For the first time, Russia’s culture ministry has censored a film by cancelling its license to be shown in theaters. The Death of Stalin is a dark comedy centering on the disarray in the Politburo following the unexpected death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953. Boasting a star-studded cast, the movie was set to open in Russia in late January, after being officially green-lighted by the authorities and granted a license that same month.
It all went sideways after the film was screened again for some top culture figures: Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, nationalist filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov, and several others. The verdict after the screening: the film was a “spit in the face of veterans” just days before Russia was set to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory at Stalingrad.
It is not clear why the ministry did not take offense the first time it watched the film. After it granted the license, cinema chains added the film to their schedules. An article on the RBK agency’s website called the revoking of a film’s license on ideological grounds “extremely rare.” A group of writers in St. Petersburg’s PEN Club said it was the first time Russia had relied on a legal mechanism to exercise censorship.
In defense of the ban, Sergei Khrushchev, son of Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power a few months after Stalin’s demise (played in the film by Steve Buscemi), said “planting a false, distorted, and demeaning picture of our country’s past, and therefore present, in the minds of the younger generation represents a grave danger.”
Filmmaker Vladimir Mirzoyev, speaking on Echo of Moscow radio, called the move outright censorship: “What is censorship? What is a taboo? It is an attempt and a desire to control the minds of the people.”
A spokesman for the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion, compared the film to Matilda, last year’s movie about the relationship between Nicholas II and a ballerina.
The comedy, he said “is a disgraceful piece of satire, not so much of the Soviet regime, but of Russians as a whole, of the entirety of Russia.”
But what exactly caused such touchiness? Why can’t there be a satire about Stalin? In the Soviet era, under Khrushchev, plenty of jokes about Stalin percolated through Soviet society. For example: “Churchill is asked: ‘What makes Stalin different from Hitler?’ Churchill replies: ‘His moustache.’”)
One Moscow cinema, Pioneer, bravely screened The Death of Stalin several times before the license revocation had become official. After police arrived at the theater, the management eventually announced that, through no fault of its own, the screenings had to stop and ticket-holders would be reimbursed.
Ironically, while Russian officials claimed the film is an insult to the memories of the war’s fallen heroes, other former Soviet republics are continuing to show it. This includes Stalin’s homeland, the Republic of Georgia, where it has generated little outrage or even attention. In Kazakhstan, cinemas were packed, as they were in Armenia. And in Belarus – arguably the most Soviet of the post-Soviet nations – the government has allowed showings to proceed. [At press time, it was learned that the film had been banned in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.]
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