The Death of Stalin: As Black As Comedy Gets

I've put off watching this for several years, but a hot, wet, muggy day seemed the perfect opportunity to stay indoors and watch Armando Iannucci's droll, madcap, violent and uncomfortably hilarious farce.  As he showed us in his brilliant writing for the series Veep, Iannucci nothing is off limits when it comes to comedy, even if one or many may be offended.  The only people who should be offended by this (in my opinion) are communist Soviet sympathizers.  The entirety of the Soviet Union's leaders are deliciously skewered like Shashlik roasting on an enormous mangal. All of them, particularly the monstrous Stalin, deserve no less. 

Pedantic scholars may balk at some of the liberties taken with the history, but there is enough "there there" to make the film ring true enough, and it's fun to see most of the major players of the time portrayed as bloated, egotistical, brutally cutthroat apparatchiki out for their own interests following their leader's demise. 

The film begins with a variation on a story from Testimony, Solomon Volkov's controversial purporting to be Dmitri Shostakovich's dictated memoirs.  Radio Moscow is broadcasting a concert featuring renowned pianist Maria Yudina in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23.  Stalin is listening from his dacha and so moved he calls the concert hall's director, Andreyev - a hilarious turn by the brilliant Paddy Consadine - and demands a recording of the performance. Unfortunately, it was not recorded.  Panic ensues and Andreyev decides to restage the concert running into the auditorium, rushig to the stage banging a cymbal as the audience is leaving:

Andreyev:

(to the guards): Lock the doors! Lock the doors!

(to the audience): Don't worry, no-one is going to get killed. But I do need you to stay!

Technician:  Half the audience have gone. The acoustic will be very dry.

Andreyev:  Pull people in off the streets! Fat ones, so we won’t need so many!

Musician 1: I could call my wife. She’d dampen the acoustic.

Everyone agrees, except for Yudina who had suffered under Stalin. She agrees after being offered a ridiculous sum of money, and in an act of defiance, pens a note to the leader expressing her contempt, and slips it into the recording.  

This is just the first few minutes and what follows is worthy of a Marx Brothers movie - or perhaps more accurately, a Marx-ist Brothers movie.  

Iannucci holds nothing back and at times the gallows humor - which can get rather violent ad brutal - gets about as black as can be, so much so I, at times, found myself laughing hysterically while simultaneously cringing.

The cast is absolutely an inspired one starting with the aforementioned Paddy Consadine, along with Olga Kurylenko (Maria Yudina), Simon Russel Beale (Beria), Jeffrey Tambor (Malenkov), Steve Buscemi (Kruschev), Michael Palin (Malatov), Jason Isaacs (Field Marshall Zhukov) and scores more in a truly ensemble effort.

Not surprisingly, the film, which is a basically a British production has been declared by various Russian agencies, "an unfriendly act by the British intellectual class," . . . "a nasty sendup by outsiders who know nothing of our history" and a "revolting attempt to spark discontent."  The Death of Stalin was given a pre-release showing for, among other agencies, The Ministry of Culture, which withdrew the distributor's credentials and banned the release.  Two movie theatres, unaware of the ban, but still possessing copies of the film, showed it and then were successfully sued by the Russian government.  

What makes all of this even more delicious is only 30% of Russians approved of the Ministry of Culture's banning of the film, and in less than a year and a half The Death of Stalin was downloaded in Russia over 1.5 million times.   

One of the chief joys of this movie for me was it's incredible soundtrack. Acclaimed British composer Christopher Willis pays enormous homage to Dmitri Shostakovich that at times the music sounds so hauntingly familiar I found myself - a total Shostakovich groupie - wondering exactly what piece I was listening to, or if something from the master previously unknown had been unearthed. One critic called it "the greatest soundtrack Shostakovich never wrote." I'd agree.

Patricia Racette Storms through Shostakovich's "Lady"

I knew I'd not be able to attend, but wondered why I hadn't heard much on U.S. soil of Patricia Racette's turn as Katerina in Stalin's favorite opera (joking!) Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk." All that changed with a simple google search and reviews and photographs were turning up everywhere calling her performance - and the production, overall, a triumph for English National Opera.

Not all of the reviews were raves - but most were - and there were tons . . . the production (and Ms. Racette) garnering the kind of excitement for an operatic event we all too rarely see or hear of here in the States.

"Patricia Racette charts Katerina’s transformation from bored, resentful chattel to emancipated woman with steely control, and unswerving musical authority;"
Andrew Clements - The Guardian

"...Patricia Racette looked remarkably close to Leskov’s original description of his girl from Kursk, small, dark-eyed and with “a high white forehead, and black, almost blue-black hair”. Her performance tended to be understated, and may not match everyone’s idea of Katerina. . . . yet Racette’s voice and presence grew as the horrors of the plot unfolded"
Fiona Maddox - The Guardian

Patricia Racette’s Katerina holds a glittering concentrate of fury in her dark eyes and her finely tempered voice. a central performance of immaculate control and engagement."
Anna Piccard "The Spectator"

"Patricia Racette, singing with sometimes raw intensity, played this repressed Katerina with impressive authority, her very stillness a window on the emotions locked within."
Richard Fairman - The Financial Times

"Patricia Racette makes us believe in her utterly as she veers between the desperation of being downtrodden in a loveless marriage to the triumph of controlling her own destiny back to the twin despairs of imprisonment and sexual betrayal, making Katerina’s extreme actions seem inevitable to us in the audience."
David Karlin - Bachtrack

"American soprano Patricia Racette ... brings authority and intensity to the title role . . . Thanks to Wigglesworth’s empowered conducting, a superb performance from ENO’s orchestra, and Racette’s consistent strength, the opera hits hard."
George Hall - The Stage

"Patricia Racette smoulders as Katerina, and John Daszak brings a fine heroic tenor to the repulsive lover Sergei . . . Mark Wigglesworth . . . brings a detailed and illuminating reading to the score. Not to be missed."
Clare Colvin - Express

"Heady stuff with great musical punch, led by Patricia Racette’s sympathetic and attractively strong Katerina, and the powerfully hedonistic Sergei of John Daszak. Her restrained movements at the start become more fluid and dramatic as she emerges from her cocoon, and his swagger and natural stage presence personify an opportunist who can’t resist her."
Mark Ronand - Theatre Review


Brava, Pat!