellectual fulfillment (I believe the latter are the majority of audience for the Death of Stalin). The references such as Khrushchev & apartments or Molotov & sleeping during Stalin’s late parties or Khrushchev & Religion which are very notable (Bold and easy to find by scrolling) entries on English Wikipedia page for Khrushchev. By reading the English Wikipedia page, the invested audience, can easily catch and rewarded by all these Wikipedia references.
Nonetheless, I found these references were manipulative and biased. It is very disappointing that in our contemporary mediocre politics of mandate, the easy target is Khrushchev. I like an alternative version for Khrushchev based on an article by Mikhail Gorbachev for Guardian: 2007-April-26.
Khrushchev had said: “Stalin destroyed the party. He was not a Marxist. He wiped out all that is sacred in a human being.“… It took resolve and courage, qualities that Khrushchev showed in presenting the report and then also in exonerating innocent prisoners and instituting controls over the security apparatus. Despite resistance, Khrushchev had Stalin's body removed from the mausoleum… Khrushchev was a man of the people: his housing policies enabled millions who used to languish in communal flats, huts and basements to get free apartments; he put an end to Stalin's virtual “serfdom” in the countryside; and he tried to reform the economy and the party's vertical structure. He did not succeed in the latter – the party nomenklatura rejected his efforts. Khrushchev's achievements were remarkable. His 20th congress speech and his reforms were the first blow struck at what had seemed an unshakable totalitarian system.
Conclusion
The weakness of these types of films, based on left-wing history, is their tendency to disappoint everyone. Making a historical/political comedy in the age of superheroes is a failure and only outputs few empty cinemas and poor box offices.
The right-wing does not approve or watch these movies anyway and blame the makers for even mentioning and bringing back their eyesore in recent history (you could show everything /everybody worse, couldn't you? argument). Such artistic efforts are not successful in their right-wing appeasements.
And the left-wing get astonished, repulsed, and wary of inaccuracies and representations.
Eventually, this film is to be forgotten soon with all its pros and cons.
Nonetheless, I should thank the filmmakers because they did not offend or belittle Lenin/Trotsky/Marx/Engels in any way in the film. I know it was easy for them to do such a thing, but they avoided it. I think the best way to watch and appreciate these types of film is to look at its timeless power struggle, power hunger and political betrayal. It is very modern and contemporary. The everlasting game and the win of the underdog seeking absolute power.
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)