Note 1. Calendar Librettos

By Alexandra Zakharova, Anna Kovalova, Arina Ranneva

Translated by Julian Graffy

Contemporary cinema seems to have only one calendar genre, and that is a Christmas (or New Year) film. Before the revolution calendar films were much more diverse: along with Christmas films there were Easter films, and at least one case of a film released for Shrovetide is known. The reason for that lies not only in the pre-revolutionary way of life which made these holidays crucially important, but also in the early system of film production and distribution. Cinemas usually changed their program twice a week, so the films were produced very quickly and it was easy to release them on a particular date. Early Russian calendar film prose should some day become a subject of special research. We are just drawing an outline of the topic. We are publishing three calendar librettos of various kinds. A Christmas libretto “Do You Remember?” is peculiar due to the fact that it seems to correspond not only with the Russian Christmas short story tradition but also with the plot of Tolstoy's “Anna Karenina”. “The Easter caller” and “An Enemy Power” based on Alexander Ostrovsky are noted primarily for their language: the Easter text is stylized as officialese, and the Shrovetide one imitates the oral form of narration (skaz).
 

Christmas – Do You Remember…? 

Petr Chardynin’s film Do You Remember…?, released in 1914 by the Khanzhonkov company, is a striking example of the Christmas genre in early Russian cinema. The main heroine is unfaithful to her husband with a young lover, but on the night of Christmas Eve she recognises her mistake and decides to return to her family. But it is already too late: her husband, unable to bear his grief, has killed himself. What is retained here is a key motif of the Christmas tradition, the miracle. To the sound of festive bells Elena suddenly decides to return to her husband and young daughter. The rest of the plot is entirely typical of Russian cinema of the mid-1910s: betrayal, falling into sin, suicide – everything is constructed on these extremely widespread motifs. The Christmas miracle makes it possible to inscribe the film into the context of the festive tradition, but it does not change the standard schema of the development of the plot.

One further particularity of the plot is the clear allusion to Lev Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, which was in great demand in early Russian cinema and which was brought to the screen more than once. The allusion occurs in a scene in which Elena gets out of a train at a snowy station. An old husband, a young lover, an abandoned child, a trip by the heroine from Moscow to St Petersburg, a snowstorm – all these details remind us of a key episode in Anna Karenina. Thus the film is linked not only to the tradition of the Christmas tale but also to the Russian literary canon. It is possible that it is precisely for this reason that Do You Remember…? was singled out by the newspaper Utro Rossii (Morning Russia) as a significant work of cinematic art.

Libretto 

The ageing writer Lev Nal´skii is madly in love with his young wife – his heart belongs only to her and to their little daughter Netti. His entire life is devoted to these two creatures and beyond them there is neither joy nor appeal in his life… And yet, sometimes when his gaze lingers on the youthful face of his wife, he catches himself thinking that he is too old for her… Elena Nal´skaia laughs this suggestion off until at an evening party she meets the violinist Iaron… A few years previously both Iaron and Elena had been students of the conservatoire and he had paid court to her… it had seemed like a strong attraction… But with his sudden departure abroad everything had been smoothed over… erased… Elena, an inexperienced young girl, had accepted Nal´skii’s proposal… had become his wife… then their daughter had been born… it seemed as if Elena had completely forgotten the love affair in the days of her youth. But then suddenly all the details of these beautiful young pages of her life are there before her again… seeing Elena, who was sparkling with youth and beauty, Iaron became as attracted to her as previously and… to the sounds of Bleikhman’s romance ‘Do You Remember…?’… Elena finds herself reliving everything that had then caused her heart to beat… Nal´skii sees the sudden change in his wife… he suffers unspeakably but he is too noble and he loves Elena too much to disturb her mood by even a sound, by even a word… When at night Elena comes back from being with Iaron, full of the bright happiness which the joy of mutual love gives, Nal´skii does not ask her a single question, does not shower her with reproaches… no… he just gives her free rein – gives rein to youth and beauty… Nal´skii understands clearly that from now the days of happiness are past for him, and he does not consider that he has the right to block Elena’s path to happiness. Elena leaves on Christmas Eve, summoned by a letter from Iaron, who is waiting for her in Petrograd. Netti remains with her father on holy Christmas night. The child, who does not understand the whole tragedy of what is going on, is full of the joy of the Christmas tree and the celebration, as she always is. But suddenly she falls silent and clings to her father. ‘What is it, Netti?’, he asks. ‘I’m bored without mummy’, the little girl whispers in reply. And united in the single feeling of great love for the woman who has abandoned them, Nal´skii and Netti, to the sound of the Christmas bells, speak the words of a prayer for her… While at the same time, Elena, completely in thrall to the emotion which has taken hold of her, rushes off towards bright and ineradicable joys… A strong snowstorm, which had been whipped up the previous day, has covered all the railway tracks with snow… After it has travelled scarcely a few dozen miles the train is forced to stop at a little station while the track is cleared. Elena gets out on to the platform and walks up and down impatiently waiting for the moment when the train will be allowed to move on. The station master kindly invites her to come inside to warm up. Elena accepts his invitation and finds herself in a modest dining room where a merry, simple, artless laughter reigns, the laughter of guests and children, lighting the Christmas tree. But then a bell rings in the neighbouring village… all those present reverently bow their heads. ‘Merry Christmas’, says the owner of the house, and he lovingly embraces his little children and his young wife. The sight of this simple, artless, pure happiness so affects Elena that she seems to be re-born. Where is she rushing?... in search of what mirage?... How dare she have left her husband and child?… For on this holy night she could have been as happy as this middle-aged man and his young wife. Elena’s tense state reaches its apogee: the poor woman is convulsed in sobs. The acute feminine heart of the station master’s wife understands what is up without it being explained to her. She consoles Elena tenderly and affectionately, asking nothing, not trying to elicit any information… and under the influence of this quiet affection Elena calms down and makes the firm decision to return home. ‘The track has been cleared, you can carry on’, says the station master as he comes in, but, smiling through her tears, Elena shakes her head; no, she will not go any further, she will return home. Almost with the dawn Elena is driven up to her house. Reconciled, enlightened, and somehow loving her husband and Netti in a new way, she goes into her husband’s dark study, where he is half-lying in an armchair by the light of the flickering fire. ‘He’s asleep, the poor fellow’, Elena whispers; now she will awaken him with a kiss. She bends over him but immediately recoils… Only a weak breath escapes from his chest. On the floor there is a dark revolver… Elena picks it up mechanically, puts it on the table and, still completely engulfed in horror, she notices a letter… It is Nal´skii’s farewell greeting to his old mother. From these lines, which breathe such selfless love for Elena, she learns that even at the threshold of death Nal´skii was afraid of offending her with a reproach.

Novye lenty (New pictures), Sine-Fono, 1915, 6-7, p. 68

Shrovetide – An Enemy Power 

In the year in which the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Aleksandr Ostrovskii (1823-1886) was being commemorated, several adaptations of his plays were released, including the ‘Shrovetide’ film An Enemy Power, directed by Viacheslav Viskovskii. In Veniamin Vishnevskii’s catalogue Khudozhestvennye fil´my dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (The Feature Films of pre-Revolutionary Russia) it is suggested that the primary source for this film is the 1865 play In a Jolly Place (Na boikom meste), but this is a mistake which can be easily rectified: in fact the basis of the film lies in the 1855 ‘popular drama’ Live Not as You Would Like To (Ne tak zhivi, kak khochetsia) and in Alexander Serov’s opera An Enemy Power (1867-1871), thanks to which the film received not only its title but also a number of details of the plot which are at odds with the text of the play. But while the libretto of an earlier film adaptation of An Enemy Power, directed by Aleksei Alekseev in 1911, mechanically copies the plot of the opera, here it is a question of its interpretation, which, moreover, is relatively free.  So, for example, Petr, who in the play comes to see the light, but had, in Serov’s opera, already turned into a wife-murderer, tormented by “enemy powers” and pangs of conscience, is represented in the screen version as merely an unfaithful husband and wily seducer. By placing the love intrigue and recognisable screen characters at the centre of his film, Viskovskii translates Ostrovsky into the language of the cinema of the mid-1910s.

The 1916 libretto retains important “Shrovetide” particularities of the play and the opera: the matrimonial theme, the motif of drunken revels, during which things are permitted which are not allowed in ordinary times, the plot about the unclean “enemy” power, which has particular force during Shrove week. It is true that there is no reflection in the libretto of the final repentance and forgiveness associated with the Sunday before Lent, and the parental theme, which is important for Shrovetide, has also disappeared. And yet the date of the film’s release (in 1916 16 February was in Shrovetide), the film’s alternative title (The Height of Shrovetide) and also the fact that the libretto is stylised to suggest the speech of a storyteller all underline its calendar nature.

Libretto

To his own misfortune, Vasia, a young merchant’s son, brought his friend to visit his sweetheart Grushenka. The heart has no master: she loved one man but fell in love with another... And Vasia went off with Eremka, a good for nothing drunken blacksmith, who was glad of another’s misfortune: perhaps he could manage to get some money out of the young merchant for vodka. But Petr took a fancy to Grushenka and he said he was a bachelor in order to get his way, he promised that they would be married a week after Easter, on Low Sunday. His wife Dasha saw that her husband was not himself, he showed her no affection and was short-tempered, and she could not understand why. But then Petr’s friend Vasia turned up. It wasn’t difficult to get the whole truth out of the drunken Vasia. And Dasha rushed to her rival and told her the whole truth. It was the height of Shrovetide outside, there were only a few days left to celebrate. The merchant Petr drove to his lover with presents, he was ready to give everyone presents. He invited Grushenka and her girlfriends to go for a drive. But Grushenka had changed… She wouldn’t let him near her, and when she told him a parable about a married lad, Petr realised that she knew the whole truth about him. Honest folk went on a spree – merriment and joy – only Petr felt anger in his heart. And the drunk Eremka was circling around him, trying to take advantage of the situation… And the merchant was glad that Eremka was there: maybe he would teach him, show him what to do… And Eremka showed the merchant, taught him the evil deed: ‘You have to become a widower, merchant.” So Eremka enticed Dasha into the pub: ‘They’ve killed your husband in a fight’, he said. And she believed him and she ran with Eremka to find Petr… Evil whirlwinds whispered to Petr to do this evil deed, Dasha the merchant’s wife fell an unjust victim…

Novye lenty (New pictures), Sine-Fono, 1916, 8, p. 91.

Easter – The Easter Caller 

The number of pre-Revolutionary Easter films known to us is small: Vishnevskii’s filmography includes no more than ten such films. Among them is Kai Hansen’s comedy The Easter Caller. The main hero of the film, who is attempting, in accordance with accepted practice, to make 118 Easter visits, gets extremely drunk, engages in drunken debauchery and ends the holiday in a police station. This simple plot is reminiscent of the popular farces of the 1910s about Glupyshkin, the crank who was endlessly unsuccessful in whatever he tried to do. On the other hand we can see in this story the influence of the Russian satirical calendar stories of the turn of the century, in which the celebration of Christmas or Easter is represented as something false and alien to authentic religious feeling. For example, Nikolai Leikin’s story The First Day of Easter (Pervyi den´ Paskhi, 1879) is about formal Easter visits that are necessary only in order to have plenty to eat and drink.

The libretto is remarkable for its unusual form: the comic story about a caller is given in the form of a report from a court record. The officialese is parodied here with considerable wit, which is evident from the oxymoronic subheading “from Easter records”.

Later it is announced – now in the name of a film company – that the adventures of the Easter caller were filmed as they happened. It is unlikely that the film contained the character of a cameraman, but the idea of breaking the fourth wall, if only within the bounds of the libretto, is interesting all the same.

Libretto

(From Easter records). We present an extract from a record which we have purloined, dated 6^th April 1914:
On this date there was delivered to me in the police station a certain person who called himself a citizen, but was in fact a caller, along with a car, a driver and some unknown personage. On examination it was established that the aforesaid caller was despatched by his wife to carry out the 118 visits prescribed for residents, but without having completed even 18 of them he was reduced to a state of irresponsibility by a liquid called alcohol by him, the aforesaid resident, but on examination it was established that it was ordinary 40% vodka, produced by Platonov’s wine cellar No. 107. All the debauchery punishable by articles 38 and 42 of the Statute on the punishments imposable by Justices of the Peace I have resolved to record in this protocol. I have the honour to add to this the fact that persons of unknown rank, with an unknown machine, which turned out to be, in the conclusion of the janitor entrusted to me, a filming apparatus of Pathé Brothers No. 42, were carrying out cinematic filming of the aforesaid resident, but that they disappeared in good time, and therefore, in accordance with the instruction on measures to suppress the commission of crimes, I report this to the appropriate instances. Overseer of the aforesaid area of the above mentioned section (the signature is illegible).
We inform Mr Overseer that the aforesaid filming in the aforesaid area with the aforesaid apparatus was carried out by us and that he can watch “the debauchery, set out in the aforesaid report” in any of the cinemas of European or Asiatic Russia and in other places where the demonstration of films is allowed by the authorities. Trading House of K. Hansen and Company. 

Novye lenty (New pictures), Sine-Fono, 1914, 12, p. 66