The Soviet film "The Siege" was filmed in 1974-1977, and it took four years to see that because the shooting time was too long, the characters in the play, by the second part, have clearly shown their old state.
As a film depicting the Battle of Leningrad, "The Siege" is far less than Ozelov's "Liberation" and "The Defense of Moscow" occupy a supreme position in Chinese audiences.
The fundamental reason is that "The Siege" is far less magnificent and magnificent in the scene than the series of World War II films directed by Ozelov.
Screenshot of Siege
Ozelov uses aerial lenses to survey the battlefield for more than ten miles, giving people a strong sense of shock.
And all of this, in "The Siege", lacks such a condescending, continuous momentum presentation.
More crucially, Ozelov's "Liberation" and "The Defense of Moscow" adopt a documentary style, showing the course of the war, more like a chronicle, a fictional plot, reduced to the point where it cannot be reduced.
In "The Siege", there is a main line, which is a fictional clue, and this fictional clue can be seen in the creative habits of Chakovsky, the original author of "The Siege".
Although Chakovsky's reputation has not reached a thunderous level among Chinese readers, it can be called a lot of fans among Chinese writers.
The Chinese writer Lu Yao is a big fan of Chakovsky.
Lu Yao's literary creation was deeply influenced by pre-Soviet literature.
Even when Tian Xiaoxia and Sun Shaoping fell in love, the novels talked about were also Soviet literature.
Lu Yao's two favorite Soviet writers were Chakovsky, the screenwriter of The Siege, and Aitmatov.
Aitmatov's influence among Chinese writers is also remarkable. He wrote the novel "Guillotine", in which the delicate depiction of man fighting with wolves can be seen in "Wolf Totem". The rigorous and exhaustive description of nature and beasts in "Wolf Totem" can be said to be deeply rooted in the essence of Soviet literature.
Lu Yao called Chakovsky and Aitmatov "oceanic" writers, saying he liked to read their "entire works."
Chakovsky's origin belongs to Petersburg, that is, Leningrad, which is understandable why he wrote such a novel about the battle of Leningrad, "The Siege", and the film script adapted from it, but Chakovsky also went to the easternmost part of the Soviet Union and wrote a long novel about Sakhalin Island, "We Are Here it Is Morning".
It's hard to imagine how well the novel sold well in China that year. Such a novel of about 210,000 words has two translations in China. One translation is Wei Congwu's translation, which is called "Morning on Sakhalin Island", and the other translation is translated by Wang Minquan, Wang Ye, and Lin Hua, and the translation is the more popular "We Are Here It Is Morning".
In addition to "How Steel is Made", in the fifties, it is indeed relatively rare to have two translations of Soviet novels.
The description of the sea around Sakhalin Island in "We Are Here is Morning" is quite evocative and concise, the author's pen and ink are like oil paintings, meticulous and thoughtful, and even use various words to show the different colors of the sea, so that people can see its shadow, for Chinese readers, there may not be a Chinese literary work that describes this sea. When we read today that Russian writers describe this sea in a colorful way, we can't help but have mixed emotions and give birth to a little nostalgia for the past.
In this way, Chakovsky wrote a novel in the southeasternmost region of the former Soviet Union, and at the same time, he wrote a long novel "Siege" located in the northwestern tip of the former Soviet Union, which can so jump between different longitudes and latitudes and show two regions with complete contrasts, and cannot but admire Chakovsky's ability to control the small land and write a pen.
A fictional love scene in The Siege
The film "The Siege" as a writer's work, there is a fictional clue in it, or reflects Chakovsky's unique thinking.
This kind of thinking is completely different from the conception of "Liberation" written by Bondarev.
In all of Bondarev's novels and plays, it is about an artillery unit, and in this unit there must be a female medic, and then this medic must lead to a sharp contest between two male soldiers in the army.
This kind of conception must be reflected in Bundalev's "Liberation" written by him.
A love scene in Liberation
"Liberation" also appears in a female medic Zoya, which runs through the film. However, after all, "Liberation" is a panoramic representation of war, and this female soldier does not establish a triangle entanglement with the male soldier.
In the fictional plot line of "The Siege", Chakovsky also set up a triangular relationship of "one woman and two men", which also reflected The Chakovsky's understanding of history.
Vera in The Siege
The girl was named Vera, and she fell in love with a male college student, while another very decent officer pursued her. And she was more devoted to this male college student. Later, when the war broke out, Vera came back with the male college student, was hit by the German army, Vera was raped, and the male college student claimed that his father was repulsed and was able to escape, but this also became a huge stain on his heart, after all, he escaped by lying, is this his original sin?
This sharp "moral question" is presented in the image in the film, reflecting the strong interest of former Soviet writers in "moral entanglement".
This is also the reason why the former Su writers were liked by Chinese writers in the 1980s.
Throughout the 1980s, European and American literature was very unpopular with the Chinese literary scene, that is, Hollywood films, which were also scorned in film schools.
Stills from The Siege
During their film school years, the fifth generation of directors of the generation like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige eagerly sought the small words and righteousness in Soviet films, worshiped everything in the Soviet Union, and Chinese writers also drew nourishment from Soviet literature. Mo Yan almost drank sholokhov's Don River and grabbed his set of distinctive imagery, thus entering the Chinese literary world like a nobody.
It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the self-destruction of the Great Wall, and the imitation of the Chinese literary and art circles turned into dust, that the Chinese literary and art circles reluctantly bid farewell to the Soviet-Russian complex.
The theme of Western literature can be summarized as "personality theme", which shows people's inner desires and the manifestation of personality, while Soviet films and literature, obsessed with "moral themes", are more likely to resonate with Chinese cultural people.
Lu Yao is also in this context, and he loves The Author of "The Siege", Chakovsky.
We can see that the emotional dilemma faced by Vera, the girl in "The Siege", as a selective perspective, represents a moral conflict.
This is a setting that only writers are interested in, and now moving to "Siege" also brings a sense of heaviness and unpredictability to "Siege".
Although such a setting has a deep understanding of people's hearts, it still has an obvious negative effect on the objective presentation of the film. This led to The Siege being more of a feature film than a documentary.
The siege begins with the Great Patriotic War, which is a repetition of the beginning of The Defense of Moscow.
The beginning of "The Siege" is very unfriendly to Stalin, and when the German army invaded, Stalin was once lost. Then he called a meeting and gave orders. The voiceover in the film states: "Stalin quickly became firm and became the stalin known to everyone."
In contrast, Stalin in Ozelov's "The Defense of Moscow" directly ignored his emotional explanations when he heard the German invasion, but immediately entered the office of the Kremlin and held an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.
In this regard, "The Siege" more faithfully implemented the anti-"two extremes" advocated by the Soviet cultural circles at that time, that is, opposing both smear and whitewashing. Therefore, the image of Stalin, which is still affirmed in the general aspect of the current "Siege" but is also insufficient in local details, is a composite figure.
In the play, an old friend of Stalin is specially set up to visit Stalin, and this fictional old friend can be roughly seen to have a similar conception to the fictional old friend of Tsaritsin who read War and Peace with Stalin in the 1949 version of "The Great Blood Battle of Stalingrad".
In The Siege, the old friend boldly asks Stalin why he was losing so far in the early days of the war. The film borrows Stalin's mouth to explain the situation of the Soviet army's weapons and equipment in the early days of the war, and now the situation has changed, and the film thus defends Stalin through this plot in disguise.
Then, in a dialogue, Stalin said: "In any case, we will not give up Moscow, I promise. ”
Stalin was finally put on the screen as a determined and responsible leader.
In contrast, Ozelov's last World War II film, the 1990 edition of "The Great Battle of Stalingrad", was very disrespectful to Stalin, which cannot be said to be related to the fact that the investment side of the film was Warner Bros. Company of the United States.
Stills from The Great Bloody Battle of Stalingrad
The Stalin in the 1990 version seems to be integrated into the overall tone of the French director's vilification of Stalin in "Soldiers In the City", note that in the 1990 version of "The Great Blood Battle of Stalingrad", it also depicts the acquaintance of a sniper and a female soldier to fall in love, this idea was later re-interpreted in "Soldiers In the City". In this way, the plot and tone of "Soldiers In the City" have a certain inheritance with Ozelov's version of "The Great Blood Battle of Stalingrad".
Ozelov later re-edited a series of Films of the Great Patriotic War he had made into The Tragedy of the Century, which shows that Ozelov's attitude toward the Great Patriotic War underwent a nihilistic reversal, transforming what had been collectively called a sacred war into the "tragedy of the century."
Since "The Siege" highlights the positive side of Stalin, the image of Stalin in the movie, on the whole, is still pleasant and kind.
However, after Zhukov came to the front, he blindly demanded that the front-line troops attack and not retreat, and the tone of his tone was almost the tone of Stalin in Ozelov's version of "The Great Blood Battle of Stalingrad".
Such a brutal image of Zhukov is alleviated in Ozelov's version of The Defense of Moscow. Zhukov's harshness in "The Defense of Moscow" has a reasonable component, and it seems that Zhukov's image is much more comfortable.
Stalin in The Siege is played by Boris Gorbatov. He was born in 1917 and died in 1987 at the age of 70.
When Boris Gorbatov made The Siege, he was between the ages of 57 and 60, a little younger than Stalin at the time, and still more in line with the age of the role.
Life photo of Boris Gorbatov
The difference between Boris Gorbatov's face and Stalin's is large, at least Stalin's face has a square bottom frame, but Boris Gorbatov's face is rounded, his cheeks are too prominent, and his eyes lack strength, which is a non-characteristic image of Stalin.
Boris Gorbatov was not a well-known actor from the former Soviet Union, playing very few films, and The Siege was his only film to play Stalin.
Below, we will make a brief introduction to the film starring Boris Gorbatov, and if you are not interested in friends, you can skip it directly:
In 1964, he played Sakharov in Port Arthur, a captain engineer.
Port Arthur poster
The film is based on the play of the same name by Popov and Stepanov, the author of the Soviet novel Lushunkou, and "Port Arthur" is actually the Soviet pronunciation of Lushun Port.
In 1974, he starred as Stalin in the first part of The Siege.
In 1975, he played Ferdor, Krechynsky's personal maid, in "Krechynsky's Wedding".
In 1976, he played Brand Strön in Confessions.
The film takes the early years of the victory of the October Revolution as the timeline and is set in Lenin's struggle for international recognition of the nascent state.
In 1976, he starred as Jon Tulumtaev in "Confirmation".
In 1977, he starred as Stalin in the second part of The Siege.
In 1977, he starred as a resident of Odessa in The Tragedy of Optimism.
Poster of The Tragedy of Optimism
In 1978, he played a role in The Dark Forces, based on Leo Tolstoy's novel.
Dark Forces poster
In 1979, he played a role in "The Lords of Gololyov".
Poster of "The Lords of Gololyov"
In 1985, he played the administrator in "Immature Raspberry".
Overall, Stalin, played by Boris Gorbatov in The Siege, is relatively peaceful, with a small number of scenes revealing his inner world, such as the secret topic of his discussion with his old friends about the causes and consequences of the war, which is never covered in the Defense of Moscow.
Stalin in "The Siege", breaking the relationship with the fictional clues, at the beginning, Stalin's approval of the fictional Soviet officers and his affirmation of the outbreak of war reflect the positive performance of Stalin's foresight of the war, and the initial expression of Stalin's dazedness and confusion at the beginning of the film is also to show his reaction as a normal person.
Boris Gorbatov starred in Stalin
Boris Gorbatov cannot speak of being close to Stalin in appearance, and it can be said that this version of Stalin has created an amiable image of Stalin. The author of "The Siege" was still quite clever in his tightrope walking technique when showing Stalin, and he did not oppose the demands of the two extremes. This makes Stalin in The Siege generally balanced and impartial.
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