Bezhin Meadow

Dir: Sergei M. Eisenstein

1937

*****

This is going to be something of a difficult review to write because Sergei Eisenstein’s controversial film Bezhin Meadow isn’t quite a film, rather a collection of stills. The 1937 Soviet film is famous for having been suppressed and believed destroyed before its completion. It tells the story of a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by sabotaging the year's harvest and the son's efforts to stop his own father to protect the Soviet state, culminating in the boy's murder and a social uprising. The film draws its title from a story by Ivan Turgenev but is based on the life of Pavlik Morozov, a young Russian boy who became a political martyr following his death in 1932, after he denounced his father to Soviet government authorities and subsequently died at the hands of his family. Pavlik Morozov was immortalized in school programs, poetry, music, and in film. The film was commissioned by a communist youth group and the film's production ran from 1935 to 1937, until it was halted by the central Soviet government, which said it contained serious artistic, social, and political failures. Some, however, blamed the failure of Bezhin Meadow on government interference and policies, extending all the way to Stalin himself. In the wake of the film's failure, Eisenstein publicly recanted his work as an error. Individuals were arrested during and after the ensuing debacle, making Bezhin Meadow one of the most notourous lost films of all time. However, it wasn’t quite lost. It was long thought that it had been lost in the wake of World War II bombings but in the1960s, cuttings and partial prints of the film were found; from these, a reconstruction of Bezhin Meadow, based on the original script, was undertaken. Rich in religious symbolism, the film and its history became the focus of academic study. The film was extensively discussed both inside and outside of the film industry for its historical nature, the odd circumstances of its production and failure, and its imagery, which is considered some of the greatest in cinema. In spite of the failure of Bezhin Meadow, Eisenstein would rebound to win Soviet acclaim and awards, and become artistic director of a major film studio. Several versions of the film were created after the Soviet government authorities repeatedly edited and re-shot it to satisfy themselves and the ever changing regime. The one I’m reviewing is the best known and most common version, the one that focuses on Stepok who is a member of the local Young Pioneers Communist organization. His father Samokhin, a farmer, plans to sabotage the village harvest for political reasons by burning down the titular meadow, but Stepok organizes the other Young Pioneer children to guard the crops. Samokhin grows progressively more frustrated by his son's actions and success. Eventually, Stepok reports Samokhin's crimes to the Soviet government authorities, and is in turn slain by his own father for betraying his family. The other Young Pioneers break into the local church, singing songs, and desecrate it in response to Stepok's death. The visuals of the film shift during the destruction of the church, with the villagers becoming that which they are destroying, the angry villagers, by the end of the set piece, are depicted as Christ-like, angelic, and prophetic figures. In other versions the church is converted into a clubhouse. The film was based in part on a story by Ivan Turgenev, a 19th-century Russian scholar and novelist, but was adapted to incorporate the folk story of Pavlik Morozov, a supposed Young Pioneer glorified by Soviet Union propaganda as a martyr.Turgenev's original short fiction titled "Bezhin Meadow" or "Bezhin Lea" was a story about peasant boys in the 1850s, in the Oryol region, discussing supernatural signs of death, while they spend the night in the Bezhin Meadow with a lost hunter. Eisenstein would later remove any direct references to Turgenev's fiction, aside from the title, from the film. The film also draws influence from the story of Pavlik Morozov, whose life and death in the village of Gerasimovka in the Ural Mountains, has no connection with Turgenev's literary work. Morozov was a 13-year-old boy who denounced his father, a kulak, to the Soviet government authorities, and was in turn killed by his family. It was a Soviet morality tale, opposing the state was selfish and reactionary, and the state was more important than family.The most popular account of the Morozov story is that he was born to poor peasants in Gerasimovka, a small village north-east of Sverdlovsk. He was a dedicated communist who led the Young Pioneers at his school, and supported Stalin's collectivization of farms. In 1932, at age 13, Morozov reported his father to the political police (GPU). Morozov's father, the Chairman of the Village Soviet or Selsoviet, was alleged to have been forging documents and selling them to the bandits and enemies of the Soviet State. The elder Morozov, Trofim, was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp, and later executed. However, Pavlik's family did not approve of the young boy's actions. In September of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. All of them except the uncle were rounded up by the GPU, convicted, and sentenced to execution by a firing squad. The Morozov story was developed into compulsory children's readings, songs, plays, a symphonic poem, a full-length opera and six biographies. There is very little original evidence related to the story; much of it is hearsay provided by second-hand witnesses. In Bezhin Meadow, the child is named Stepok, departing from the original historical lore and information. Among the ironies of Bezhin Meadow's history were that Pavlik Morozov may not have even been a member of the Young Pioneers. Morozov had been called a "disturbed young boy" who was unaware of the consequences of what he was doing and turned his father in to the authorities for having abandoned his mother for a younger woman, rather than for political reasons. A final cut of the film does not exist but it is clear from what there is that survived, it would have been a masterpiece. Message aside, what is left is visually stunning. I believe that Eisenstein could have directed a version of the film that would have been balanced and not quite the opportunistic piece of propaganda it was intended as but, as much as I’d love to see it, it is probably for the best that it wasn’t completed. Certainly of its time, it sends a chill down my spine just thinking of it. The surviving stills are hauntingly real, bringing this sorry tale to life in both a beautiful but disturbing manner. A must for historians, those with political interest, film makers and photographers.