He ran afoul of Stalin, and lived

As enthralling as it is informative, Peter Rosen’s “Khachaturian” celebrates the impassioned music of the great Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-78) who, drawing from Armenian folk music, was an idealistic supporter of communism after the revolution. However, in the post-World War II era, he ran afoul, as did most of his peers, of Stalin’s decision to respond to the uproar over the descent of the Iron Curtain by condemning artists widely admired in the West. They were accused of the sin of “formalism,” which meant that their music did not lend itself to propaganda purposes or directly relate to everyday Soviet postwar life in an obvious manner.

Ironically, Khachaturian credited the Russian Revolution for providing him with the impetus and opportunity to leave his native Tbilisi, Georgia, for Moscow to study at the conservatory, whereupon he moved swiftly from cellist to celebrated composer. Khachaturian was constantly photographed and filmed, even in his darkest moments and on his deathbed, and Rosen has been able to draw upon a visual treasure trove, as well as Khachaturian’s writings and the observations of colleagues and relatives to create an exceptionally incisive portrait of the life and times of the composer.

In the course of the film, Khachaturian emerges as a jovial man, cherished as a friend and admired as an artist by his colleagues. His patriotic World War II ballet, “Gayaneh,” is the source of his famous, furiously paced “Saber Dance,” which became a staple of jukeboxes all over America. Composer Tigran Mansourian finds it a prime example of Khachaturian’s special gift in being able to keep melody and rhythm independent of each other in playing a traditional Armenian wedding dance against a flourish of saxophones straight out of American jazz.

Clearly, Khachaturian, as did his colleagues in the arts, deeply believed they were contributing to creating a new world order with the birth of the U.S.S.R. As he himself surmised, it was perhaps because he and Stalin were both born in Georgia and seen as men of the people that Khachaturian escaped the condemnation heaped upon Shostakovich, among others, in 1936. World War II allowed for more artistic expression in an intensely patriotic period, but soon Stalin’s heavy hand bore down upon Khachaturian. It was the composer’s postwar Third Symphony that got him into trouble because Soviet bureaucrats could not relate to its modern sound, which some have seen as an expression of Stalinist-inspired terror from a composer who never publicly denounced the regime that turned on him.

As a much-decorated public hero, Khachaturian made a coerced apology for a preoccupation with technical proficiency and a drift toward cosmopolitanism. Yet he proved to be a survivor par excellence, but surely at the cost of incalculable inner anguish. In yet another of the ironies that marked his life, he was ordered to get back to his Armenian roots, which ultimately inspired his awesome, acclaimed ballet “Spartacus,” whose hero is a slave who led a rebellion against the Roman Empire.

Vladimir Vasiliev, the dancer who created the role of Spartacus, observes that “Spartacus” became Khachaturian’s “self-portrait, his requiem.” Because the ballet did not premiere until 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, Khachaturian always wondered whether the dictator, once his ardent supporter, would extol him once again “or order me shot.” His reputation restored, Khachaturian remained acclaimed, active and encouraging of venturesome young composers until his death.

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‘Khachaturian’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: General audiences

A Seventh Art Releasing release of a Kuhn Foundation presentation. Producer-director Peter Rosen. Executive producers Dora Servirian-Kuhn, Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Script Bill Van Horn. Based on the writings of Aram Khachaturian. Script consultant Solomon Volkov. Editor Aaron Kuhn. Music Aram Khachaturian. Narrator Eric Bogosian. In English and Russian, with English subtitles.

Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 474-6869.