An amazingly cheerful movie about yesterday's national hero
“Uncle, what are they going to die for? - For sure, for life. Everyone wants a good life.
"They're beautiful! - The intelligentsia!
“This life will be... you don’t have to die!”
Liar! You won't!
Chapaev is a classic of Soviet Stalinist cinema of 1934. Quotes from there immediately went to the people and took root firmly there. And the image of Chapaev (like the cinematic image of Alexander Nevsky) on horseback with a checker became canonical. Moreover, it became a symbol of the heroic Red Army.
The strength of the patriotic influence of the film in 1934 was so great that during the Great Patriotic War the ending of the film received an alternative ending, in which Chapaev wore a papaha and went to the front to beat the Nazis.
Stalin himself, according to the archives, watched this movie 38 (!) times. The proletarian leader considered Chapaev the best Soviet cinema.
When the film was released in 1934, the party set out to show it all over the country. It turned out that the sound version cannot be shown due to the lack of the necessary equipment on the ground. Production was increased, and in the USSR, even in provincial film clubs and cinemas, the most modern equipment at that time quickly appeared.
Today, this black and white film is available for free, but on a few platforms.
The most amazing thing is that Chapaev still looks cheerful. This is largely due to the filigree direction of the Vasilyev brothers, wonderful acting work and an interesting, not so propagandist black and white, script.
Chapaev in the film at the beginning and at the end are different. He, like an unbridled force, sweeps away everything in his path. And it turns out that the Red Commissioner Furmanov plays a huge and even major role in the movie. Under the influence of the ideologically loyal Bolshevik, Chapaev puts himself in order, becomes more reasonable, politically literate, cultured and cleaner. The Red Army, assembled from barefoot and barefoot, thanks to the discipline and charisma of the Red commanders, is able to fight with educated and trained whites.
The film also makes it clear why people supported the Reds in the Civil War, even though they also have sins that the film does not shy away from. Perhaps the most striking argument in favor of the Bolsheviks was the scene when a white general sincerely wanted to help his faithful servant, instead of shooting his brother for treason, he beat the servant’s brother with rods to death.
And the red, meanwhile, a girl from the people of Anka became a machine gunner, which is simply unthinkable for patriarchal whites freedom and democracy.
The film about Chapaev at one time formed a whole worldview for people living in the new Soviet country. For many serfs who saw and participated in the revolutionary events with their own eyes yesterday, everything shown was true. And for a new generation, cinema has created vivid images of heroes who bravely, with humor and with song conquer death for life.
Today, the image of Chapaev is a thing of the past, and the elite lay flowers on his opponents. Soviet cinema is the little that allows the hero to live. Fortunately, it turned out great!
The feature film is dedicated to several days of life of the famous red commander of the Civil War in Russia Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The main action begins with the presentation of Chapaev to the viewer as an experienced commander, whom we see, first of all, in battle, and then learn him as a person during conversations with comrades in arms and during the solution of various military and political tasks.
The film is in many ways close to the later Hollywood peplums, but unlike those, such as “Braveheart” by Mel Gibson or “Alexander” by Oliver Stone, we go not with the main character, from his childhood to the final hours of his life, but observe with another hero a certain period of his life, which allows us to draw sufficient conclusions about his personality. Chapaev himself is both a brave commander and a good leader, but at the same time he is quick-tempered, somewhat self-confident, and at some points and in all, his shortcomings in education are traced. However, Chapaev’s lack of education is not the fault of the hero, nor even of the screenwriters, but of the mores and customs that were inherent in the heroes’ time of life. Many events also demonstrate the ambiguity of the civil war, from the Red Army soldiers stealing from peasants to moral dilemmas. Even the White Guards, bright antagonists of the whole history, although they may seem caricatured heroes, in fact, within several scenes demonstrate the essence of the white intelligentsia: after playing the piano, a white officer quietly gives the order “Kill to death!”
In my opinion, despite the fact that the film was released in 1934, at the moment it can be a visual aid both in the ambiguity and destructiveness of the civil war, and in the ability to show the stories of several heroes in the framework of 93 minutes, while combining agitation, historical authenticity, drama and humor.
" Well, what you were saying here - don't care and forget!
Hero of jokes and computer games, what is he really? More or less reliably this question will help answer the film adaptation of 1934, with magnificent actors of his era.
From the very first shots, the film captures your attention with its central character. The image of Chapaev came out as charismatic and pleasant as possible. He is brave, courageous, thinking, and ardent, so it is better not to fall under the hot hand. In a word, the hero of his time! There were few commanders admired by their opponents, and Vasily Ivanovich was just that. The hero, who grew up in the village, horrified the tribal officers of the White Guard. To pacify the rebel, who did not allow him to pass through the defense line of the Reds, huge sums were assigned to his head.
The picture in its structure resembles a set of episodic actions, in each of which a particular event occurs, so the film is almost disassembled for quotes. Chapaev’s phrases are very witty and funny, as you can immediately see by listening to the first dialogue between him and the soldier. But the hero is not always in high spirits. He had a short conversation with the cockroaches. Either you admitted your wrongness, or Chapaev spoke for his revolver and whip.
I got a lot of impressions from the film, and some moments and dialogues settled in my memory for a long time. For example, the scene with machine gun fire, made a lot to worry about the fate of the main characters. The picture is very emotional and has passed the test of time, so it is not for nothing that it occupies an honorable place among the best Soviet films.
Chapayev vs. pop culture: Why is the old hero of Soviet cinema still alive today?
You can’t say that Chapaev is an ordinary film about the war. This is not an ideological, but an ideological manifesto of the human soul ready to rise up for a just cause. Although the picture is thoroughly saturated with propaganda, its propaganda cannot be called rabid. Everything she says is true. And the propaganda of this truth lies in the fact that it received a wide state circulation.
Such real heroes of cinema as Chapaev, Lenin, Shchors and Dzerzhinsky deserve such a circulation. Unfortunately, everything in the contemporary Russian media agenda has turned around, to put it mildly. Elementary concepts that Mayakovsky deduced in his simple formula: “Little son / to his father came / and asked the crumb / What is good?” And what's wrong with that? Life has become a cyclical self-eating and devouring of others.
Today, central channels often glorify people who do not deserve it. The popularity is gained by representatives of crime and the bureaucratic thieves' apparatus. Corruption and dirt have become such a daily affair of our lives that they do not hesitate to make films about it. These people make idols and icons of modern pop culture. About such "heroes of our time" today make epics and legends.
The air of our lives today is very polluted. And films like Chapaev are akin to a fresh breath of moral oxygen, which is rapidly drying up. In times of crisis, the demand for this oxygen is huge. “Chapaev” once again reminds us what was the relationship between people – and what can be. Good-natured sincerity and humane wit permeate the dialogue of the characters.
"Chapaev" is a manifesto of military humanism, "kindness with fists," which kept the young Soviet state from falling down. The film confirms the philosophical thesis about the predominance of the power of spirit over matter. Only spirit can connect the elements of matter and make them work together. Spirit overcomes the resistance of matter. Spirit produces the synthesis of matter and animates it. Without spirit, matter is dead.
Chapaeva is a person who realized the power of this spirit. He is ready to die for the cause of the revolution, because it is his own business, the cause of his people. The film showed that it was this triune moral synthesis that ensured the Bolsheviks victory in the Civil War, no matter how much they tried to distort it today.
As long as the memory of Chapaev is alive, as long as such a film is not removed from public circulation, there remains hope for the future - that the militant grace of this film can still materialize into our reality. And then not only the concept of the hero, not only the cinema, but also our whole life will change.
10 out of 10
How the Dark Kingdom of National Socialism Was Created
The film “Chapaev” is, first of all, a satire on the Cossack non-commissioners from among the ordering officers of colonial white landlord generals. They formed from the serf farm youth stanich gangs of marauders to intimidate the population during the formation of agrarian-industrial ethno-enclaves to provide resources to members of the house of Romanburgs. And although this most famous role of the outstanding representative of the theatrical intelligentsia Boris Babochkin, yet his most significant contribution to the exposing of the crimes of the Junker-Cadet junta is the role of the fascist corporate agent Kirov in the film Friends in 1934, where it was clearly and clearly shown that this character posed for the Hollywood show chronicle in the form of a “duce Mussolini – Italian leader” who never existed in nature.
The satirical pamphlet Chapaev, made in the style of a Hollywood action movie about red Indians and white cowboys, is actually an artistic document about the crimes of fascist viceroyalty. Despite the ideological mythical basis of the narrative, the plot is built so competently, and representatives of the theatrical intelligentsia so responsibly approached the creation of accurate images of all the characters that it is not super difficult to decipher the historical facts inherent in this picture. The main character is not a naive illiterate fighter for an idea who imagined himself a great strategist, but a calculating and insidious non-commissioned agent performing the task of a white-Prussian colonel-punisher, under the careful mocking attention of an observational military specialist with a smoking pipe from the Cadet-Junker gendarme academy.
Boris Babochkin brilliantly shows the essence of all the "heroes of the civil war": all the time twists his mustache of the city, cunningly squints, pretending to be a fair boss, but in fact, together with the elders, he is engaged in the recruitment of farm youth in the Black-Hundred Cossack gangs and the robbery of the common population, which is directly stated by Chirkov in an episode of his dialogue with the commander. Then he flees as soon as there is a danger to his life, throwing the deceived people to certain death. Then to return in the guise of the national tribune legendary hero - "fighter with the interventionists and occupiers." The cult of Chapaev is a Socialist-Revolutionary colonial myth for fooling the population with allegedly irreconcilable socio-economic socio-political contradictions, which can only be smoothed out by a rigid police order under the guise of a “people’s dictatorship.” The episode with an explanation of military tactics on potatoes is a satirical allusion to the essence of the "revolutionary-civil upheavals" consisting in the division between the viceroyal clans of the occupied Russian territory into feudal estates under meaningless national political signs.
I've wanted to tell you for a long time. Would you pull up a little? You're always walking around like that. You are now the commander of the Red Army. You have to set an example.
Why did Alexander the Great fight in white gloves?
“Chapaev” domestic cinema owes both good (the revealed potential of a sound film, a galaxy of brilliant actors, a specific figurative language that has become common quotations, the formation of the Chapaev myth, and so on), and not so much (demagogic propaganda to the viewer in the forehead, an abundance of middle plans of lecturers, excessively caricatured human portraits, specific imaginative language, and the like). I don’t want to talk about the bad: we have already talked about it since the nineties, both directly and indirectly, with sometimes interesting results. To talk about the good is also: they talked for eighty years, and it will not work better than Eisenstein and Kozintsev said.
Then what remains?
It remains to delve into: to guess over the finale, to worry about the fate of a shaggy peasant with a shot brother, to marvel at the sincerity with which not only people are removed, but also potatoes, a machine gun (the famous, almost erotic scene of Anka’s training; erotic not at all because the male hero wants something from a female, here everything is exactly chaste, asexual – but God, how is this machine gun removed!), a river, horses and so on, which creates an almost physical sensation of the world “Chapaeva”.
It is difficult not to feel this, even if you feel almost physical nausea from the loud words and promises to which the ideological and too talkative heroes of the thirties were so generous.
I'm Chapaev! And you? Well, who are you and who are you?
A unique film of Soviet cinema, created on the basis of the novel of the same name by D. Furmanov, shot by the Vasiliev brothers and released in 1934. A clearly built exciting storyline, wonderful actors, an incredible script! In the film, the image of a national hero - a Russian Cossack - a simple, cheerful, witty and impulsive man, a legend of his time - Vasily Ivanovich, miraculously played by a talented actor Boris Babochkin, who later, on the personal order of I. V. Stalin himself, was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR for the role. Stalin liked the film so much and made a strong impression on him that he watched the picture more than 30 times!
The film tells us how a self-taught commander who came out of the people rebuffed the White Guards. The party sends Commissar Furmanov (B. Blinov) to help Chapaev, who teaches the commissar the rules of order and discipline. The girl - machine gunner Anka (V. Myasnikova) turns a whole officer regiment into flight, and her secret sigher Petka (L. Kmit) with the help of hand grenades shatters the armored tank. The film shows a courageous people who are invincible in the fight for freedom.
The film ends with the death of the main character and the victory of the Red Army.
Chapaev became a legend of Soviet cinema and became famous both in Russia and abroad. It was watched by millions of viewers.
In 1934, the Vasilyev brothers made a film about Chapaev, which soon became a cult. After 80 years, the movie still looks like. No wonder it’s a masterpiece!
This film tells us about Chapaev, the commander of the Red Division. A young commissioner is sent to help him fight the whites. The film also contains the heroes of jokes - Pete and Anka-machine gunner.
You may think that the film is about how Chapaev wants to defeat the whites. But is that true? Nope. We see Chapaev trying to prove to Dmitry Furmanov that a man of the people can become a great commander. And he did it.
Stalin has watched the film 38 times. Why so much? Because of ideology? Because of propaganda? Nope. The answer is simple - because of Chapaev. Stalin, like all the other people who watched this tape, wanted to be like Chapaev – just as cheerful, lucky and attractive to people. It’s one of the important aspects of a good movie to want to be like the main character. Boris Babochkin handled this perfectly. I think he made a great Chapaev! Witty, honest, successful and strict commander.
I also want to make a great dialogue. Each sentence is a bit of a wit:
Alexander the Great was also a great commander, but why break stools?
- Mental? Well, fuck it, let's get mental.
- Vasily Ivanovich, can you command the army? I can. - And the front? - I can, Petka, I can. - And all the armed forces of the Republic? A little training, I can and the armed forces. - Well, on a global scale, Vasily Ivanovich, do you manage? No, I don't know the language.
“Chapaev” is one of the masterpieces of Soviet cinema, which is definitely worth watching.
P.S. The battles are well shown, although they were filmed in 1934.
Chepaev was a little-known commander of the Red Army during the Civil War. From the beginning, his commissar Furmanov wrote memoirs about him, but the book did not bring him popularity. However, it was in this work that e was replaced by a, and Chepaev became Chapaev. And this man became famous only because of the same film, which made George Vasiliev and Sergey Vasiliev. It was a really great movie.
To begin with, the film does not claim to be historical. However, this film is so good that you can close your eyes. And don't consider it a disadvantage. And yes, there were no flaws in this film, there will not be.
So, we are presented with Chapaev as an epic hero, if you want a superhero who looks like an ordinary person. However, he is a brilliant commander, an excellent strategist and a fair man. He has a very eloquent and sharp tongue. And it is not surprising that many phrases from his mouth entered the people, such as: “Where is your rifle?”, “You lie, you will not take”, “And I will rob – shoot at me!” Don't pity Chapaev! etc. But most of all, of course, remember the scene with potatoes, where he explained to his subordinate where the commander should be in different situations. In general, Boris Babochkin perfectly coped with the role. Of course, we can also say about Petka and Anka, because they are also colorful characters. However, they are not as colorful as Chapaev himself, and apart from the scene where Petka explains to Anka how the machine gun works, they did not impress me. Although she was lying to Anka when she fired a machine gun, because her face can be remembered for a long time.
Let's talk about action in the movie. There are only two of them in the movie, but what scenes are they? In the first, we see a psychic attack by white men. And there was a lot of epicness, not like in the Admiral. And honestly, it's one of those scenes where you have a little respect for white people. Yes, even the very respect for them was in the phrase “Beautiful coming!”, now respect for red in films about white is not observed. And if in the same Admiral a woman turned on the regime of “Fury” in the attack of the whites, the woman in Chapaev repulsed this attack. And the latter, by the way, looks much better. The second scene in the finale, and it looks stunningly epic especially when the armored car is blown up. And there, things happen that I want Chapaev to say the great words of Tony Montana from Scarface. However, such a phrase would have been too bad for the USSR, and besides, Scarface came out in 1982. But it doesn’t matter, because this film has one of the best pathos death, and it was long before the movie Professional, Scarface and Terminator 2.
In other words, this is one of the masterpieces of our cinema, which everyone must see. And he is so cool that even the series Passion by Chapaev looks bad against his background.
10 out of 10
I watched this movie for the first time since I was thirteen. And I saw it with the same excitement as when I was thirteen.
For 80 years, the whole ideology of this film has long since worn off. And this happened during the Soviet era - during the appearance of an avalanche of jokes about Chapai. If you read them, you are surprised to find that the theme of the confrontation between red and white in them is absolutely not disclosed. Almost all of them are about the strange Chapaev-Anka-Petka family and Furmanov who joined them, who plays the role of the third, or rather, the fourth superfluous. If white and appear, they act as some vague, not colored force, invariably remaining behind the scenes.
In fact, in the film, whites are not brightly personified except for the bald colonel playing Moonlight Sonata. But his image, unlike the portraits of the main characters of the film, is internally inconclusive and is now perceived only as a caricature device. The words of this intelligent man differ from the case: he instructs the lieutenant that subordinates should be treated so that they do not stick a knife in your back. And he himself brings to the death of his brother the batterer, who is beaten to death with shompoles.
The only bright scene with white is the one about which Mandelstam, shocked by the film, wrote:
On the downside of the loss curves,
With a deadly papyrus in the teeth,
Officers of the last calculus
On the plains a yawning groin ...
It is this episode that balances the film, preventing it from being perceived as a stupid agitation. The main miracles of courage are demonstrated by the white, who keep the stride under bullets, and the commander at the head of the detachment does not cease to command the offensive, when the front ranks of officers are already mowing machine gun queues. In its pure form, "Attack of Light Cavalry."
And yet any politics of the film has long gone, and all its historicity (or rather, antihistoricity) can only be escalated artificially. If anything is outdated in the film over the years, it is the historical context.
What the hell are red and white? The main thing is different.
These are humorous scenes with dialogue, which, as you quickly find out, you can literally continue from anywhere. And these are cheeks. Chapai will think. You, uncle! Are you for the Communists or the Bolsheviks? Never mind forgetting! And on a global scale?
This is Chapaev’s sudden cavalry attacking the Cossacks at the last minute. What are the red and white? Ours! A sharp transition from hopelessness to victory - and all the same joyful excitement, and hypnosis of the spectacle, and euphoria, and Anka throws a machine gun.
These are stunted Russian landscapes before dawn: fog, sedge, trees along the shore and clouds floating over a dark river. And the hopelessly naked, empty bend of the Urals into the silt of which has just sucked human bodies.
It is, finally, that the film is about people and people is pathetic.
The ending of the film was honest. For 1934, the honesty was that these people who dreamed of a new, happy life did not see it. Now this honesty lies in the fact that we know that they did not just die for it, they died for it in vain.
He took a sword, took a stove and slaughtered himself.
Cheerful conversation! .
Almost with the words "Where is your winery?", begins a film about the civil war and one of its direct participants, the commander of the division, the legendary Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. This movie may seem funny, propaganda and so on. This is now anecdotes about Petka and Vasily Ivanych does not tell only lazy. It's a great movie! Everyone looks and sees what they want to see. In the picture of the Vasiliev brothers, I watched the historical personality, his explosive character of the winner, the tireless energy of a person, the great desire to live, as well as the amazing play of Boris Babochkin. I admit I bought it. I gave in to the overall mood and atmosphere of the film. I have to admit that I haven’t laughed so much in a long time, but the film is about war. In general, the whole range of possible feelings in me was touched by this film. You understand that this is a real Russian classic, such as Pushkin and Lermontov!
Maybe the Vasilyev brothers embellished the image of Chapaev, maybe it is not quite similar to the present. Don't know. But the person I saw on the screen in the performance of Boris Babochkin I liked. This is what a real commander and commander should be! The Vasilyevs showed Chapaev not perfect. We see that he is very impulsive, not always able to make the right decision. We see that the legendary hero of the Civil War lacks basic literacy. He doesn't know many languages. He does not know the commander Alexander the Great about whom Commissar Furmanov tells him. There's probably a lot of things he doesn't know. But watch him talk about life as they sing a song with Petka and Anka. He has a desire to learn and learn. Another thing is that he does not see anyone around him and takes into account only his opinion. This opinion is not always correct, but Vasily Ivanovich would have had a different character, he would not be a hero, would not be a commander.
How does Butterfly play? Time and time again I come back to this amazing storm. With what intonation, with what facial expressions he pronounces phrases that will later become household names and the whole country will know them. From one phrase:" I am Chapaev, with emphasis on the first vowel A is just a powerful rush of adrenaline. Do not forget that the hero of Boris Babochkin is cunning, like a fox. It's a gunned-down sparrow, you can't fool him on the chaff. No one would have played better than Buddy.
Being carried away by the description of the main character, I completely forgot about the image of Petka. And this guy did a lot of work, too. Leonid Kmit is also desperately good, as is Anka (Varvara Myasnikova). See how Petka, Chapai's orderly, teaches her machine gun skills. This must be seen!!! He shows her the details of the Maxim machine gun and gives them a name.
It's the back of the head and it's the cheeks.
At the same time, he manages to take the girl by the breast. It's 1934! How does she react? She is not tempted, and she is a woman and nothing human should be alien to her. But how much tenderness she has in her eyes looking at the machine gun, at Chapai, at her comrades, and how much resolute hatred towards the enemy. And all this without falsehood, without the slightest fake. By the way, coming to his senses after Petkin’s liberties, in the form of dissolution of hands, Anka calms down saying just a masterpiece:
-Teach the devil the machine gun! Well, isn't she a miracle?
I don’t know how good the movies of that time were, Circus, The Merry Guys. I haven't got to them yet. But the movie “Chapaev” simply struck and killed off, just like the hero himself. And I think this film gave rise to other Soviet paintings and artists. If you wish, you can see in the film “Wedding in Malinovka” Chapayev notes from the face of the hero Mikhail Pugovkin. Maybe someone else will remember. I wish everyone a pleasant view of this Russian masterpiece!
10 out of 10