The 2012 Berlinale retrospective The Red Dream Factory about the Russian-German Meschrabpom studios is a gift to film teachers, linking lesson plans on Weimar and Soviet cinemas in one intriguing unit. A commercial/artistic venue founded in 1921 by Moisei Aleinikov, a Russian producer of the tsarist era, and Willi Münzenberg, an enthusiastic German Communist with an eye for business, the company was called Workers International Relief, and known as Meschrabpom, its shortened name.
Seeking to capitalize on the political and artistic momentum of the new cinematic narratives coming from Russia, this production and distribution company blended an ideological mission with commerce. The marriage lasted 14 years and succumbed to the winds of history - the Nazis first and the Stalinist cultural commissars later. The studio made more than 600 films, including some of the classics I teach, such as Pudovkin’s The End of St Petersburg (1927) and Storm over Asia (1928), and others I just allude to, like the science fiction Aelita (1924).
The output of Meschrabpom - features, documentaries, animation, assorted agit prop and the first Russian sound film, The Road to Life (1931) - helps us understand a project that joined an uncompromising ideology with mass entertainment. Its financial success led to the opening a production company in Berlin, Prometheus, providing an alternative to purely ommercial fare. And here is the second link connecting Weimar and Moscow: German classics of the Weimar such as Mutter Krause’s Journey to Happiness (1929) and Kuhle Wampe (1932) were Prometheus productions. Their depictions of the working class through a leftist lens accomplished the company’s goals.
Seeking to capitalize on the political and artistic momentum of the new cinematic narratives coming from Russia, this production and distribution company blended an ideological mission with commerce. The marriage lasted 14 years and succumbed to the winds of history - the Nazis first and the Stalinist cultural commissars later. The studio made more than 600 films, including some of the classics I teach, such as Pudovkin’s The End of St Petersburg (1927) and Storm over Asia (1928), and others I just allude to, like the science fiction Aelita (1924).
Operating from Moscow, the company’s headquarters were in Berlin, with a division of labor that put the Germans charge of the hardware, leaving content to the Russians. Straddling two countries and an unusual business set up, the company was not fully controlled by the Soviet propaganda system, even though it shared ideological objectives.
Meschrabpom shows this film history teacher – always in a rush to get through Soviet and German film in the 1920s in a meager two 4-hour slots – that we can link both national cinemas through a study of distribution and exhibition. The business side comes a distant third to Expressionism and Montage. But we can use it to explain how the radical visual style developed and written about by Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin and Kuleshow was successfully marketed in Europe, impacting the avant-garde in France and the documentary movement in Britain.
Meschrabpom shows this film history teacher – always in a rush to get through Soviet and German film in the 1920s in a meager two 4-hour slots – that we can link both national cinemas through a study of distribution and exhibition. The business side comes a distant third to Expressionism and Montage. But we can use it to explain how the radical visual style developed and written about by Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin and Kuleshow was successfully marketed in Europe, impacting the avant-garde in France and the documentary movement in Britain.
The output of Meschrabpom - features, documentaries, animation, assorted agit prop and the first Russian sound film, The Road to Life (1931) - helps us understand a project that joined an uncompromising ideology with mass entertainment. Its financial success led to the opening a production company in Berlin, Prometheus, providing an alternative to purely ommercial fare. And here is the second link connecting Weimar and Moscow: German classics of the Weimar such as Mutter Krause’s Journey to Happiness (1929) and Kuhle Wampe (1932) were Prometheus productions. Their depictions of the working class through a leftist lens accomplished the company’s goals.
The students can easily see that the writing was on the wall for Meschrabpom in the polarized 1930s: the studio’s political/ideological enterprise ran counter to the totalitarian views held by both Nazis and Soviets: too ‘commercial’ for hardline Stalinists, and outside of the ‘politically correct’ views west of the Elbe river. The point can also be driven home by discussing the emblematic case of Dmitri Shostakovich: after being officially denounced in Pravda as a 'formalist' composer he drastically changed his style.
After watching some of these films at the Berlinale retrospective (and understanding why the likes of Keaton and Chaplin could not emerge from Russia), I see how enriching it can be to address the 1920s also in terms of contrasting studio systems. By examining the fundamental economic and cultural differences between the Hollywood dream factory and the Soviet system, we can present the times in a sharp light.
The Retrospective is organized by the Deutsche Kinemathek, with many films from the Russian archives traveling abroad for the first time. Each film is meticulously introduced; a pianist provides music for the silent titles, and a collective volume has just been edited. The icing on the cake was talking to a very elegant Russian lady before a screening of The Road to Life (an exalted piece of Socialist Realism about, what else, workers building a railway ). Ekaterina Khokhlova is the granddaughter of Lev Kuleshov - a staple of any lecture on Soviet cinema. Six degrees of separation with the Russian masters of montage. Died and went to heaven ...
After watching some of these films at the Berlinale retrospective (and understanding why the likes of Keaton and Chaplin could not emerge from Russia), I see how enriching it can be to address the 1920s also in terms of contrasting studio systems. By examining the fundamental economic and cultural differences between the Hollywood dream factory and the Soviet system, we can present the times in a sharp light.
The Retrospective is organized by the Deutsche Kinemathek, with many films from the Russian archives traveling abroad for the first time. Each film is meticulously introduced; a pianist provides music for the silent titles, and a collective volume has just been edited. The icing on the cake was talking to a very elegant Russian lady before a screening of The Road to Life (an exalted piece of Socialist Realism about, what else, workers building a railway ). Ekaterina Khokhlova is the granddaughter of Lev Kuleshov - a staple of any lecture on Soviet cinema. Six degrees of separation with the Russian masters of montage. Died and went to heaven ...
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