Tag Archives: Aleksandrov and Simkov

The Soviet Circus Welcomes all Nationalities

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Pictured: Jimmy, Marion and Martinov

The film Circus, produced by the Soviet Union in 1936, was made in order to propagate the Union’s ideals and acceptance of all nationalities. The main hero, Marion Dixon, is chased out of the United States because of racial intolerance against her black son, Jimmy. Marion stumbles across Fronk Kneishitz, a wealthy German, who offers to take her traveling around the world and conceal the identity of her son in order to avoid persecution. Marion and Fronk Kneishitz end up on tour in Russia, where she soon meets an exemplary Soviet man, Martinov, and falls in love with him. Ludvig, the circus director, has hired Martinov to create an act to be even greater than the exotic Marion. Fronk Kneishitz becomes jealous of Marion’s affection for Martinov, and he threatens to reveal her secret at every turn in order to keep Marion under his influence. Eventually Fronk Kneishitz cannot keep Martinov and Marino apart, and out of jealousy he reveals Jimmy in font of a crowded circus performance, shaming Marion. However, the crowd and Ludvig unexpectedly embrace Jimmy, passing him throughout the crowd to keep him safe from Fronk Kneishitz. As Jimmy gets passed along, he is sung a lullaby by each nationality who holds him, in their native tongue. When Ludvig is returned Jimmy he says to Fronk Kneishitz, “In our country we love all kinds”, announcing that nationality doesn’t define a person in the Soviet Union. ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936)) Martinov, Marion and Jimmy happily unite and the movie closes with a patriotic march in the Red Square proudly waving a banner with Stalin’s face on it.

Circus is uncharacteristic of the majority of Russian and Soviet films that I have seen, in that it has a generally joyous ending. Russian films tend to depict the realities of life and rarely sugarcoat these truths. The film was released in 1936, shortly after Stalin’s Five-year plan, and as a result it was a time of low morale across the nation from harsh conditions and a lack of daily necessities. Circus is an attempt to gloss over the hardships of life and inspire nationalism in the Soviet populace once again. By ignoring the negative aspects of Stalin’s regime, the film is meant to give the impression that Stalin was a well liked and successful leader, when in reality the country is suffering. In Circus, life in the Soviet Union is displayed as so desirable that throughout the film Marion herself undergoes a transformation form foreigner to accepted Soviet woman. This transformation takes place physically, linguistically and socially when she agrees to be in the circus act with Martinov and receive payment in Rubles. ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936)) Marion reaches full soviet potential when she marches with the entire circus crew in all white, which symbolizes the purity of Stalin and supports him and his policies of inclusion of all nationalities.

Life’s a Circus

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Theatrical poster for Circus

Theatrical poster for Circus

The 1936 Russian Soviet film, Circus, directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, tells the story of a famous American performer, Marion Dixon, as she flees from the United States after persecution from giving birth to a black child. She goes with a corrupt theatrical agent, Franz von Kneishitz, who looks suspiciously like Adolf Hitler, to Russia where she becomes a circus performer. After falling in love with another performer, Ivan Petrovich Martinov, von Kneishitz becomes jealous and not only prevents her from staying with Petrovich, but actively abuses Marion, despite claiming to love her.

The comedy-musical film is vibrant and silly, but it has serious undertones that are reflected through the characters. Marion’s guilt and shame is clear on her face whenever she’s not on stage. When she’s performing, she puts on a face that she thinks will please the people around her. Marion is constantly worried about the truth of her child coming out that when she has to choose between staying at the circus with Petrovich and leaving with von Kneishitz or else have the truth revealed, she goes even though she will be miserable.

The climax of the film is a final scene when von Kneishitz reveals her child as a product of Marion being a “mistress of a Negro” to the audience of the circus. He calls it wrong and that she should be expelled from society, but the audience just responds with laughter as they take the child from him and pass the boy around to keep him from von Kneishits’ grasp. The director comes up to him and explains that all children are welcome in the Soviet Union, “whether they have white skin, black skin, or red skin.” This is a critique of American society and the racism that exists there, but not in the Soviet Union where race is unimportant. This ties in with our discussions on how soviets viewed nationality as important, but not race because it is a trait that cannot be changed. The final scene is also a blatant message of nationalism, where the people, among them Marion, Petrovich, and the black boy, are marching in a parade to celebrate the glory and equality of the Soviet Union.

Come one, come all

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Aleksandrov and Simkov’s 1936 work of “Circus” combines the elements of farce, comedy, vaudeville, and melodrama in order to produce a ubiquitously enjoyable, light-hearted tale of heroism in the face of adversity laced with prominent themes of existing world politics and the Soviet socialist cause. The simple plot revolves mainly around the exploits of a fictitious American circus performer, Marion Dixon, and her engagements in love and peril as she tries to seek sanctuary in the Soviet Union in an attempt to escape the bigoted derision she faces in America at the cause of her being the mother to a black child. The film opens with her running away with the diabolical Franz von Kneishitz, a German theater agent with a visage and ideology blatantly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s, and his assistant, a farcical cane-wielding Charlie Chaplin-esque performer.

Throughout the film, we can clearly see Marion’s avid willingness to transform into a joyful member of the Soviet Union with the utilization of the cannon performance as a metaphor. She begins the performance by singing about how she would desperately like “to get to the sky, but the stars are just too high.” ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936.)) Once she is fired from the canon, she lands on the moon contraption and sings of “knowing no fear, knowing no plight”, essentially paralleling the envisioned view of the socialist utopia, in which every individual would receive equal happiness. Marion continuously dreams of a better life in an unprejudiced Russia, but is constantly thwarted by Kneishitz. He himself is threatened by the Russian circus performers who wish to build an even better cannon, reflecting the intrinsic Soviet desire to modernize, industrialize, and become a dominant world power.

Marion also proceeds to fall in love with a fellow performer, Martynov, who retains the image of the flawless, handsome, and swashbuckling Soviet man. The two play the piano and sing a song glorifying the country: “Our border stretching far and wide / Walk our man, a master of his country / In his heart, and overwhelming pride / Each day is better than the previous one”. ((Ibid.)) Martynov is the antithesis to Kneishitz, who struggles to control Marion while the former strives to free her, as the two face off in a cannon-building competition. This conflict may also be seen as a Soviet disapproval of Hitler’s ideals of Nazi racism and the perfect “Aryan” race. Towards the end of the film, Kneishitz proclaims Marion as a criminal when he reveals her black son to the crowd, whom he expects to denounce her. On the contrary, they gleefully accept her and the child, passing him around while singing a collective lullaby between the hands of many different ethnicities, as a reflection of the socialist national policy of korenizatsiya. In a dazzling scene of synchronized choreography, Marion is surrounded by light, and looks up to Martynov, who stands with blazing torches in his hands upon an immaculate stairway, a scene resembling religious Christ-like imagery of ascension to heaven and paradise. The film concludes with a prideful, militaristic march of the circus performers in uniform that eventually evolves into a procession donning flags of Lenin, Marx, and Stalin, emphasizing the central political message of promoting revolutionary socialist and egalitarian ideals.

The Great Russian Melting Pot

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The 1936 Soviet film “Circus” follows Marion Dixon, an American woman who flees to the USSR after giving birth to a biracial child. Once in Russia, Marion becomes a popular circus artist and falls in love with a fellow performer, Petrovich Martynov. The film was laced with comical antics and melodramatic, intertwining romances, but the end blatantly revealed underlying political messages concerning race and nationality, and the power of the Soviet government to inspire and mobilize its population.

The climax of the film occurred when, in a fit of jealousy, the nefarious theatrical agent Franz von Kneishitz interrupted Marion and Petrovich’s attempt at a record breaking stunt. Kneishitz had grabbed Marion’s son and held him up before the crowd declaring her a criminal for being the “mistress of a negro.” ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936.)) To his shock, Kneishitz is met with laughter from the crowd who wrestle the child from his grasp and proceed to cradle him until his mother can be found. After an array of people sing to the child, he is returned to Dixon and the manager of the circus proclaimed “in our country we love absolutely all kids, you may have a kid of any color,” establishing the USSR as morally superior to places like the United States. ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936.)) The scene of racial harmony directly related to the question of nationality that plagued Soviet Russia throughout its existence. A message of tolerance towards those of different ethnicities reinforced the Leninist policy of encouraging ethnic groups to maintain their own culture and customs while being actively socialist components of larger Soviet Russia.

280px-Orlova,_Patterson_and_Stolyarov

Marion with her son and Petrovich

After displaying Soviet supremacy in morality and tolerance, “Circus” displayed the unity and pride of the Soviet citizenry through a closing scene comprised of a pristine march. The parade was headed by Dixon, Martynov, and the circus manager triumphantly holding up Dixon’s son. Flags adorned with portraits of Lenin flew among the immaculate lines of marching Soviets. At the front of one regiment, an orthodox-style icon displaying Stalin’s face was proudly shown, constituting a replacement to the previously dominant Eastern Orthodox faith. The demonstration of Soviet harmony and calculated consistency glorified the ability of the state to mobilize its population, and caused Marion to “see” that the Soviet Union was the paramount nation. ((Circus, Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov, 1936.)) When looking at this film in the context of the arguably chaotic Soviet Union of the 1930s, it is intriguing to consider the aims of the film’s creator and how Soviet audiences may have understood the messages presented to them.

Picture from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c5/Orlova,_Patterson_and_Stolyarov.jpg/280px-Orlova,_Patterson_and_Stolyarov.jpg

 

Beating the System: Socialist Realism

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During the Soviet Union, especially the Stalin era, the state controlled members of all professions- including artists, architects, writers, musicians, and directors.  Members of these professions were forced to join unions and would be expelled from the unions if they did not follow their strict rules.  Basically, the rules stated that all art had to glorify the state.  Artists who wrote about other topics were expelled from the unions and their careers were ruined.  Artists who dared criticize the state were sent to the gulags.

This basically led to mainstream Soviet art featuring only socialist themes.  Art from this period included portraits of Lenin and Stalin appearing as religious figures, sculptures of laborers, and military marches.  Films, such as the movie Circus (directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov), were first and foremost propaganda films.

Circus is an entertaining movie, both due to the fun circus scenes, and the interesting look at Stalinist propaganda.  The reason why Circus was such a success as a propaganda film was that it used truths about American culture at that time to show the USSR as superior to the US.  The scene at the beginning in which angry Kansas farmers chase the heroine and her biracial child onto a train was no exaggeration.  The US-especially the South- was not an enlightened place in the 1930s.  The Soviet Union used these sad truths about America to their own advantage.  (Although, the US certainly should have been called under attack for their treatment of race.)

Where the film becomes unrealistic is its portrayal of the Soviet Union as a utopia where everyone loves each other and is a big happy family.  At the end of the movie, a famous Jewish actor sings to the baby in Yiddish.  In real life, this actor died under suspicious circumstances, most likely because he had begun to speak out against anti-Semitism in the USSR.  Clearly, the Soviet Union was not the hippie love nest the movie proclaimed it to be.

Critics say that socialist realism caused the death of creativity for Soviet artists.  However, I believe that it enhanced creativity for certain artists who tried to beat the system.  Dmitri Shostakovich composed many official pieces for the government.  He also would sneak messages into his songs.  Towards the end of his life, he wrote “String Quartet No. 7.”  This piece features three beats, symbolizing an officer knocking on the door to the beats “K-G-B.”  This work in considered one of Shostakovich’s finest.

Socialist realism resulted in some interested propaganda, at its worst, and at its best, unknowingly challenged artist to work around the rules.