‘Alexander Nevsky’ screens as part of the U. of C.’s Doc Films summer schedule on Saturday, July 9th at 7:00 P.M. and 9:00 P.M.
Who came up with that idea, oh so long ago, that, in order to convey an idea or an event in a film, you didn’t need to film real things in real time in their entirety? That you could take a series of disconnected images or sequences, partial pieces of visual information, and snip, tape, and arrange them in a way that convinced you of a far bigger reality? For all major intents and purposes, that guy was Sergei Eisenstein, the early 20th century Russian director whose ‘Battleship Potemkin’ demonstrated the possibilities of montage. For instance, they didn’t have unlimited time with, or access to, the battleship that was one of the film’s obvious locations. But show shots of the engine room’s throbbing pistons, shots of the ship in motion through the waves from four or five different angles, and three or four shots of the rest of the fleet moving through water, and voila! you’ve got a thrilling sea chase. Get a hundred or so people on the Odessa Steps, move that pack around to various places doing various things in a series of different shots, toss in some men in uniform firing rifles from different angles, different placements, show individuals being beaten and shot in close-ups, and include a sequence involving a runaway baby carraige to further pump up the emotional stakes, and Hey, Presto! you’ve got hundreds of Russian troops suppressing a riot of thousands; and, by God, you know whose side you’re on. From war movies to westerns to spy flicks, from ‘Animal House’ to ‘The A-Team’ and practically every comedy or romance you’ve ever seen, the montage compresses complex activities, and passages of time and history, to a minute or two of actual screen time. It’s such an accepted convention that we don’t even think about it anymore – we willfully suspend our disbelief, our sense that ‘things don’t really happen this way,’ and our mind fills in the reality from these well-arranged cues and suggestions. ‘Battleship Potemkin,’ and his following film, ‘October (Ten Days That Shook The World)’ are, even now, pored over and analyzed by filmmakers all over the world.
Guess who wasn’t crazy about Eisenstein’s films? Yup, you’re right, the Russian government - not because they didn’t like the subject matter; hell, they won the revolution that Eisenstein was chronicling. They didn’t like montage; montage didn’t fit the Communist standards of Socialist Realism that they imposed on all other arts. They contended that artistic forms like Constructivism, avant-garde poetry, modernist musical composition and, yes, montage, didn’t draw on traditional, historical aesthetic concepts – the proletariat would feel confused and left out by these elitist bourgeois artistic indulgences (They also weren’t sure of how to use these forms effectively in producing propaganda). Seeing the writing on the wall, Eisenstein traveled extensively for the next five years, through Europe, the U.S. and Mexico. He returned to Russia in 1933, but it would be another five years still before Stalin decided that he deserved another shot. Given the choice of two projects, Eisenstein chose Alexander Nevsky (U.S.S.R., 1938).
Russia in the 13th century was a country under constant siege. The Mongol hordes controlled the majority of the states to the South and East of Novgorod, the northern state at the Baltic Sea. These states were under their own military stress, having successfully repelled Mongol and Swedish invaders, and now facing the onslaught of the Teutonic Knights, Roman Catholic crusaders from the German territories. As the movie opens, we see Prince Alexander resuming his peaceful life as a fisherman after leading the defense of his state against the Swedes at the Battle of the Neva River (from whence the name ‘Nevsky’ has been bestowed on him as tribute). He’s looking forward to developing the fishing trades in the Baltic region, and politely but pointedly refuses an offer from the Mongols to join them as a commander. To local fishermen, farmers and laborers, Nevsky is a noble hero. But to the nobility and rich merchant classes, Prince Alexander is a meddling showboat who interferes with their profiting from the conflicts. When the Teutonic Knights invade Novgorod at the port city of Pskov, led by emissaries from Rome, they devastate the city, murdering civilians and Russian clerics, and throwing the children of uncooperative families into the fire. So, y’know, they’re the bad guys. Even after this cold-blooded display, state dignitaries and rich merchants protest when the proletariat send a call out for help from Prince Alexander. ‘Who cares about Greater Russia?’ they howl – it’s every state for itself. Nevsky will just make things worse and bring more needless destruction. Word reaches Nevsky in his city of Peryaslavl, and he agrees to lead the defense of Novgorod, but stresses it’s for the good of all Russia, not just for the people of Novgorod.
Prince Alexander arrives in Novgorod, rallies the populace in short order, and prepares for what history remembers as the Battle of the Ice, an inspirational victory for Russian history, and a triumph of military strategy for Nevsky and his seemingly overmatched peasant army. But Eisenstein is also using Nevsky’s history as an allegory for Russia’s own then-present-day entanglements with another marauding German menace – Hitler’s National Socialists. The early part of the film is schematic, declamatory – square-jawed Alexander, the arrogant, ruthless Teutons, and the earnest peasantry are more symbols than people. But, as preparations for the battle begin, Eisenstein starts delineating the major players; Buslai and Gavrilo, two veterans of battle, who earlier discuss marrying and settling down, tired of fighting, but they’re among the first to rejoin Alexander; Vassilisa, the daughter of one of Pskov’s slain nobles; Ignat, the armorer who distributes his best wares to the citizenry, only to leave himself with poorly-fitting chain mail, and Olga, the apple of Buslai and Gavrilo’s eyes, who will marry the one who shows the most bravery in battle. We follow these, and other familiar faces, into the breach, and it’s from their shifting perspectives that we see the entirety of the battle. Eisenstein has a cast of hundreds for these scenes, but it’s the permutations of the battle, and its moral dimensions, that Eisenstein employs his montages to serve, not just the scale of the overall conflict.
Like ‘Potemkin,’ these war sequences established conventions that are still being reworked and re-examined today. Easily half of ‘The Two Towers,’ and countless other films, I’m sure, would look entirely different, and not be nearly as effective, if not for Eisenstein’s timeless template. The complete lack of tracking or crane shots gives the film a flatter, by-the-book feel than today’s hyperkinetic CGI’d pageants, but the economy of the single-shot montages and eye-level view of the chaos keeps you grounded in exactly what’s happening exactly where you are. It’s different for us, but no less effective in a different way. I suspect Oliver Stone ('Platoon') and Ridley Scott ('Black Hawk Down') are deeply familiar with this film.
‘Alexander Nevsky’ was a rousing success in the U.S.S.R., and allowed Eisenstein to move on to his next massive undertaking, the two-part ‘Ivan The Terrible.’ But politics would still intervene. While Stalin was delighted with the portrayal of the proletariat rising above capitalist concerns of the bourgeoisie to patriotically preserve the Russian motherland, he was skittish about the equation of the Teutonic Knights with the Nazis, as he had just signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler’s Germany. The film was pulled from any circulation in deference to the political agreement until 1941, when the Germans invaded Russia anyway. Then Stalin couldn’t re-release it fast enough.
Even with its dated look and pre-Kazan acting, ‘Alexander Nevsky’ still remains a thrilling epic of heroism and conflict. Nikolai Cherkasov, a stalwart of Stalinist cinema for Eisenstein and other directors, is a tall and impressively handsome Prince Alexander, a less affected version of Charlton Heston. He strikes the perfect figure of a genuinely human, but irreproachably noble, hero, in sharp contrast to the dour and relentless leaders of the German knights, and the helmeted, faceless troops that serve them. And the exemplary musical score is by Sergei Prokofiev, and considered a model of film soundtrack composition. I understand why ‘Potemkin’ is considered Eisenstein’s masterpiece, but ‘Alexander Nevsky’ is a terrific argument that technical prowess can serve as rousing entertainment as well.
On a separate note, I want to mention that the remaining Doc Films summer schedule is absolutely loaded with 20th century European classics, and I heartily recommend you make a trek to Hyde Park for ‘Nevsky’, ‘Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages’ (7/16), G.W. Pabst’s ‘Joyless Street’(7/20), Pasolini’s ‘Gospel According to St. Matthew’ (8/4), Lucio Fulci’s ‘Zombie’ (8/5), the aforementioned ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (8/6), ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (8/13), and Antonioni’s ‘L’Eclisse’ (8/20).
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