Dmitri Shostakovich: His Life in Film by John s> Riley (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 329 performed that year gives little sense of a consensus on what Soviet music might be, but the celebrationof Beethoven'srevolutionarypathos hints at the faux classicism that would become Socialist Realism. The final chapter deals with what Nelson sees as 'the fairlymoderate nature of the CulturalRevolution in music' (p. 236). Such an assessmentshould perhaps not surprise;after all, these were years which saw successful performances of Shostakovich's opera TheNose.An epilogue considers the degree of normalitythat returned in 1932. In keeping with much recent scholarship(Caroline Brooke, Leonid Maksimenkov, Kirill Tomoff), Nelson sees this period as less centralized than often assumed, and cites the revealing fact that with the appointment of Genrikh Neigauz in 1934, 'the conservatory resumed its anomalous status as being the only institutionof higher leaning in the Soviet Union not administeredby a Partymember' (p. 243). One of the many threads running through the book is the peculiarityof music as a non-representationalart and the effectsthat this has, aesthetically and institutionally,on musicpolicy.Yet Nelson never fallsvictimto the potential abstractionof her subjectmatter, and has produced a clearlywritten and beautifullydocumented book which repaysfrequentand carefulreading. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies PHILIP Ross BULLOCK University College London Riley, John. Dmitri Shostakovich: His Life in Film. KINOfiles Filmmakers' Companion, 3. I. B. Tauris,LondonandNewYork,2005. ix + I50 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Appendix. Filmography.Furtherreading. ?35.00. FROM the 1920S onwards, many of the best-known classical composers have devoted significantenergies to the creation of film music; and among those who have not done so, several would like to have done, had they had the knack.It is the kind of activitythat can make a composer feel sociallyuseful, in the way that their forebearsdid when they were commissionedfor theatre scoresor celebratorycantatas,and of course it offersa means of keepingbody and soul together, generally rather more lucrative and often more creatively stimulatingthan teaching or performing. In the Soviet Union the stakeswere higher, obviously, as they were for all the arts. For Prokof'ev,famously, collaborationson Faintsimmer'sLieutenant Kzzhe and Eisenstein'sAlexander Nevsky and IvantheTemible helped to seal his reputation as the returning'prodigalson', but then to edge him close to the abyss, through unwitting association with political incorrectness.There are some equallyfascinatingstoriesto tell about many of Shostakovich'sforty-odd film scores, even if there is little in the music itself that can rival the intrinsic artisticworth of Prokof'ev's. With the exception of 7heNewBabylon at the outset of Shostakovich'sfilmmusic career, and Hamletand KingLearat the end of it, the films themselves have fallen into the dustbinof history.Yet in the late I930S the Maximtrilogy, tracing the growing revolutionaryconsciousnessand agitationalexploits of a 330 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 fictional Soviet Mr Average, was all the rage; generations of Soviet citizens grew up with Shostakovich'shit-songfor TheCounterplan (originallyreleasedin I932) ringing in the ears; and to this day Western concert-audienceswould instantlyrecognize the Romance from TheGadfly, without knowing anything of its provenance in a I955 film about revolutionaryagitationfor Italianunification during the Risorgimento (or indeed that this film was Faintsimmer'sonly other comparativelywell-knownachievement). But the potentialinsightsinto the careerof the composerwhose tribulations have so much to say about the fate of the intelligentsiaunder the Bolsheviks easilycompensatefor the dubiousaestheticand ethicalqualitiesof most of the artistic products. From Shostakovich'spoint of view, writing for films was almostliterallya life-saverat times of his virtualbanishmentfrom othermeans of gainfulemployment.And when the pressurewas not so intense, the musical imageryhe producedmore or less unreflectivelyin his film scoresoften seeded itselfin his concertworks,helping in the tripleprocessof his artisticmaturing, his negotiating of wriggle-room within the fuzzy prescriptions of Socialist Realism, and not least- though this is pure speculation -his atonementfor his unavoidable complicity with the regime by means of durable, universal works of art as opposed to trashy,ephemeral ones. John Riley is undoubtedly the world authority in this far from easy-toaccess area. Wisely perhaps, his book does not directly tackle the big sociopoliticalissues, and it makes little or no attempt to relate Shostakovich's work to the various available theories of film music composition. What it does do invaluably and uniquely is give every film with music by Shostakovichits due, sketchingthe story-line,placing musical cues in context, offeringjudicious assessments of the quality...