Le Départ du grand vieillard

A heartfelt depiction of the last days of an ailing Leo Tolstoy from legendary Russian director Yakov Protazanov which, while showing the author in a positive light, doesn't shy away from his passive impotence in the face of his wife's cruel attitude (it's no wonder she tried to have the movie banned). Protazanov still had much to learn as a director, but this is still a pleasingly mature and candid study of an influential author who was revered in his homeland.

This dramatization of the last days of the renowned Leo Tolstoy is well-crafted and very interesting, and it is also provocative in its portrayal of the writer, his family, and his friends. Once you see the movie, it is easy to see why his wife and others made every effort to have it banned. Yet it is fortunate that it survives, since it is worth seeing both as a historical drama and for its implied commentary.

When Yakov Protazanov made this feature, Tolstoy had passed away just a couple of years earlier, and so the memory of him would still have been fresh in his viewer's minds. The movie consists of a series of vignettes from the famous writer's declining days, as he wrestles with his conscience and his own family, becoming increasingly disheartened over the problems he sees around him.

It must have been a controversial way to portray someone so well-known and respected. Although Tolstoy is clearly presented in a positive and occasionally even idealized light, Protazanov and actor Vladimir Shaternikov also depict him as helplessly weak in the face of his steely wife (icily played by Olga Petrova), and he finds few constructive answers to ease his troubled mind.

The settings are detailed and very authentic looking, and in fact much of it was filmed on location. Moreover, the story does correspond with many of the general facts that are known about Tolstoy's final days. Protazanov's interpretation of these facts is certainly provocative, but he has some things worth saying about them, and this movie deserves to be seen.

Serfs come to see Count Leo Tolstoy. They ask for the land they dwell on and work. He explains it all belongs to his wife, and she won't give it to them. When he tells a widow she may gather brushwood on the land, his wife's foresters drive her away. He writes a will, leaving the royalties to his books to the peasants, turns in his last manuscript, and tries to kill himself. Unsuccessful, he goes wandering, and finally dies.

Yakov Protazanov's film paints a kind and pitiable portrait of the great novelist, even as I cynically note how convenient the portrait of the Count notes that he lives a pretty good life, collects the rent, and gets to blame everything on his wife. Still, the attitude by the film makers is sincere, holding in awe the view of the man.

It's often forgotten that there was a livelu film industry in Russia before the Academics began to make films in the 1920s. Although certainly primitive by contemporary standards, it is startlingly radical by Russian standards of the era.

Co-director Yakov Protazanov later adapted Tolstoy's novella "Father Sergius". It's a boring film, unimaginatively made. "Departure of a Grand Old Man" is much worse. It was released in 1912; "Father Sergius" in 1917. Film-making came a long way in that time, and Protazanov learned some of it, such as how to break up a scene into more than one shot.

It doesn't matter that this film was controversial, that it was banned because of its unflattering depiction of Tolstoy's widow. The attempts at authenticity are likewise of no consequence. It can't amend for a static, stationary camera--a film full of long takes of long shots. Protazanov seems to have believed that the story is the most important component of a film, not the camera. The theatrical acting doesn't help either.

A vista shot of a railway station atop a building is not very interesting, but it's at least a variation. As is the documentary photograph of Tolstoy on his deathbed and the cloudy sky shot with a superimposed Tolstoy welcomed by Christ. Yet, it's not enough to relieve from the dullness. Protazanov would do Pushkin more justice with his 1916 adaptation "The Queen of Spades".