The red monarch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The red monarch
Original title Red monarch
Country of production USA , UK
original language English
Publishing year 1983
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Jack Gold
script Yuri Krotkow ,
Charles Wood
production Graham Benson
camera Mike Fash
cut Laurence Mery-Clark
occupation

Red Monarch ( Red Monarch ) is a British-American feature film from 1983, after a novel by KGB -Überläufers and later writer Yuri Krotkow . Scenes from Josef Stalin's everyday life are shown, mostly from the last months of his life around 1952/53. Directed by Jack Gold .

action

Early 1950s: Stalin is at the height of both his power and his paranoia . He feels death approaching. He dreams more and more often that big dogs gnaw at his feet, which he regularly wakes up wet with sweat. He is surrounded by a politburo that he despises ( these shit ) and that he constantly lets feel that they too could quickly be shot as enemies of the people. When he had to read, for example, that the Soviet basketball team was eliminated in the preliminary round against France, he called a special session of the Politburo. The members of the Politburo have to put up with a body search beforehand , only Lavrenti Beria comes to Stalin uncontrolled. Then Stalin shows them all like schoolboys.

Occasionally he makes fun of making it clear to them that all of them, as his most loyal comrades, will probably be hit by popular anger when he is no longer there. Beria, Minister of the Interior, Minister for State Security and his rough- and-ready man , promised to be even more vigilant and to increase the rate of shootings. But Beria is not safe from Stalin's treacherous jokes either . One day Stalin calls out to him, the Beria file is on his desk. He reads statements from enemies of the people who have now been shot and who had confessed that after competitions they often had to bring the prettiest sportswomen to Comrade Beria. Beria too is trembling and pale. With friendly advice to be more discreet, he finally dismisses Beria. Together with his personal servant, he then checks Beria's armchair and laughs: "At least he didn't shit like the others".

Effect and biographical problems

The critics of the first screening are said to have been irritated. What did they see there? A biography? A comedy? A tragedy? An invited historian commented that all the important details were authentic, only for the end several representations have survived, all of which (1983) cannot be verified: On March 5, 1953, no sound has been heard from Stalin's bedroom for hours. Stalin does not respond to knocking. The Politburo gathers in front of the door and deliberates, until the beefy Khrushchev finally decides to push the door in. Stalin lies there rigid, with remains of saliva at the corners of his mouth. One of them shouts: “Stalin is dead, the bastard is dead” whereupon they hug each other and some even begin to dance euphorically. Suddenly the rigid Stalin opens one eye. Horrified, they run out of the bedroom. Beria is the first to recover from the shock, comes back and finally strangles Stalin - in the presence of the Politburo.

Others

  • Jack Gold was asked what he wanted his work to be understood as. He insisted that he had delivered a comedy.
  • The film was bought by ZDF , dubbed under its own direction and last broadcast in 1993. It is shown occasionally on the week of Stalin's death.

criticism

"An imaginatively staged, brilliantly played raven-black political grotesque in the leading role, which leaves out no macabre idea and no absurd situation to make the tyrant look ridiculous."

- Lexicon of international film

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to a lengthy introduction by ZDF TV announcer Birgit Schrowange on the occasion of a performance on the 40th anniversary of Stalin's death on March 5, 1993
  2. ↑ The red monarch. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used