The Twelfth Chair

I was watching the 1971 version of 12 Chairs the other night, with Archil Gomiashvili as Ostap Bender. Great visual and comic feast. This is a very nice transfer , unfortunately no English subs. You can say Russians reclaimed Ilf and Petrov's classic novel after numerous foreign adaptations, including Mel Brooks' 1970 version. There was also a 1976 Soviet version with Andrei Mironov in the lead.

It is often thought comedy gets lost in translation. Mark Twain commented on this in his essay, The Awful German Language. While it is hard to find fault with Twain, I think comedy is visually specific as well. Ilf and Petrov relied on a number of "word images" that simply don't carry the same resonance in any other language than Russian. The films help restore some of that humor.

The 1971 film was wonderfully inventive with amusing cartoon sketches mixed in, similar to the Monty Python Circus. Of course, the great Andrei Mironov was fantastic to watch in the 1976 television mini-series.

The monument is located at Deribassovskaya Street, Odessa. You have to love Bender's hat and suitcase in the picture.

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Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892. It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921. In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town. He introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster. It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin. Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending. The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double . He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul. Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul. This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage. Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage. I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece. In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating events, and may even

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery . The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right. To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence. It is also known as Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years. The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance. He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide. Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin for an earlier "Mother"

Chekhov's Gun

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