Between Ideology and Literature: the Discussion of Screenplays in the USSR in the 1930s

Abstract

The essay deals with the gradual cessation of discussions of the
theory of the “iron” (rigid) screenplay (championed by Vladimir Sutyrin and
Mikhail Bleiman) and the theory of the “emotional” screenplay (developed
by Sergei Eisenstein and Aleksandr Rzheshevsky) As these two theories were
discussed by very different personalities, their institutional or group identification
is complicated. In the second half of the 1930s, Boris Shumyatsky and Bella
Kravchenko developed the concept of the ideological screenplay. The main apologist
of the ideological screenplay theory was Valentin Turkin. He expounded it in the
book “The Dramaturgy of Cinema” in 1938. The same historical period saw the
development of the practice of publishing scripts in and periodicals and as books,
as well as the phenomenon of recording screenplays from films.
Turkin stood on a radical literature-centric position: "The film can be better or
worse than the screenplay, but there is a screenplay next to it with which it can
be compared. <...> With this screenplay, you can make a picture again and again.
Finally, it can be printed, brought to the attention of the viewer, give the viewer
the opportunity to compare the film with the screenplay, and read the screenplay
without watching a movie <...>. The screenplay can and must be always a ‘verifying
artistic document’". If the screenplay expressed the ideology of the film, then it was
not only an independent but also a more important work than the film itself.
The screenplay’s specificity developed in three stages: 1) the prevalence of the
“iron” screenplay in the 1920s; 2) the fashion for the emotional screenplay and the
beginning of the publication of screenplays in periodicals and in book form; 3) the
formation of the concept of the ideological screenplay. In the Soviet culture of the
1930s, literature was considered as the primary source of ideas. Other arts played
the role of copies, dramatizations, interpretations, etc. Moreover, in a number of
statements, although it appears to be the goal of screenwriting, the film already exists
as something that a screenwriter can write down with a certain degree of precision
and excitement. The research of the genesis of the ideological screenplay conducted
for this essay has been based on rare periodicals and the archive of the All-Russian
Society of Playwrights and Composers (Vseroscomdram). Numerous examples
cited in the essay demonstrate the features of literature-centric thinking. And such
materials as articles published in periodicals and lively discussions provide well-
known patterns with vivid details