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.
