This is the first surviving film in our country, with the premiere of which the national cinema began. Its director Vladimir Romashkov did not shoot anything else, although he later starred in two Soviet films of the 1920s. But the performer of the title role appeared on the screen after only once, in the film released before the revolution by the outstanding theater figure Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, who did not accept the revolution and emigrated to Europe. This film is also associated with a scandal over the use of music by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, which he provided for the theatrical production of Vasily Goncharov’s play “The Lower Freewoman”, but did not consent to the use of taper when showing the film.
The creation of “Razin Wall” largely happened by accident. The author of the play himself came to the famous photographer of those years Alexander Drankov so that video fragments for production were prepared in his studio. But Drankov, then mastering the profession of a film producer and competing in this with Alexander Khanzhonkov, convinced the writer that the play can be made and film. As a result, one fragment was chosen, which is a melodramatic story about the murder of the princess by the jealous Stenka Razin, which was denounced by his people.
Of course, in this first film, there is not enough actual cinema. However, it is impossible not to admit that this melodrama of a historical nature thanks to the alternation of short frames resembles a video clip, which is strikingly different from other silent films. Later, the video was even superimposed the song of Dmitry Sadovnikov “Because of the island on the rod”, which served as the basis for Goncharov’s play. In the USSR, by the way, the figure of Stenka Razin was romanticized as a fighter against the tsarist regime in the famous 1939 film of the same name. And Romashkov could not resist envy for the rampant life of the robber, his unfettered freedom. So in a certain sense, it was in this film that the romance of the noble life was shown for the first time in the cinema, as if it were an omen of the rampant low passions that manifested themselves in the October Revolution.
The modern viewer, of course, will have a lot of fun at exclusively theatrical affective acting and the small professionalism of the film crew. But silent cinema was much more characterized by the capture of the air of time, history itself, so you see not extras in ridiculous costumes, but forever gone tsarist Russia. Very soon, Nicholas II, who seemed like a dictator to many, will involuntarily be a saint against the backdrop of bloody Bolshevik executioners who built up our entire country with camps and strangled freedom.
But cinema, being not of this world, lived under Stalin. Contrary to his royal will, internally free works were published, both in literature and in cinema. And for the directors of the future, the figure of Stenka Razin involuntarily became an outlet, in order to feel the intoxicating taste of freedom together with the “noble robber” and at least threaten the Kremlin plow from afar.
6.5 out of 10