Tony Palmer’s 2½ hour
film relates the life story of Shostakovich
principally by reference to his relationship,
distant and occasionally fearfully close
with Stalin. Contact here includes not
just face to face encounters but generally
the effect of Stalin upon Shostakovich’s
mind and music. These two figures stand
at centre-stage with everyone else as
bit-players. Even after Stalin’s death
the USSR’s Grand Marshal haunts and
sometimes taunts the composer - conscience
and torturer. Shostakovich is also portrayed
as wondering if after all Stalin did
know best what was for the good of the
Soviet Union.
The acting is uniformly
gritty and full of stern conviction.
There aren’t many laughs in this and
those that you may encounter are grisly.
The effect is enhanced by the graininess
of the black and white film and the
unhurried pacing. Ben Kingsley plays
the sombre and earnest young composer
and the passage of the years is well
handled especially in the period post-Stalin
from 1953 until the composer’s death
in 1975. While it hardly seem to matter,
Kingsley cannot convince us that the
callow composer lionised after the premiere
of the First Symphony is sixteen years
old. Otherwise the locations and the
people have the correct specific gravity.
Just look at the cannily chosen locations
(Wigan, Bradford, Sheffield, Wembley
Stadium) and be surprised that they
were shot there. There is one scene
towards the end where Shostakovich is
seen pounding down a precipitous external
metal staircase on a mill-like Lubianka
style building. Wonderful choice.
The joys and solace
of the composer’s family life are touchingly
put across - even if he must also apologise
to his family after the Zhdanov condemnation.
These contrast with the traumas. There
are the projects intended but frustrated
when artist collaborators are purged.
There are the two climaxes of criticism:
once in the 1930s in connection with
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the
Fourth Symphony and again and most humiliatingly
in 1948 where we see Zhdanov’s public
diatribe against formalism and Shostakovich’s
meek acceptance. The condemnation is
accentuated by the ripping up (by Khrennikov?)
of the full score of the Ninth Symphony
on the conference podium.
This is a long and
transfixing film. Other episodes nestle
in the memory. The 1940s issue of Time
Magazine on the front cover of which
Shostakovich is portrayed in a quaint
fire helmet coincides with the roaring
success of the Leningrad symphony across
the USA. The devastating cross-examination
of the composer by an American journalist
forcing him to condemn his colleagues
for formalism. There’s the initial refusal
to believe Stalin has really died; that
it’s not some macabre trap to flush
out dissenters. The trip to the grim
gorge at Babi Yar. The scenes in Shostakovich’s
bedroom as the family waits to hear
if the knock at the door in the middle
of the night will be theirs or their
neighbours. Stalin’s scary confiding
in the composer that he does not like
music that smacks of sarcasm. Stalin
is a constant presence although surprisingly
and effectively he says little.
The film is heavy in
symbolism and certain sections are quite
surreal. The image of the colossal toppled
stone head of a Stalin statue rolling
towards the composer and threatening
to crush him is vivid. There are in
fact quite a few Ken Russell moments
along the way. The burial of Shostakovich
at the start before the flashbacks begin
prompts thoughts of Russell’s Mahler
biopic. Then there’s the scene with
the composer playing a dance band piano
on a raft that gradually sinks into
the same water that reflects the burning
of a massive effigy head of Lenin.
News-reel and other
actuality are inter-cut with the dramatisation.
So we get snippets of silents and sound
films for which Shostakovich wrote the
music, shots of Lenin exhorting and
gesticulating, banners flutter and snap
in the wind, Nazi tanks and serried
ranks of storm troopers, Khruschev and
the post-Stalin old guard and ranks
of the elderly communist elite. There’s
also an American newsreel charting the
journey of the microfilmed score of
the Leningrad symphony from the USSR
across a war-torn world to the USA.
The soundtrack includes
excerpts from symphonies 1, 4, 5, 7,
8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. Other works
part represented are the Violin Concerto
1, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Michelangelo
Sonnets; Jazz Suites 1 and 2; Piano
Concerto No. 2 and String Quartets 8
and 10. The music on the soundtrack
is played by the London Philharmonic
Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai
with David Nolan (leader). The soloists
are Yuzuko Horigome (violin concerto
1); John Shirley-Quirk (Michelangelo
Sonnet and Symphony 13) stunningly portrayed
in a close-up so close that the spittle
flies from his mouth in the vituperative
stress of delivery; Felicity Palmer
(Symphony 14) sounding strikingly similar
to Janet Baker; Howard Shelley (Piano
Concerto 2); Margaret Fingerhut (Mozart
Concerto 23) and the Chilingirian Quartet
(string quartets 8 and 10). Not that
the orchestra and these soloists are
always seen on screen even when they
are playing. But when they are portrayed
they are filmed in colour and there
are several shots of Barshai conducting.
The rest of the film is in monochrome
with the exception of some telling coups-de-théâtres
such as the point at which blood
oozes down the screen.
While the music is
predominantly provided through new recordings
made specially for the film Palmer also
uses some classic versions for audio
only . These include Svetlanov conducting
symphonies Nos. 5 and 11 and Ancerl
conducting symphony No. 10.
The soundtrack is clarity
itself. There’s none of the nonsensical
mumbling you encounter in Hollywood
films.
Shostakovich ‘s deathbed
conversation with the shade of Stalin
is made the more poignant by the romantic
middle movement of the Second Piano
Concerto. As to authenticity ... who
can tell. In fifty years time this film
may be seen as hopelessly far from the
mark as biography. However as the image
of an age and of a composer under the
most torturously stressful circumstances
it convinces without doubt. The appearance
of honesty is magisterially put across
by the heavily bespectacled face of
Kingsley as Shostakovich. At the end
as he is seen playing the second movement
of the Second Piano Concerto (an untypically
sentimental piece) looking slightly
to one side from the viewer and then
slowly turning his gaze to confront
you. ‘Ask me nothing any more - ask
the music.’
This sombre piece of
cinema is stunningly done with enormous
integrity.
Rob Barnett
DIGITAL
CLASSICS DVD DC 10010 [151:00] 
