‘Portrait of Soviet Union’ Is Panoramic, Very Polite

“Portrait of the Soviet Union” may be Ted Turner’s crowning achievement in programming, a seven-hour documentary of panoramic sweep and rich, gleaming production values that narrows the gap between the United States and an old enemy.

In many respects, unfortunately, it also projects a view through Red-colored glasses, one that maximizes Soviet strengths and minimizes Soviet weaknesses, one that disappoints even as it dazzles.

“Portrait” airs on Turner’s cable superstation TBS in three chunks: two hours at 6 p.m. Sunday, three hours at 5 p.m. Monday and the concluding two-hour segment at 5 p.m. Tuesday (with 9 p.m. reruns March 29-31).

Hosted by Roy Scheider and made for TBS by London’s Antelope films, the documentary was two grueling years in the making, including 11 months of filming in 13 of 15 Soviet republics--not a bad advertisement for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s hopeful policy of glasnost , or openness.

This astounding access resulted in what surely is the most beautiful and comprehensive cultural history of old Russia and the Soviet Union ever to appear on American TV, opening new doors and stepping into new vistas, topping even the BBC’s “Comrades” series that ran on PBS in 1987.

“Portrait” is visual evidence anew that the Soviet Union is far more than missiles and skinheaded stereotypes named Boris. The nation’s diversity and vastness are on exquisite display here, from Siberia (60% of the land, 11% of the population) in Part 1 to Georgia, birthplace of not only the ruthless Joseph Stalin, but also the Georgian State Dance Troupe, whose spectacular movements are brilliantly captured in the documentary’s second segment. And Tuesday’s finale includes a fascinating look inside a Soviet naval academy.

How’s that for glasnost as applied to a crew filming for American TV?

On and on it goes, from glimmers of private enterprise to a seemingly freer press in the Gorbachev era.

And on and on goes the gloss nost, too, for despite its many virtues, “Portrait” is also an incomplete portrait, at times a painting of Soviet society almost by the numbers. Everything is too well ordered, too unrumpled. The recent ethnic riots that killed 31 in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan would not seem possible in the stable Soviet Union of “Portrait,” for example.

You get the impression that Turner himself--who has many broadcasting links to the Soviets--selected the soft pastels.

If ever a TV program walked on eggshells, communicating in spongy euphemisms and putting a positive spin on nearly every potential negative, as if terrified of offending its subject, this is it.

A woman and her little daughter shop in a Moscow department store. Scheider: “The lines seem endless, the wait forever, but the results are what count.”

Siberian herdsmen adapt their lives to fit Lenin-Marxist doctrine. Scheider: “They haven’t done too badly as Soviets, although the government would like them to give up their wandering ways.” So the Kremlin makes a polite written request? And what does “haven’t done too badly” mean?

Now to the Caucasus. Scheider: “Today the Soviets’ hand is less heavy on these people.” Less heavy?

Next, the independent-minded people of the Baltic republics. Scheider: “Moscow would like to harness that flexibility” and bring them into the “Soviet mainstream.” If ever there was a softening public-relations term, “harness” is it, in this instance.

Scheider on the status of religion: “It went out with the old order . . . and achievement came in with the new.”

If Stalin were not in Soviet disfavor these days, “Portrait” probably would have ignored his purges and complimented him on how well he looked in his uniform.

One can appreciate a wish to shed stale prejudices and rigid “evil-empire” stereotypes a la the Soviet Union in order to increase understanding and lessen the chance of nuclear holocaust. But that end shouldn’t justify such means as blurring the truth by commission or omission.

For example, the 34 years separating Stalin and Gorbachev are virtually ignored here. Except for fleeting references to Sputnik and Nikita S. Khrushchev, they simply vanish. And Gorbachev’s embarrassments are softened, including the controversy surrounding the Chernobyl disaster. It gets only short shrift after a brief review of the accident’s physical damage. Scheider: “Hopefully, lessons have been learned and the errors of the past will not be repeated.” That should cover it.

The ultimate kiss-off comes late in Tuesday’s episode when this seven-hour study makes its only reference to the Soviet Union’s severe economic and consumer problems. It passes in a blink, a several-sentence kicker on the “crisis” in the nation’s standard of living, which lags behind even its East European allies and in some ways is in retreat.

More than 70 years after the revolution, the Soviet system is still unable to meet the basic consumer needs of its people. And that fundamental problem is addressed only parenthetically?

“A mid-course correction seems a matter of extreme urgency,” Scheider adds matter-of-factly about the problem, “and this is perestroika (Gorbachev’s policy of economic restructuring).” Whew! For a moment, it seemed that the Soviet Union was in trouble.

Ira Miskin was the executive producer and John Purdue the producer. But “Portrait” was “originated” by Turner, according to the credits, and you certainly get that drift, notably in the final episode when Scheider mentions that “some individuals” want increased contact with the Soviets. Namely Ted Turner.

And there on the screen is extensive footage from the 1986 Goodwill Games that Turner and the Soviets co-produced from Moscow, as Scheider adds: “With friendly competition like this, both sides . . . can learn to respect each other.” That may be true. But it’s also true that Turner has a vested interest in promoting that point of view, given his plans to hold another Goodwill Games in Seattle in 1990.

There’s enough vested interest to spread around. Scheider reviews some of the citizenry covered in “Portrait of the Soviet Union” and flatly predicts: “These are the kind of people who are going to make perestroika and glasnost work.” When he says that, you can’t help wondering who’s guiding the brush.