The Sheila Variations

The Russian Ark

I'm reading Children of the Arbat right now. I can't speak about it yet. Just going to have to (in true Sheila fashion) post a billion excerpts to show my interest in it. It's about Stalin. That man appears in my nightmares.

This morning I read a couple of chapters that made me dizzyingly sad. Like, I sat in my chair (the sun hadn't even come up yet) - and I had to put the book down for a while.

It made me flash on the movie The Russian Ark for a moment - which I saw a couple years ago. I blogged about it then so I had to go back and dig up that old post to see my thoughts about it. I find the post incredibly sad.

For those of you who have not heard about this film, it was filmed entirely in the hermitage in St. Petersburg, and it is a panoramic look at Russian history ... (a big deal for the nation, whose leaders so often want to erase the past). But the most fascinating thing about this movie is:

The entire 90 minutes of it is ONE TAKE.

People drool with praise over Martin Scorsese's 15 minute takes, or Robert Altman's unbelievably long take at the beginning of "The Player" -- and don't get me wrong ... they are masterful. It's so fun to try to imagine how they pulled it off. But "The Russian Ark", moving through the different rooms of the Hermitage is one long uninterrupted take. I was very very excited to see it, to see how it flowed, and also: to imagine HOW did they pull it off???

(Here's an awesome website dedicated to the film. Here's the page with pictures of the day of shooting.)

The film meanders at times ... but that's all right ... it's part of the whole experience. Sometimes history meanders. Sometimes you can't see things clearly. Sometimes you are peeking through a tiny window into a dark space, and sometimes you are in a sweeping ballroom.

I heard people scoffing at the "gimmick" of it, and I just have to roll my eyes.

YES. It is a "gimmick". But ... is it any less interesting because it is a "gimmick"? Does it feel GOOD to put yourself so above everything? To be so "over" everything? Does it give you pleasure to take a "been there done that" attitude towards everything? Well, knock yourself out, but I prefer to be enthusiastic, curious, and capable of being touched by things. And yeah. I feel like my way is the better way.

The Children of the Arbat put me on the edge today.

Here's my old post which describes the "gimmick" (grrrrrrrr) of The Russian Ark. In a strange way, it's one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. But ... why? I think it's from the one flashing look that crosses the man's face at the end of the movie, when he chooses to stay at the ball, and not move on (to the next stage of Russian history). It's a horrible look. Horrible.

The Russian Ark

There was a narrator - who was just a voice throughout, asking questions, and it was set up that we, the audience, assume that the voice belongs to the man who is holding the camera. Of course he isn't - because the camera-work is not hand-held or shaky - it is a long slow inevitable roll ... but all along our journey through the Hermitage, we hear the soft voice of the narrator - asking questions, saying, "Oh, look over there", etc. Very benign voice. The narrator is a tourist through Russian history.

The narrator has a companion who acts as a kind of guide - He was sort of jolly, and vague, with a shock of white hair. He doesn't say much, but just strolls thru the whole movie, taking us in and out of scenes, telling us where to look ... He was our Homeric guide. Kind of a jester-type, with a flowing funny black coat, and his messy white hair. A friendly weather-worn face, and twinkley eyes.

Just to make clear what an accomplishment this film is: there are over 3,000 people who appear in it. Over 3,000 people had to be organized in the Hermitage, throughout all the different rooms, waiting for their turn ... It just takes one's breath away. The camera moves from room to room in the St. Petersburg hermitage -- strolling through different scenes of Russian history ... Not a lot of dialogue. Sometimes you just get glimpses, or hear snippets of a conversation ... It's not a literal film. We don't really 'get into it' with any one of the specific characters. The camera doesn't dwell. It scans the landscape ... we see this, we see that, we move on ... At times the camera follows people down teeny dark spiral staircases... then a character will open a door into a massive art gallery, or a spectacular ballroom, and suddenly you see thousands of people from czarist Russia all doing the mazurka ...

Because the entire film is done in one take, then that means that those thousands of people have been waiting in that room, in costume, on hold - waiting for the rest of the movie to take place, so that then they can come to life - whenever the doors open.

The camera, on its way through the building, will peek through windows, into a dark interior room, 5 or so people inside, something intense happening. We spy on them for a couple of minutes, and then we move on.

All the time with uninterrupted takes.

I am in awe. Martin Scorsese, famously in "Good Fellas", did that entire scene at the nightclub in one uninterrupted take: Ray Liotta entering through the back, strolling through a hallway, entering the kitchen ... As an actor, I am in love with the thought of LIFE going on whether or not the camera is pointed at you. That is one of the marks of great film acting: if you get a palpable sensation that you are only watching a sliver of life. Think of the great film performances. I'm thinking of Travis Bickle right now, but that's just an example. That 2-hour long movie was just a snippet of the stories that could be told about this man. If only you could peek outside the frames, if only you could stay in this room for one second longer ... you'd see all kinds of amazing things.

"The Russian Ark" felt like a dream, one of those dreams where doors keep opening, or you are walking through a house that you thought was familiar to you, but suddenly you discover another wing, another room.

I want to know how the HELL they filmed this movie. I want the coffee table book. Were there Production Assistants running ahead to the people in the next room, informing them: "Okay, the camera is on its way ...Take your positions please!" Were walkie talkies involved? How did they do it?? And what was it like for the many many many people in the last scene ... who had to wait over an hour for the camera to arrive? The last scene was a ball, with a full orchestra playing... czars and czarinas and nobility, in incredible costumes, dancing, and laughing and talking ... There were probably 800 people people in that scene alone.

There were times when my experience, as an audience member, was primarily about; "How the HELL did they do this??" I couldn't get over it. But then there were times that I completely forgot about the one-take, and got wrapped up in the events on the screen.

It certainly helped that I know a bit of Russian history, but it's not necessary to have that in order to get into the film. The film does a pretty good job of letting you know who is who. Oh, there's Catherine the Great, etc. However, if you do have a bit of context, then you will have eerie moments of recognition. Encountering characters who you feel you know, as if these historical people were personal friends (or enemies, as the case may be). (Here is the cast of characters.)

At one point, the camera enters this long spectacular green-walled hallway. In the hallway there are 4 vivacious young girls, so beautiful in a child-like way that you want to cry. They all have long ringlets, with flowers woven into their hair, they are wearing diaphonous dresses, and ballet slippers. They are heart-achingly beautiful, and they are in a riotous mood, running as quickly as they can down the endless hallway, batting themselves back and forth, from wall to wall, laughing hysterically, their hair streaming behind them. They look like mermaids, especially in that underwater-light of green. And nothing was said at first ... you just see the scene unfold. Everything bathed in a greenish light because of the walls, and there were four rambunctious young fairies catapulting riotously down the hallway. And I knew who they were as well as if they were from my own family. I knew immediately, the second I saw them. My heart tugged up out of my chest at the sight of them, their youth, their beauty, their innocence ...They have no idea how horrible their end will be. And then a nurse-maid, or a nun, in another room, says, "Anastasia, what are you doing?" or something like that. That name ... again, in the context of this film, this non-literal film ... comes across as an incantation of some kind. Or a symbol. Even just being able to speak that name is an important political act. Healing, maybe. I don't know. That was one of the things I felt when I heard her name come floating out of the next room ...

The movie works on another level, what I would call a subterranean level.

Ted and I were so stirred up by the whole thing that we had to go out afterwards and drink wine and talk like maniacs.

The Russians are trying to reclaim their long history, after decades of totalitarian silence. They are building an Ark. So the question is: What should go in the Ark? What will survive? What should survive? What already HAS survived? History did not begin in 1917. NOTHING has been wiped out.

That is why I believe this is a great and an important film, and the whole rolling-eyes "Oh, yeah, the one-take gimmick" crowd have missed the point. This is a film of reclamation for an entire country.

I kept waiting for Stalin to appear. But he did not. It seemed deliberate.

So I guess he does not get to go on the Ark.

This was fascinating to me. And also tragic, in a piercing way. Why tragic? Well, here's how I took it: He wasn't in the film at all, nobody spoke his name, he is unmentionable, and yet, for me, he hovered over the whole thing. All of these ancient events, the camera moving inexorably from room to room... I thought every time a door opened, he would be standing there. Like a Demon of Death, the guy waiting at the end of the corridor. The End of History. The four little green-lit fairy girls, running and laughing ... Somehow, in my subterranean experience, I thought they would go careening around a corner and bump into him, with the twinkley eyes, the big mustache, the solid head ... Terrifying.

But no. He was noticeably absent, and this - to me - was the saddest of all. Because of the terror he wrought. Because of the damage he did. In the context of the film, it seems to me that the wounds are still too raw. Or maybe there's something else going on. That the Russian people (the people this film is really FOR) need to see him as somehow outside of their history (he was from Georgia, after all), he has nothing to do with them, he was not one of them at all.

I can't explain why it made me so so sad, but it did. I almost WANTED to see him ... just so I could deal with my anger, so I could have a catharsis of rage towards that man ... that man subliminally waiting at the end of every Russian corridor, that man just around the corner ... I wanted to see his face. So that I could ... what ... hiss? Boo? All I know is I hungered to see him. I needed a focus to put my hatred.

But he never showed up. Why am I crying? The movie was all about healing. And reclamation of history. But he is still too big to "claim". It can't be healed. What he did.

The last scene of the film is the czarist ball, with the full orchestra, all of these people having the time of their lives. The scene went on and on and on, and was absolutely delicious. The camera swooped around the dancers, entering the dance floor, following the couples dancing, moving along the spectators, then sweeping up to get an overview of the orchestra ... The scene had no beginning, middle, or end. It was just life. That's all. Life captured on celluloid.

It was life in St. Petersburg right before the Revolution. Because the film was in one take, you could feel that the experience was coming to an end ... there was an internal time-clock to the whole thing ... and, like I said, I kept having this expectation that there had to be one scene after the ball - at least one scene. The ball would end, all the rich people with their jewels and silks and laughing faces would scurry away into the corridors, into the darkness ... and then we would see ... what? Lenin? Trotsky? Bolsheviks tramping their muddy boots through the marbled halls, ripping stuff off the walls? I didn't know ... but I expected that very soon the ball would end, and we would then be full on in 'what came after'. "What came after" hung over the scene of the ball like a polluted cloud.

But my expectation was not to be ... the ball-scene went on and on and on ... I didn't time it, but it was very long, and the very length of it became a quiet agony to me.

I could sense we were nearing the end of the journey. And everyone kept laughing, and talking, and living their lives ... while revolution was stirring unseen outside. I got an intense sensation of watching a world which was just about to die. And the people in the scene, the hundreds and hundreds of them, had no idea how close the end was. I wanted to jump into the movie screen and send warnings, tell them all to get out, run while they still had the chance ...

The orchestra finishes the song, and the crowd gives an extended ovation. The clapping and cheering goes on and on and on. There were smiles on every face. The conductor (a famous conductor in real life) continued to bow, gracious, smiling. It seemed that the masses would never stop applauding.

A happy scene, yes? But as it kept going, as they kept clapping, suddenly, out of nowhere, I got this massive lump in my throat. I suddenly wanted to cry. It was more of a physical response, than a purely emotional one. it literally felt like my heart rose up into my throat. And I didn't know why ... but of course, on some level, I did know why.

In the middle of the scene, the "guide" (guy with flowing black coat and messy white hair) suddenly turned and looked directly at the camera. No words. It was just a look. Behind him swooped the laughing dancing bejewlled crowds. And the look on his face - it was piercing, it pierced my heart - all the sadness of the ages was in his face. It was so incongrous, in that glamorous setting. The narrator, still unseen, suddenly says, in a confused voice, "I'm sad."

The narrator says then: "So where to now? Should we move forward?" (He means forward in time.)

A look flashes across the companion's face again. What was the look? I would say: I saw fear. And grief. Or maybe it was just terror I saw, and since I know the end of the story projected grief onto his face. I have no idea. I think what it really was - was terror. Of going "forward". And all he said was: "Forward?" He didn't want to move forward. We all know what happened next.

And the companion does not want to go. "I don't want to go forward. I think I will stay here."

But the sadness I saw ... "sadness" is a tepid word to describe what I saw on that man's face.

I am not Russian. I do not have the Russian history behind me as a cultural memory. Their memories, as a people, are not mine. But that doesn't matter.

In that moment, that moment of terror and grief on his face, I "got" what has happened to Russia. I felt it. As opposed to just understanding it from books.

I can't get that man's expression out of my mind.

Posted by sheila