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The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

April 12, 2024

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Russian: Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране Большевиков, romanized: Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov) is a 1924 Soviet silent comedy film directed by Lev Kuleshov. Kuleshov considered the film a "verification" of his theories around editing and montage, and he drew inspiration from American cinema, which he found more engaging than Russian cinema.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
Film poster
Directed byLev Kuleshov
Written by
[1]
Starring
CinematographyAleksandr Levitskii[1]
Release date
  • 1924 (1924)[1]
Running time
86 minutes[1]
CountrySoviet Union
Languages

The film follows J. S. West and Cowboy Jeddy, two Americans who visit the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution. West is wealthy but naive, and he expects the country to be barbaric. A Soviet gang leader exploits West's fears by staging a fake arrest and trial, then offers to "rescue" him in exchange for money. When West is actually rescued by the Soviet police, he realizes his expectations and stereotypes were wrong and celebrates the country.

Upon its initial release, the film garnered popularity among Soviet audiences; however, Soviet critics criticized its emphasis on American themes and its lack of political engagement. Despite its initial popularity, the film was censored two years after its release. Today, critics and historians often consider Mr. West the beginning of a "golden age" of Soviet cinema. The movie satirizes American perceptions of the Soviet Union.

Plot edit

J. S. West, director of the YMCA, plans to visit the Soviet Union. His wife reads magazine articles that portray Russians as barbarians, and asks him to bring Cowboy Jeddy as a bodyguard. When West and Jeddy arrive in Moscow, a thief steals one of their suitcases and brings it to a gang leader named Zhban. Realizing that West is wealthy and distrusts Russians, Zhban concocts a plan to scam him.

West and Jeddy hire a taxi, but Jeddy gets separated and forgets the car's license plate. Frustrated and concerned for West's safety, he hijacks a carriage. When the police try to arrest him, Jeddy escapes by fleeing along rooftops, then unexpectedly reunites with Ellie, a woman he once saved from being mugged in the United States. Ellie vouches for his character, explaining that he falsely believed Russians were savages, and convinces the police to let him free.

Zhban returns West's suitcase, claiming he recovered it from a barbarian, and invites West to stay with him for safety. He gives West a fake tour of Moscow, which purportedly shows that the Moscow State University and Bolshoi Theatre have been destroyed. One of Zhban's gang members, the Countess, tries to seduce West. Zhban hires another group of criminals to dress as exaggerated Russian stereotypes, kidnap West and the Countess, stage a show trial, and sentence them to death. Zhban then "rescues" West and the Countess in exchange for West's money.

Zhban's scheme is interrupted by the police, who arrive with Jeddy and Ellie. The police give West a real tour of Moscow, showing him the still-standing University and Theatre and a military parade. Impressed, West sends home a telegram asking his wife to burn the magazines and hang up a picture of Vladimir Lenin.

Cast edit

Background edit

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks was produced and set in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Led by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian government, executed the Tsar and his family, fought a civil war, and established the communist Soviet Union.[2] Western countries largely condemned the revolution's violence; the United States would not diplomatically recognize the Soviet Union until 1933.[1]

Lenin nationalized the country's film industry in 1919, but his 1921 New Economic Policy required it to fund itself. The state paid for new Soviet cinema with profits from imported American films. These imported films were extremely popular, leading Lev Kuleshov to coin the term amerikanshchina (American-itis).[3]

Many Russian filmmakers left after the revolution, but Kuleshov stayed and worked to develop a new Soviet cinema.[1] He organized a workshop called the Kuleshov Collective to develop a new approach to filmmaking.[4] His approach was informed by film shortages. The workshop staged theatrical "films without film", using curtains and lighting to represent cuts and close-ups[5] and a "spacial metric grid" to visualize the hypothetical movie screen.[6] He developed a preference for short shots over long shots to avoid mistakes.[7] Kuleshov believed editing distinguished film from theater, and considered montage as fundamental to cinema as harmony is to music.[8] He rejected Konstantin Stanislavski's acting method, which focused on psychology and emotion. Instead, Kuleshov wanted his actors to emphasize precise, legible movements.[9] He found Hollywood action and slapstick more engaging than the work of Russian directors like Aleksandr Khanzhonkov, and felt cinema should be efficient and industrial to help its audience embrace modernity.[10]

Production edit

In 1924, the Kuleshov Collective released The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks as its first feature. Kuleshov himself directed the film, and his students, including Boris Barnet and Vsevolod Pudovkin, played the lead roles.[11] The movie was filmed from December 15, 1923 to April 7, 1924.[12]

Nikolai Aseyev wrote an initial script for the film, but Kuleshov and Pudovkin extensively rewrote it.[1] Kuleshov later said they kept only the characters' names.[13] The plot may have been influenced by a 1923 story in Krokodil called "The Adventures of Mr. Stupidhead in Russia", which also featured a foreigner who believes Russia is barbaric; when Mr. Stupidhead instead sees a functional society, he assumes it's a facade.[14] The film's working title was How Will This End?[15] Its ultimate title alludes to adventure stories like The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere.[1]

Kuleshov and his actors choreographed scenes and rehearsed using stopwatches and metronomes to avoid wasting film.[5][16] In one scene, Boris Barnet fell while traversing a tightrope, claiming that Kuleshov left him hanging for a half hour while criticizing his insufficient training.[12]

Style edit

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks is a satirical comedy.[4] Kuleshov considered the film a "verification" of his approach to montage and production, and Rimgaila Salys describes it as a "compendium" of his cinematic ideas. The film includes chases and stunts inspired by popular American cinema, rapid editing, slow motion, flashbacks, and re-contextualized documentary footage.[10] Kuleshov includes visual jokes (such as Zhban getting hit with a žban), parodies of religious icons, and references to films like Neighbors, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Dr Mabuse the Gambler.[1][17] The cinematography and editing reflect the characters' mindsets: when West is homesick, the film superimposes American faces onto Soviet women,[18] and when Jeddy forgets West's license plate number, it shows the number 999 dissolve into 666.[19] Instead of simply providing exposition, the title cards offer comments like "Comfort is a relative concept".[1] In one instance, an intertitle explains that West sees the room spinning, and the camera shows the spinning room that he perceives.[14]

Kuleshov arranged objects, characters, and motion along grid lines and 45 degree angles, which he felt made the action easiest for audiences to understand. For example, when Jeddy crosses the tightrope between buildings, the wire is horizontal and the buildings are vertical.[6][10] In one scene, a jug is placed close to the camera to emphasize its eventual destruction; Kuleshov determined the most impactful framing of the jug using a mathematical formula he devised.[10]

The actors' performances are physical and exaggerated.[20] In contrast, the production design is minimalist. Many scenes avoid sets by using close-ups[17] or filming against solid black backgrounds.[10] This was partly a stylistic choice to focus on the actors and key objects, and partly a response to material shortages.[1]

Themes and analysis edit

J. S. West is modeled on Harold Lloyd.[7][1] He is gullible, effeminate, bourgeois, naive, prudish, and excessively patriotic, waving an American flag when arriving in Moscow and wearing American flag socks.[17][1][14] Jeddy, modeled on Tom Mix[7] and Douglas Fairbanks,[1] is a caricature of a cowboy, complete with a lasso and gun.[17][14] His appearance and behavior are conspicuously out of place in snow-covered Moscow.[21] West and Jeddy are satirical characters, but they are portrayed as well-intentioned and more noble than the Russian criminals.[1] For example, West's patriotism inspires him to fight like a "real American" to defend himself and the Countess. As Jeddy learns that Russia does not match his stereotypes, he also stops looking like a stereotypical cowboy. By the end of the film, he wears plain contemporary clothes.[14]

The film satirizes Western perceptions of the Soviet Union,[4] but it has also been read as critiquing the Soviet Union itself. Rimgaila Salys says the film showcases the negative effects of Lenin's New Economic Policy.[1] Vlada Petrić suggests that West's kidnapping and show trial, as well as the police raid that saves him, echo the tactics of the Soviet secret police. He argues that Soviet audiences would have recognized the implication that the gang does represent the Bolsheviks after all, and he interprets West's final telegram as mocking unrealistic communist rhetoric.[15] Peter Christensen believes the name "J. S. West" not only alludes to the Western world and the Wild West, but also to Edward Bellamy's 1888 novel Looking Backward, in which a time traveler named Julian West visits a utopian Socialist future. In Christensen's analysis, this allusion emphasizes the Soviet Union's failure to achieve Bellamy's ideals. He notes that the film depicts Russia as a nation of poor criminals, and that the ending merely celebrates pre-revolutionary architecture, not anything created by the Bolsheviks themselves.[22] Conversely, Marina Levitina does interpret the film's final shot of a Russian radio tower as a boast of new technological achievements.[17]

Greta Matzner-Gore observes that the film is built around nested and metatextual imitations, highlighting cinema's potential to mislead. West's kidnappers imitate pictures of Americans who were imitating stereotypical Russians, but in reality, the "Americans" in the photos were played by the same Russian actors who "imitate" them. She notes that the film compares Zhban to a film director, commanding actors in a performance and orchestrating visual effects to deceive Mr. West, and that West remains equally credulous throughout the film. He accepts the police officer's tour exactly as he accepted Zhban's fake tour, and he's impressed by the military parade, which a title card asserts is "real" although it's actually an editing trick.[23] Likewise, David Gillespie finds the ending "ambivalent". He notes that the film consistently emphasizes false images of Russia, and therefore the audience can't be confident the closing images are actually true.[24] The ending includes an incongruous scene of factory workers, which is unconnected to the plot and not observed by West himself. Denise Youngblood speculates Kuleshov may have been forced to include the scene,[25] but Miguel Gaggiotti suggests the film juxtaposes the workers' naturalism against the artificiality of the parade, emphasizing that the parade is merely another performance.[20]

Reception and legacy edit

Audiences responded positively to Mr. West's accessible American style,[25] and it was Kuleshov's most popular film.[26] In retrospect, it is considered the beginning of a "golden age" of Soviet cinema.[27][28][29] Peter Christensen notes that the film has endured better than other Soviet comedies of the time,[30] and David Gillespie considers it a "masterpiece of technique".[24] The film also has historical value as a record of Moscow in the 1920s, showcasing architecture like the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.[21]

Despite the film's success, Kuleshov was criticized for his focus on aesthetics and technique over ideology[31] and his focus on American characters;[26] six of Kuleshov's 13 films would feature American characters and themes.[17] In particular, Viktor Shklovsky criticized the film for not being sufficiently Russian.[25] Critics unfavorably compared Kuleshov to Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, whose films were unequivocally pro-Bolshevik.[31] By September 1926, Mr. West was censored.[32] Despite this backlash, Kuleshov was eventually awarded the Order of Lenin shortly before his death in 1970.[33]

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Salys, Rimgaila (2013). "The Extraordinary Adventures Of Mr. West In The Land Of The Bolsheviks". In Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). The Russian Cinema Reader. Boston, [Massachusets]: Academic Studies Press. pp. 87–94. ISBN 978-1-61811-212-5.
  2. ^ Gillespie 2000, pp. 1–3.
  3. ^ Shaw, Tony; Youngblood, Denise J. (2010). Cinematic Cold War: the American and Soviet struggle for hearts and minds. Lawrence (Kan.): University Press of Kansas. p. 37. ISBN 9780700617432.
  4. ^ a b c Rollberg, Peter (2009). The A to Z of Russian and Soviet cinema. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press. pp. 379–383. ISBN 978-0-8108-7619-4.
  5. ^ a b Kovacs 1976, p. 37.
  6. ^ a b Olenina 2013, pp. 319–321.
  7. ^ a b c Roberts, Graham (2007). "Dream Factory and Film Factory: The Soviet Response to Hollywood 1917-1941". In Cooke, Paul (ed.). World Cinema's 'Dialogues' with Hollywood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 39–41. ISBN 978-1403998958.
  8. ^ Taylor, Richard (1983). "A 'Cinema for the Millions': Soviet Socialist Realism and the Problem of Film Comedy". Journal of Contemporary History. 18 (3): 440–441. doi:10.1177/002200948301800305. ISSN 0022-0094. JSTOR 260546.
  9. ^ Olenina 2013, p. 299.
  10. ^ a b c d e Kepley, Vance (2013). "Mr. Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists". In Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). The Russian Cinema Reader. Boston, [Massachusets]: Academic Studies Press. pp. 95–100. ISBN 978-1-61811-212-5.
  11. ^ Beumers, Birgit (2015). "Lev Kuleshov". Directory of World Cinema: Russia 2. Bristol: Intellect. pp. 36–37. ISBN 9781783204793.
  12. ^ a b Youngblood 1999, p. 128.
  13. ^ Christensen 1993, p. 5.
  14. ^ a b c d e Federova, Milla (2013). Yankees in Petrograd, Bolsheviks in New York: America and Americans in Russian Literary Perception. Cornell University Press. pp. 202–203. ISBN 9781501758171.
  15. ^ a b Petrić, Vlada (2013). "A Subtextual Reading of Kuleshov's Satire Mr. Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists (1924)". In Salys, Rimgaila (ed.). The Russian Cinema Reader. Boston, [Massachusets]: Academic Studies Press. pp. 101–105. ISBN 978-1-61811-212-5.
  16. ^ Gillespie 2000, p. 26.
  17. ^ a b c d e f Levitina, Marina L. (2015). "Russian Americans" in Soviet film: cinematic dialogues between the US and the USSR. London New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 89–92. ISBN 978-1-78453-031-0.
  18. ^ Gillespie 2000, p. 30.
  19. ^ Harte, Tim (2009). Fast forward: the aesthetics and ideology of speed in Russian avant-garde culture, 1910 - 1930. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 181. ISBN 9780299233235.
  20. ^ a b Gaggiotti, Miguel (2023). Nonprofessional Film Performance. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 39–45. ISBN 978-3-031-32381-2.
  21. ^ a b Gillespie 2000, p. 28.
  22. ^ Christensen 1993, p. 6–12.
  23. ^ Matzner-Gore, Greta (2013). "A Copy of a Copy (of a Copy): The Search for Authenticity in "Mess-Mend" and "The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks"". Ulbandus Review. 15: 156–158. ISSN 0163-450X. JSTOR 23595429.
  24. ^ a b Gillespie 2000, pp. 30–31.
  25. ^ a b c Youngblood, Denise J. (2014). Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era, 1918–1935. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-0292761117.
  26. ^ a b Youngblood 1999, p. 59.
  27. ^ Gillespie 2000, p. 1.
  28. ^ Kenez 1992, p. 51.
  29. ^ Christensen 1993, p. 3.
  30. ^ Christensen 1993, p. 16.
  31. ^ a b Gillespie 2000, p. 24.
  32. ^ Kenez 1992, p. 97.
  33. ^ Kovacs 1976, pp. 34–35.

Bibliography edit

  • Christensen, Peter G. (Fall 1993). "Contextualizing Kuleshov's 'Mr. West'". Film Criticism. 18 (1): 3–19. ISSN 0163-5069. JSTOR 44075988.
  • Gillespie, David C. (2000). Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda. London: Wallflower. pp. 1–37. ISBN 1-903364-04-3.
  • Kenez, Peter (1992). Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917–1953. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42863-7.
  • Kovacs, Steven (Spring 1976). "Kuleshov's Aesthetics". Film Quarterly. 29 (3): 37. doi:10.2307/1211711. ISSN 0015-1386. JSTOR 1211711.
  • Olenina, Ana (Fall 2013). "Engineering Performance: Lev Kuleshov, Soviet Reflexology, and Labor Efficiency Studies". Discourse. 35 (3): 297–336. doi:10.13110/discourse.35.3.0297. ISSN 1522-5321. JSTOR 10.13110/discourse.35.3.0297.
  • Youngblood, Denise J. (1999). Movies for the Masses: Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 0-521-37470-7.

External links edit

 
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April 12, 2024
extraordinary, adventures, west, land, bolsheviks, russian, Необычайные, приключения, мистера, Веста, стране, Большевиков, romanized, neobychainye, priklyucheniya, mistera, vesta, strane, bolshevikov, 1924, soviet, silent, comedy, film, directed, kuleshov, kul. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks Russian Neobychajnye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane Bolshevikov romanized Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov is a 1924 Soviet silent comedy film directed by Lev Kuleshov Kuleshov considered the film a verification of his theories around editing and montage and he drew inspiration from American cinema which he found more engaging than Russian cinema The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the BolsheviksFilm posterDirected byLev KuleshovWritten byNikolai AseyevVsevolod PudovkinLev Kuleshov 1 StarringPorfiri PodobedBoris BarnetAleksandra KhokhlovaVsevolod PudovkinCinematographyAleksandr Levitskii 1 Release date1924 1924 1 Running time86 minutes 1 CountrySoviet UnionLanguagesSilentRussian and English intertitlesThe film follows J S West and Cowboy Jeddy two Americans who visit the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution West is wealthy but naive and he expects the country to be barbaric A Soviet gang leader exploits West s fears by staging a fake arrest and trial then offers to rescue him in exchange for money When West is actually rescued by the Soviet police he realizes his expectations and stereotypes were wrong and celebrates the country Upon its initial release the film garnered popularity among Soviet audiences however Soviet critics criticized its emphasis on American themes and its lack of political engagement Despite its initial popularity the film was censored two years after its release Today critics and historians often consider Mr West the beginning of a golden age of Soviet cinema The movie satirizes American perceptions of the Soviet Union Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Background 4 Production 5 Style 6 Themes and analysis 7 Reception and legacy 8 References 8 1 Citations 8 2 Bibliography 9 External linksPlot editJ S West director of the YMCA plans to visit the Soviet Union His wife reads magazine articles that portray Russians as barbarians and asks him to bring Cowboy Jeddy as a bodyguard When West and Jeddy arrive in Moscow a thief steals one of their suitcases and brings it to a gang leader named Zhban Realizing that West is wealthy and distrusts Russians Zhban concocts a plan to scam him West and Jeddy hire a taxi but Jeddy gets separated and forgets the car s license plate Frustrated and concerned for West s safety he hijacks a carriage When the police try to arrest him Jeddy escapes by fleeing along rooftops then unexpectedly reunites with Ellie a woman he once saved from being mugged in the United States Ellie vouches for his character explaining that he falsely believed Russians were savages and convinces the police to let him free Zhban returns West s suitcase claiming he recovered it from a barbarian and invites West to stay with him for safety He gives West a fake tour of Moscow which purportedly shows that the Moscow State University and Bolshoi Theatre have been destroyed One of Zhban s gang members the Countess tries to seduce West Zhban hires another group of criminals to dress as exaggerated Russian stereotypes kidnap West and the Countess stage a show trial and sentence them to death Zhban then rescues West and the Countess in exchange for West s money Zhban s scheme is interrupted by the police who arrive with Jeddy and Ellie The police give West a real tour of Moscow showing him the still standing University and Theatre and a military parade Impressed West sends home a telegram asking his wife to burn the magazines and hang up a picture of Vladimir Lenin Cast editPorfiri Podobed as J S West Boris Barnet as Cowboy Jeddy Aleksandra Khokhlova as The Countess Vsevolod Pudovkin as Zhban Sergey Komarov as The One Eyed Man Leonid Obolensky as The Dandy Valia Lopatina as EllieBackground editThe Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks was produced and set in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution Led by Vladimir Lenin the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian government executed the Tsar and his family fought a civil war and established the communist Soviet Union 2 Western countries largely condemned the revolution s violence the United States would not diplomatically recognize the Soviet Union until 1933 1 Lenin nationalized the country s film industry in 1919 but his 1921 New Economic Policy required it to fund itself The state paid for new Soviet cinema with profits from imported American films These imported films were extremely popular leading Lev Kuleshov to coin the term amerikanshchina American itis 3 Many Russian filmmakers left after the revolution but Kuleshov stayed and worked to develop a new Soviet cinema 1 He organized a workshop called the Kuleshov Collective to develop a new approach to filmmaking 4 His approach was informed by film shortages The workshop staged theatrical films without film using curtains and lighting to represent cuts and close ups 5 and a spacial metric grid to visualize the hypothetical movie screen 6 He developed a preference for short shots over long shots to avoid mistakes 7 Kuleshov believed editing distinguished film from theater and considered montage as fundamental to cinema as harmony is to music 8 He rejected Konstantin Stanislavski s acting method which focused on psychology and emotion Instead Kuleshov wanted his actors to emphasize precise legible movements 9 He found Hollywood action and slapstick more engaging than the work of Russian directors like Aleksandr Khanzhonkov and felt cinema should be efficient and industrial to help its audience embrace modernity 10 Production editIn 1924 the Kuleshov Collective released The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks as its first feature Kuleshov himself directed the film and his students including Boris Barnet and Vsevolod Pudovkin played the lead roles 11 The movie was filmed from December 15 1923 to April 7 1924 12 Nikolai Aseyev wrote an initial script for the film but Kuleshov and Pudovkin extensively rewrote it 1 Kuleshov later said they kept only the characters names 13 The plot may have been influenced by a 1923 story in Krokodil called The Adventures of Mr Stupidhead in Russia which also featured a foreigner who believes Russia is barbaric when Mr Stupidhead instead sees a functional society he assumes it s a facade 14 The film s working title was How Will This End 15 Its ultimate title alludes to adventure stories like The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere 1 Kuleshov and his actors choreographed scenes and rehearsed using stopwatches and metronomes to avoid wasting film 5 16 In one scene Boris Barnet fell while traversing a tightrope claiming that Kuleshov left him hanging for a half hour while criticizing his insufficient training 12 Style edit source source source source source source The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the BolsheviksThe Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks is a satirical comedy 4 Kuleshov considered the film a verification of his approach to montage and production and Rimgaila Salys describes it as a compendium of his cinematic ideas The film includes chases and stunts inspired by popular American cinema rapid editing slow motion flashbacks and re contextualized documentary footage 10 Kuleshov includes visual jokes such as Zhban getting hit with a zban parodies of religious icons and references to films like Neighbors The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Dr Mabuse the Gambler 1 17 The cinematography and editing reflect the characters mindsets when West is homesick the film superimposes American faces onto Soviet women 18 and when Jeddy forgets West s license plate number it shows the number 999 dissolve into 666 19 Instead of simply providing exposition the title cards offer comments like Comfort is a relative concept 1 In one instance an intertitle explains that West sees the room spinning and the camera shows the spinning room that he perceives 14 Kuleshov arranged objects characters and motion along grid lines and 45 degree angles which he felt made the action easiest for audiences to understand For example when Jeddy crosses the tightrope between buildings the wire is horizontal and the buildings are vertical 6 10 In one scene a jug is placed close to the camera to emphasize its eventual destruction Kuleshov determined the most impactful framing of the jug using a mathematical formula he devised 10 The actors performances are physical and exaggerated 20 In contrast the production design is minimalist Many scenes avoid sets by using close ups 17 or filming against solid black backgrounds 10 This was partly a stylistic choice to focus on the actors and key objects and partly a response to material shortages 1 Themes and analysis editJ S West is modeled on Harold Lloyd 7 1 He is gullible effeminate bourgeois naive prudish and excessively patriotic waving an American flag when arriving in Moscow and wearing American flag socks 17 1 14 Jeddy modeled on Tom Mix 7 and Douglas Fairbanks 1 is a caricature of a cowboy complete with a lasso and gun 17 14 His appearance and behavior are conspicuously out of place in snow covered Moscow 21 West and Jeddy are satirical characters but they are portrayed as well intentioned and more noble than the Russian criminals 1 For example West s patriotism inspires him to fight like a real American to defend himself and the Countess As Jeddy learns that Russia does not match his stereotypes he also stops looking like a stereotypical cowboy By the end of the film he wears plain contemporary clothes 14 The film satirizes Western perceptions of the Soviet Union 4 but it has also been read as critiquing the Soviet Union itself Rimgaila Salys says the film showcases the negative effects of Lenin s New Economic Policy 1 Vlada Petric suggests that West s kidnapping and show trial as well as the police raid that saves him echo the tactics of the Soviet secret police He argues that Soviet audiences would have recognized the implication that the gang does represent the Bolsheviks after all and he interprets West s final telegram as mocking unrealistic communist rhetoric 15 Peter Christensen believes the name J S West not only alludes to the Western world and the Wild West but also to Edward Bellamy s 1888 novel Looking Backward in which a time traveler named Julian West visits a utopian Socialist future In Christensen s analysis this allusion emphasizes the Soviet Union s failure to achieve Bellamy s ideals He notes that the film depicts Russia as a nation of poor criminals and that the ending merely celebrates pre revolutionary architecture not anything created by the Bolsheviks themselves 22 Conversely Marina Levitina does interpret the film s final shot of a Russian radio tower as a boast of new technological achievements 17 Greta Matzner Gore observes that the film is built around nested and metatextual imitations highlighting cinema s potential to mislead West s kidnappers imitate pictures of Americans who were imitating stereotypical Russians but in reality the Americans in the photos were played by the same Russian actors who imitate them She notes that the film compares Zhban to a film director commanding actors in a performance and orchestrating visual effects to deceive Mr West and that West remains equally credulous throughout the film He accepts the police officer s tour exactly as he accepted Zhban s fake tour and he s impressed by the military parade which a title card asserts is real although it s actually an editing trick 23 Likewise David Gillespie finds the ending ambivalent He notes that the film consistently emphasizes false images of Russia and therefore the audience can t be confident the closing images are actually true 24 The ending includes an incongruous scene of factory workers which is unconnected to the plot and not observed by West himself Denise Youngblood speculates Kuleshov may have been forced to include the scene 25 but Miguel Gaggiotti suggests the film juxtaposes the workers naturalism against the artificiality of the parade emphasizing that the parade is merely another performance 20 Reception and legacy editAudiences responded positively to Mr West s accessible American style 25 and it was Kuleshov s most popular film 26 In retrospect it is considered the beginning of a golden age of Soviet cinema 27 28 29 Peter Christensen notes that the film has endured better than other Soviet comedies of the time 30 and David Gillespie considers it a masterpiece of technique 24 The film also has historical value as a record of Moscow in the 1920s showcasing architecture like the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour 21 Despite the film s success Kuleshov was criticized for his focus on aesthetics and technique over ideology 31 and his focus on American characters 26 six of Kuleshov s 13 films would feature American characters and themes 17 In particular Viktor Shklovsky criticized the film for not being sufficiently Russian 25 Critics unfavorably compared Kuleshov to Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin whose films were unequivocally pro Bolshevik 31 By September 1926 Mr West was censored 32 Despite this backlash Kuleshov was eventually awarded the Order of Lenin shortly before his death in 1970 33 References editCitations edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Salys Rimgaila 2013 The Extraordinary Adventures Of Mr West In The Land Of The Bolsheviks In Salys Rimgaila ed The Russian Cinema Reader Boston Massachusets Academic Studies Press pp 87 94 ISBN 978 1 61811 212 5 Gillespie 2000 pp 1 3 Shaw Tony Youngblood Denise J 2010 Cinematic Cold War the American and Soviet struggle for hearts and minds Lawrence Kan University Press of Kansas p 37 ISBN 9780700617432 a b c Rollberg Peter 2009 The A to Z of Russian and Soviet cinema Lanham Md Scarecrow Press pp 379 383 ISBN 978 0 8108 7619 4 a b Kovacs 1976 p 37 a b Olenina 2013 pp 319 321 a b c Roberts Graham 2007 Dream Factory and Film Factory The Soviet Response to Hollywood 1917 1941 In Cooke Paul ed World Cinema s Dialogues with Hollywood Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan pp 39 41 ISBN 978 1403998958 Taylor Richard 1983 A Cinema for the Millions Soviet Socialist Realism and the Problem of Film Comedy Journal of Contemporary History 18 3 440 441 doi 10 1177 002200948301800305 ISSN 0022 0094 JSTOR 260546 Olenina 2013 p 299 a b c d e Kepley Vance 2013 Mr Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists In Salys Rimgaila ed The Russian Cinema Reader Boston Massachusets Academic Studies Press pp 95 100 ISBN 978 1 61811 212 5 Beumers Birgit 2015 Lev Kuleshov Directory of World Cinema Russia 2 Bristol Intellect pp 36 37 ISBN 9781783204793 a b Youngblood 1999 p 128 Christensen 1993 p 5 a b c d e Federova Milla 2013 Yankees in Petrograd Bolsheviks in New York America and Americans in Russian Literary Perception Cornell University Press pp 202 203 ISBN 9781501758171 a b Petric Vlada 2013 A Subtextual Reading of Kuleshov s Satire Mr Kuleshov in the Land of the Modernists 1924 In Salys Rimgaila ed The Russian Cinema Reader Boston Massachusets Academic Studies Press pp 101 105 ISBN 978 1 61811 212 5 Gillespie 2000 p 26 a b c d e f Levitina Marina L 2015 Russian Americans in Soviet film cinematic dialogues between the US and the USSR London New York I B Tauris pp 89 92 ISBN 978 1 78453 031 0 Gillespie 2000 p 30 Harte Tim 2009 Fast forward the aesthetics and ideology of speed in Russian avant garde culture 1910 1930 Madison Wis University of Wisconsin Press p 181 ISBN 9780299233235 a b Gaggiotti Miguel 2023 Nonprofessional Film Performance Cham Switzerland Palgrave Macmillan pp 39 45 ISBN 978 3 031 32381 2 a b Gillespie 2000 p 28 Christensen 1993 p 6 12 Matzner Gore Greta 2013 A Copy of a Copy of a Copy The Search for Authenticity in Mess Mend and The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks Ulbandus Review 15 156 158 ISSN 0163 450X JSTOR 23595429 a b Gillespie 2000 pp 30 31 a b c Youngblood Denise J 2014 Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era 1918 1935 Austin TX University of Texas Press pp 32 33 ISBN 978 0292761117 a b Youngblood 1999 p 59 Gillespie 2000 p 1 Kenez 1992 p 51 Christensen 1993 p 3 Christensen 1993 p 16 a b Gillespie 2000 p 24 Kenez 1992 p 97 Kovacs 1976 pp 34 35 Bibliography edit Christensen Peter G Fall 1993 Contextualizing Kuleshov s Mr West Film Criticism 18 1 3 19 ISSN 0163 5069 JSTOR 44075988 Gillespie David C 2000 Early Soviet Cinema Innovation Ideology and Propaganda London Wallflower pp 1 37 ISBN 1 903364 04 3 Kenez Peter 1992 Cinema and Soviet Society 1917 1953 Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 42863 7 Kovacs Steven Spring 1976 Kuleshov s Aesthetics Film Quarterly 29 3 37 doi 10 2307 1211711 ISSN 0015 1386 JSTOR 1211711 Olenina Ana Fall 2013 Engineering Performance Lev Kuleshov Soviet Reflexology and Labor Efficiency Studies Discourse 35 3 297 336 doi 10 13110 discourse 35 3 0297 ISSN 1522 5321 JSTOR 10 13110 discourse 35 3 0297 Youngblood Denise J 1999 Movies for the Masses Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s Cambridge Cambridge Univ Press ISBN 0 521 37470 7 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks at IMDb nbsp The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks on YouTube English subtitles Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks amp oldid 1218043680, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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