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The Death of Stalin
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = The Death of Stalin
| image = The Death of Stalin.png
| alt =
| caption = British theatrical release poster
| director = Armando Iannucci
| producer =
| screenplay =
| based_on =
| starring =
| music = Christopher Willis
| cinematography = Zac Nicholson
| editing = Peter Lambert
| studio =
| distributor =
| released =
| runtime = 107 minutes
| country =
| language = English
| budget = $13 million
| gross = $24.6 million
}}
'The Death of Stalin' is a 2017 biographical historical political satire black comedy film written and directed by Armando Iannucci and co-written by David Schneider and Ian Martin. Based on the French graphic novel 'La Mort de Staline' (20102012), the film depicts the internal social and political power struggle among the Council of Ministers following the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953. The British-French-Belgian co-production stars an ensemble cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Whitehouse, Olga Kurylenko, and Jeffrey Tambor.
'The Death of Stalin' was screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and received critical acclaim. It was released in the United Kingdom by Entertainment One Films on 20 October 2017, in France by Gaumont on 4 April 2018 and in Belgium by September Film Distribution on 18 April 2018. The film was banned in Russia and Kyrgyzstan for allegedly mocking the countries' past and making fun of their leaders. It received various awards, including two British Academy Film Award nominations for Outstanding British Film as well as 13 British Independent Film Award nominations winning four awards including for Simon Russell Beale for Best Supporting Actor.
Plot
Joseph Stalin listens to an evening recital of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 on Radio Moscow at his dacha. He calls the concert, ordering that it deliver a recording to him. However, there is no recording, so the engineers hurriedly repeat the whole concert. Disgusted pianist Maria Yudina hides a note for Stalin in the record sleeve denouncing him. Meanwhile, Stalin has dinner with central committee members Molotov, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and Beria, head of the NKVD.
Once alone, Stalin puts on the recital and discovers the note. He reads it and laughs hysterically before suffering a cerebral haemorrhage. His guards hear him fall but do not investigate out of fear, and he is only discovered the next morning by his housekeeper. The members of the committee rush to the dacha. Beria, who arrives first, finds the note from Yudina. Malenkov, who is Stalin's successor, arrives next and begins to panic but is calmed down by Beria, who secretly plans to use him as a puppet. Next to arrive is Khrushchev, who is joined afterward by the other committee members.
Beria immediately has the NKVD take over city security duties from the Soviet Army. The committee struggles to find good doctors to treat Stalin as all of Moscow's best doctors have been arrested under Stalin's orders. Khrushchev and Beria begin to struggle for symbolic victories, such as control over Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, and his mentally unstable, alcoholic son, Vasily. After Stalin dies, the committee hurries back to Moscow. Khrushchev seeks Molotov's support, but he opposes this citing Stalin's opposition to factionalism. However, Beria cynically secures Molotov's loyalty by releasing his wife Polina Zhemchuzhina from prison.
The committee convenes and names Malenkov premier, as stated under the Soviet Constitution. However, he is largely under the control of Beria, who uses him to better his own position. As a result, Khrushchev is sidelined and put in charge of planning Stalin's funeral. Beria suggests introducing the liberal reforms that Khrushchev had wanted to implement. While Stalin lies in state, Beria earns more popular support by releasing political prisoners and loosening restrictions on the Church. However, he is challenged by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who is infuriated that the Soviet Army has been confined to barracks. He and Khrushchev are further incensed when they learn that Beria has stopped all trains into Moscow. Beria, however, learns that Khrushchev is acquainted with Yudina, who is going to play at Stalin's funeral. He thus exerts influence on Khrushchev by threatening to reveal the contents of Yudina's note.
In retaliation, Khrushchev approaches Zhukov to obtain the support of the Soviet Army in staging a coup against Beria. Zhukov is open to the idea but only if it has the full support of the central committee. Khrushchev begins to undermine Beria's popularity by ordering trains to re-enter Moscow: the NKVD security forces are overwhelmed and massacre 1,500 mourners. The committee suggests blaming junior NKVD officers, but Beria opposes this because he believes his association with the NKVD will tarnish his reputation. He angrily threatens the committee with compromising material. Molotov, enraged at the rapprochement with the Church, secretly meets up with Khrushchev and Kaganovich offering his support for disposing Beria if there's unanimous consent.
On the day of Stalin's funeral, Khrushchev lies to Molotov and Zhukov that the committee unanimously supports action against Beria. Zhukov informs his men, who relieve the NKVD at their posts and arrest Beria. Khrushchev coerces Malenkov into signing Beria's arrest warrant. At a hasty trial, Khrushchev and his allies accuse Beria of sexual assault, rape and pedophilia. Khrushchev sentences Beria to death, and in an ensuing struggle, a soldier prematurely shoots Beria in the head. As Beria's body is burned, Khrushchev gives Svetlana a ticket to Vienna and assures her that her brother, Vasily, will be cared for. Afterward, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, and Molotov agree that Malenkov is unfit to lead the country.
Several years later, Khrushchev is now the leader of the Soviet Union after removing or demoting his co-conspirators. He attends a concert by Yudina; meanwhile, his future successor Leonid Brezhnev intently watches him from the row of seats above.
Cast
Production
The project began development during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Armando Iannucci was set as director and writer, alongside his 'The Thick of It' co-writer Ian Martin. Production was due to begin in June, with Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi, Olga Kurylenko, Timothy Dalton, Toby Kebbell, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine and Andrea Riseborough among the cast.[https://deadline.com/2016/05/gaumont-armando-ianucci-death-of-stalin-quad-productions-cannes-1201745062/ All-Star Cast Boards Armando Iannucci's 'The Death of Stalin' Cannes] Production began on June 20, with Adrian McLoughlin, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs and Paul Whitehouse joining the cast. Dalton and Kebbell, who were originally respectively cast as Georgy Zhukov and Vasily Stalin, ultimately did not appear in the film.[https://deadline.com/2016/06/armando-iannuccis-the-death-of-stalin-starts-shoot-adds-cast-closes-deals-1201775532/ Armando Iannucci's 'The Death of Stalin' Starts Shoot, Adds Cast, Closes Deals]
Production ended 6 August 2016.
Filming locations included Kyiv, Ukraine (for exteriors scenes and exterior of Public Enemies building and NKVD building), the United Kingdom (at Blythe House, Freemasons' Hall and Alexandra Palace in London, Mongewell Park in Oxfordshire, Hammersmith Town Hall in London), and in Moscow, Russia, at the Red Gate Building.
The soundtrack was composed by Christopher Willis. The score was written in the style of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich of the Stalin era.[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/death-stalin-composer-resurrecting-soviet-musical-greats-armando-iannucci-s-satire-1093306 'Death of Stalin' Composer on Resurrecting Soviet Musical Greats for Armando Iannucci's Satire][https://thevinylfactory.com/features/armando-iannucci-interview-classical-music-death-of-stalin/ Armando Iannucci on classical music, 'The Death of Stalin', and soundtracking comedy]
Release
Box office
'The Death of Stalin' was released by eOne Films in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2017 and IFC Films in the United States on 9 March 2018. The film was screened in the Platform section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.'The Death of Stalin' grossed $8 million in the United States and Canada and $16.6 million in other territories (including $7.3 million in the UK), for a worldwide total of $24.6 million.
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 252 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "'The Death of Stalin' finds director/co-writer Armando Iannucci in riotous form, bringing his scabrous political humor to bear on a chapter in history with painfully timely parallels." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".In 'The Guardian', Peter Bradshaw gave the film 5/5 stars, writing that "fear rises like gas from a corpse in Armando Iannucci's brilliant horror-satire" and that it "is superbly cast, and acted with icy and ruthless force by an A-list lineup. There are no weak links. Each has a plum role; each squeezes every gorgeous horrible drop." Sandra Hall of 'The Sydney Morning Herald' gave the film 4.5/5 stars, describing the film as "a devastatingly funny dissection of power politics, stripping the mystique from it and those who worship it." Donald Clarke of 'The Irish Times' gave the film 4/5 stars, writing that it "starts in a state of mortal panic and continues in that mode towards its inevitably ghastly conclusion". Tim Robey of 'The Daily Telegraph' also gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "Depending on your point of view, 'The Death of Stalin' is either a sly, wintry satire on Armando Iannucci's usual theme of squawking political idiocy, or an insidious attempt to destabilise the Russian establishment with relentless dagger-blows." Peter Howell of the 'Toronto Star' gave the film 3.5/4 stars, writing: "Shifting eastwards from the Anglo-American japes of 'In the Loop' and 'Veep', director/co-writer Armando Iannucci doesnt stint on brutal truth or lethal legend."
Christopher Orr of 'The Atlantic' praised the film's humor and the performances of the cast, and wrote that the film "seems precisely attuned to the current moment: a capricious, unpredictable leader, basking in a cult of personality; the introduction of "alternative facts"; the swift, party-wide swerves on subjects as various as negotiating with North Korea, paying off porn stars, and even Russian efforts to subvert a U.S. election." Anthony Lane of 'The New Yorker' wrote that the film was "ten times funnier, by my reckoning, than it has any right to be, and more riddled with risk than anything that Iannucci has done before, because it dares to meet outrage with outrage." Raphael Abraham of the 'Financial Times' wrote: "As this coven of vampiric apparatchiks feasts on the remains of Stalinism, the unremitting blackness of the situation at times threatens a full comedy eclipse. But the discomfiting balancing act of humour and horror is precisely Iannucci's gameand only he could pull it off with such skill." Thomas Walker, in a review for 'The Objective Standard', agreed, and added that the film "dives deep into the psychology of those living under such a system and lays bare the self-destructive mind-set of those who grasp wildly for power."
Matthew Norman of the 'Evening Standard' gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "For all [Iannucci's] dream-team cast and assured direction, despite capturing the laughable sycophancy of the apparatchik the film isn't that funny." Peter Debruge of 'Variety' wrote: "If only the end result were as funny as the idea that anyone would undertake a film about the turmoil surrounding the Soviet despot's demise."
Former U.S. President Barack Obama included 'The Death of Stalin' as one of his favourite films of 2018.
Russia and former Soviet bloc
Nikolai Starikov, head of the Russian Great Fatherland Party, said 'The Death of Stalin' was an "unfriendly act by the British intellectual class" and part of an "anti-Russian information war". In September 2017 the head of the Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Culture said Russian authorities were considering a ban on the film, alleging the film could be part of a "western plot to destabilise Russia by causing rifts in society". Russian online newspaper 'Vzglyad' called the movie a nasty sendup by outsiders who know nothing of our history. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation called the film revolting". Alexander Yushchenko, a spokesman for the party, said the film was an attempt to spark discontent.On 23 January 2018, two days before the film's scheduled release in Russia, a screening was attended by State Duma MPs, representatives of the Russian Historical Society, members of the Culture Ministry's Public Board, and film industry members. Two days later, the Ministry of Culture withdrew the film's distribution certificate. Nevertheless, several cinemas screened the film in late January, claiming that they had not heard that the movie's exhibition license had been revoked by then. Russia's culture ministry sued these theatres. According to the results of a poll conducted by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTSIOM), 35% of Russians disapproved of the Culture Ministry's decision to pull the film off the screens, while 30% supported the ban and 35% were neutral. 58% of Russians said they would be willing to watch the film in cinemas if the ban were lifted. The film has been illegally downloaded around 1.5 million times in Russia.
A group of lawyers from Russia's Ministry of Culture, the daughter of Zhukov, Era Zhukova, cinematographers Nikita Mikhalkov, Vladimir Bortko, and head of the Russian State Historical Museum Alexey Levykin, petitioned Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky to withdraw the film's certification, saying "'The Death of Stalin' is aimed at inciting hatred and enmity, violating the dignity of the Russian (Soviet) people, promoting ethnic and social inferiority. We are confident that the movie was made to distort our country's past so that the thought of the 1950s Soviet Union makes people feel only terror and disgust." The authors said the film denigrated the memory of Russian World War II fighters, with the Russian national anthem accompanied by obscene expressions and offensive attitudes, historically inaccurate decorations, and the planned release on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. The film was banned in Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Armenia and Belarus were the only members of the Eurasian Economic Union to show it. In Armenia the film premiered in two cinemas in Yerevan on 25 January 2018. In Belarus the film premiered after an initial delay. In Kazakhstan the film was screened only at the Clique festival.
Awards and honours
Historical accuracy
Several academics have pointed to historical inaccuracies in 'The Death of Stalin'. Iannucci has responded, "I'm not saying it's a documentary. It a fiction, but it's a fiction inspired by the truth of what it must have felt like at the time. My aim is for the audience to feel the sort of low-level anxiety that people must have when they just went about their daily lives at the time."
Historian Richard Overy has written that the film "is littered with historical errors", including:
* Molotov was not the foreign minister when Stalin died. He had been sacked in 1949 but became foreign minister again in the post-Stalin reshuffle.
* Marshal (not Field Marshal) Zhukov was a local field commander when Stalin died, exiled to the provinces to satisfy Stalin's paranoid jealousy of him. He became deputy minister of defence in the post-Stalin government. However, he was not the commander of the Soviet Army in March 1953.
* Khrushchev, not Malenkov, chaired the meeting to reorganise the government.
* Beria was arrested three months after Stalin died, not almost simultaneously, and that was precipitated by the 1953 East German uprising, not a massacre of mourners in Moscow, which is based on the 109 who were trampled to death during the funeral. Furthermore, Beria was not head of the security forces, a job he gave up in 1946.
* Svetlana was not sent to Vienna. She remained in the Soviet Union working as an academic and translator before ultimately defecting to America in 1967 and becoming a naturalised citizen in 1978.
Overy was most critical that the film did not appropriately honour those who died during Stalin's leadership. Iannucci said he "chose to tone down real-life absurdity" to make the work more believable.
The Radio Moscow portion is a retelling of an apocryphal story first recorded in Solomon Volkov's book 'Testimony'. However, in Volkov's account, Maria Yudina was awakened in the middle of the night in 1943 or 1944 (not 1953) to be brought in to record. The recording brought Stalin to tears, moving him to pay Yudina 20,000 rubles in appreciation. The story subsequently served as the loose basis for the 1989 BBC radio play 'The Stalin Sonata' by David Zane Mairowitz. While the anecdote did have her send a letter to Stalin, she supposedly wrote to thank him for the money, adding that she would donate it to the restoration of a church and that she would be praying for Stalin's sins to be forgiven.[https://echo.msk.ru/programs/all/620778-echo/ Echo of Moscow. Interview with Marina Drozdova], 20 September 2009. , , , , , [Joseph Vissarionovich, I thank you for the money, thank you, I donated it for the restoration of the church, I will pray for you that the Lord would forgive you your sins.] In addition, while the real Maria Yudina had been fired on one occasion for her ideological disagreements with the regime, her family had not been killed.
Dr. Lydia Timashuk is described in dialog between Beria, Khrushchev, and Malenkov as a willing accomplice in the Doctors' plot (which is already past history in the story) and is portrayed as an eager agent in the roundup of Moscow doctors for Stalin's care who then dies in a mine field around Stalin's dacha after her sexual advances to Beria are rejected. In fact she had no involvement in the events surrounding Stalin's death and was a unwilling pawn in the Doctors' plot who became embittered by the resulting stigmas of informer and anti-Semitism until her death in 1983.[http://www.critical.ru/guestroom/opus/bobrov/pages/b8.php .. ? ] (How the myth about L.F.Timasuk was created?); from: , . ., " (, , )", : , 2004, pp. 93102
Another smaller historical aspect of the plot was modified for the film, the 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash in which 11 players on the VVS Moscow ice hockey team died. In the film Vasily Stalin and Anatoly Tarasov deal with a depleted Soviet Union national ice hockey team, complete with a reference to their star player Vsevolod Bobrov, who missed the flight. However, the crash happened on 5 January 1950, more than three years before Stalin's death.
Bogdan Kobulov is depicted as being shot dead during Beria's arrest by officers under orders by Zhukov. In fact he was arrested and executed alongside Beria months later.
The NKVD had been superseded by the MVD in 1946, almost seven years before the death of Stalin.
Samuel Goff, at the Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge, while admitting that the film's historical discrepancies could be justified as helping to focus the drama, wrote that turning Beria into "an avatar of the obscenities of the Stalinist state" missed the chance to say "anything about the actual mechanisms of power." Goff argued that Iannucci's approach to satire was not transferable to something like Stalinism, and the film is "fundamentally ill-equipped to locate the comedy inherent to Stalinism, missing marks it doesn't know it should be aiming for."
References
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