Poruchik Kizhe (1934)

Director:

Aleksandr Fajntsimmer

Guionista:

Yuri Tynyanov (writer)

Release Date:

9 diciembre 1934 (USA)

Plot:

A sarcastic comedy about the Russian-Soviet bureaucracy, based on the eponymous novella by Yuri Tynyanov...

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Not just a musical footnote

Cast

Mikhail Yanshin	...	Tsar Pavel I
Boris Gorin-Goryainov	...	Count von Pahlen
Nina Shaternikova	...	Princess Gagarina
Sofiya Magarill	...	Princess Gagarina's companion
Erast Garin	...	Adjutant
Mikhail Rostovtsev	...	Fortress commandant

También conocida como:

Lieutenant Kije
Lieutenant Kizhe
The Czar Wants to Sleep (USA)

País:

Soviet Union

Idioma:

Russian

Color:

Black and White

Sonido:

Mono

Company:

Belgoskino

Trivialidades:

Though the film is little known today, the five-movement suite Prokofiev arranged from his music for it (usually called "Lieutenant Lijé Suite") has become a standard classical concert piece and has been recorded often.

Goofs:

Continuity: The document with the crucial slip of the pen as corrected by Tsar Paul I is clearly not the same as the one written by the army scribe in the previous scene. In the first version, the second (mistaken) letter K is clearly larger than the first. In the version corrected by the Tsar, they are the same size. (Though the subtitles have the Tsar capitalizing the second K, what he is actually doing is adding a letter between the two two Ks -- the Russian "hard sign" required at the end of many words in the pre-revolutionary spelling system. The effect is the same: to create a fictional Lieutenant Kizhe.)

Quotes:

Palen: [subtitled version] The prisoner is confidential, and has no shape.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Horse's Mouth (1958)

Soundtrack:

Lieutenant Kije

Not just a musical footnote

I went to see this film out of curiosity, and to settle an argument. The film is now best known from the suite of music Sergei Prokofiev extracted from his incidental music to the film, the Troika movement even turning up in pop arrangements. The general outline of the plot is well known from the sleeve notes on various recordings. A clerk accidentally generates a non-existent Lieutenant Kizhe in a list to be presented to the tsar. The tsar is interested in this person, and rather than tell him he doesn't exist, the courtiers and officers maintain the pretence that he is real. Kizhe is exiled to Siberia, recalled, promoted, married, promoted again, dies, is given a state funeral, revealed as an embezzler and posthumously demoted to the ranks.

I had heard conflicting stories about how the clerk invented Kizhe, involving ink blots and sneezes, but I'd heard the film was lost, so there was no way to find out what happens. Then the film turned up at the Barbican in London as part of their Prokofiev festival. For the record, it turned out that all that happens is that the clerk confuses two words whilst writing an order and turns Kuzhe into Kizhe. As the tsar is in a hurry to see the order, there's no time to correct the mistake.

Having gone expecting an historical curiosity, I was pleasantly surprised. The film is very funny, and the audience, myself included, laughed continuously. Although most of it is filmed straight, set mostly in the palace, there are a few "trick" shots where multiple images appear on the screen. For instance, the tsar's army is represented by a small group, repeated across the screen. Four identical guards perform perfect drill in perfect unison. Two identical servants scrub the floor.

One slight drawback was it was very difficult to work out who everyone was. There were two women who might have been the tsar's daughters, or a daughter and a servant or something else. And very few people were named. But all in all, an enjoyable film and I'm surprised it's not seen more often.