MOVIE REVIEW : ‘New Babylon’: Russian Masterpiece at Royce

In the bitter aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, a conservative monarchist assembly was elected to rule a defeated France, much to the dismay of those of Republican sentiments and the working class in particular.

Eventually, fighting broke out in Paris in March, 1871, from which emerged the revolutionary municipal government, the Commune, which by May led to a civil war in which more people--some 20,000--were killed than in the fighting with the Germans or the Reign of Terror nearly 80 years before. Marx and Lenin were to regard the unsuccessful Commune as the first proletarian uprising and dictatorship.

This background information is essential to the enjoyment of Soviet co-writers/directors Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg’s 1929 silent masterpiece “New Babylon,” which screens Saturday at 8 p.m. in UCLA’s Royce Hall as a benefit for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Under the baton of guest conductor Neal Stulberg, the 35-member orchestra will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s original score, which had been lost for decades until a copy was found in 1975, the year the composer died. (Kozintsev and Trauberg were famous for their Maxim Gorky trilogy in the ‘30s. Later in his career, Kozintsev, who died in 1973, was celebrated for his films of “Don Quixote,” “Hamlet” and “King Lear.”)

Both the film, which is being presented in a very good print, and the score are startlingly modern and quite riveting. The film takes its title from a grand Paris department store, a kind of cross between the Galeries Lafayette and the Moulin Rouge, for it has an immense central court--and even a stage--where the store’s top-hatted proprietor (David Gutman) likes to hold grand revels after shopping hours.

As its name suggests, the store and its entertainments--the can-can, plenty of wine, women and song--are baldly symbolic of capitalist decadence. The filmmakers intercut the spending and the merry-making with bloody battle scenes; finally, in the wake of the Commune, the fighting overtakes Paris and the New Babylon itself.

The film simplifies the Commune and its dire fate in the extreme--only a few of the Communards, for example, were actually Communists--but it works sensationally well as a stunning example of Soviet propaganda art, thanks to the extraordinary power of its boldly composed and cropped images, its breathtaking use of montage (the cornerstone of Russian cinema) and to Shostakovich’s score, which brilliantly counterpoints the film’s frenzied pace and atmosphere of mounting chaos and tragedy. (Ironically, at the time of its release Soviet critics dismissed it as being too expressionistic and intellectual, but then neither the New York Times and especially Variety were keen about it either.)

At appropriate points, the score quiets down to a dirge, at other times it incorporates “Gaite Parisienne” and the Marseillaise. Considering that all the actors are playing representative types--the principal figures are Louise the Saleswoman (Elena Kuzmina) and Jean the Soldier (Piotr Sobolevski)--the performances are all the more remarkable for suggesting full human dimension.

No question about it, the presentation of “New Babylon,” believed to be in its local premiere, is a landmark event. For ticket information: (213) 622-7001.