Mosjoukine was the leading actor of the Russian Tsarist era, when he fled the Bolsheviks and became the most adored romantic idol of the European silent film, with a side trip to Hollywood. Great actor and sometime director, his Rabelaisian life was as extraordinary as his work but all this was forgotten for most of the Twentieth Century. Now a shift of political climate in Russia and the work of the archives has brought Mosjoukine back from deepest limbo.For the second show, on Monday the 22nd of December at 6:30pm, Barrie Pattison returns to present a rare screening of the Mosjoukine film Le Brasier Ardent (The Fiery Furnace) featuring a new score supervised and performed live by Adrian Clement and a new translation from the French, translated live by Barrie Pattison. The pick of the small number of movies in which Mosjoukine directed himself, the film co-stars Natalie Lissenko and Nicholas Koline. Plot, decor and performance elevate, to the near demented, this mix of Boulevard comedy and surreal fantasy.
From Barrie's press release:Teenage Ivan used the newly arrived Cinematograph to become the greatest actor in
Tsarist Russia. His triumphs in the movies got him lead roles in the Moscow Theatres and
his collaborations with director Yakov Protazanov (of the science fiction classic Aelita)
produced the greatest film of the pre-revolutionary era, their adaptation of Queen of
Spades, dominated by Mosjoukine’s glowering Herman.
This film lived in only the memory of the few viewers who survived the decades it was
believed lost. Mosjoukine had another claim to fame however. He was the actor who
contributed the close-up to the reel which demonstrated “the Kuleshov effect.”
The famous montage theoretician took a shot of Mosjoukine doing his intense tabla rasa
stare, into which were cut pictures of a plate of soup, a baby and a naked woman. The
response was always “What a great actor! See how he shows hunger, affection and lust.”
This reel, now actually lost, was known to every commentator on film in the world.
When the Bolsheviks nearly shot him, Mosjoukine, along with his then wife Natalie
Lissenko and Protazanov, lit out for Europe, settling in France where, in middle age, he
began his career over again. Gathering with the exiled Russian performers and
technicians in Marseilles, they made a series of increasingly flamboyant costume dramas
and adventures. These turned Mosjoukine into the great European silent screen idol. He
was Valentino and Paul Muni in one package.
His fame reached Germany, where he co-starred with Brigitte Helm, fresh from her
triumph as the 17 year old heroine of Fritz Lang’s epic Metropolis. He filmed with
legends of the French cinema like Charles Vanel and Michel Simon and he was taken to
Hollywood for a movie opposite Mary Philbim, from the Lon Chaney Phantom of the
Opera.
Off screen, his association with the great beauties of the day, notably the famous artist’s
model Kiki de Montmartre, drew as much attention as his acting. He enjoyed a life of
extraordinary hedonism, eating epicure meals with celebrity friends, collecting books and
art and indulging himself in legendary romances.
And suddenly his fabled celebrity came to an abrupt end for the second time. The sound
film revealed his thick Slavonic accent, limiting the parts he could play and alienating
much of his ecstatic fan base.
He would die in poverty and isolation only a few years later. Breaking into the meagre
apartment, where they located the actor’s dead body, investigators found cupboards
crammed with fan mail containing marriage proposals, money and bank drafts. These,
had he opened them, would have let him live in luxury.
Even more disastrous, the extraordinary body of work Mosjoukine had generated, all but
vanished. The Soviet Arts Bureaucrats had no interest in the pre-Communist cinema and
recollection of the European silent film rapidly funnelled down to the work of a few
celebrity directors. Only in the legendary Paris Cinematheque, was it possible to see the
star’s flamboyant output. Their curator was devoted to Mosjoukine. A poster for his
L’Enfant du Carnival dominated the foyer of the Chaillot Palace auditorium and the editor of Breathless donated her time to restoring the surviving copies of Mosjoukine
films for preservation.
However with glasnost, the Russian archive was able to admit that they had squirreled
away examples of the Tsarist film. Movie Historians homed in on the fustian work of
director Evgenyi Bauer and your best chance of seeing Mosjoukine was in Bauer
productions. However, somewhat to official discomfort, audiences singled out the actor’s
work and the Pordenone Italy festival picked up on this and, noting that there had never
been a tribute to Mosjoukine, gathered all his surviving films for a retrospective, which
included the amazing, rediscovered 1923 serial House of Mystery.
Barrie Pattison, Australia’s most determined movie goer, had followed Mosjoukine in
the Paris screenings and glimpses of his work in the obsolete 9.5mm format home movie
library. With the motivated few, he converged on Pordenone, rounding out a lifetime of
enthusiast interest. His presentations at the Chauvel Cinematheque on Saturday
December 20 and Monday December 22 draws on this research and other archival and
collector sources.
The Mozjoukine event is unique in Australia, revealing the work of one of the Cinema’s
most flamboyant, most talented, and most neglected figures.
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