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Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter
I read the Stalin synopsis below after reading the above piece on a lowly PR Russian—Vladimir Medinsky who is credited with Putin’s success—great visual I thought. Who knows? Maybe Medinsky will rise the same way Stalin did.
NYTimes: Opinion by Vladimir Medinsky, 9/19/23
I googled due to my own Stalin/Lenin confusion…no expert on Russian history. One hears Trotsky’s name mentioned often, positively (Leon…perhaps a true Bolshevik…revolutionary), I learned below, Stalin had him killed while exiled in Mexico via an ice pick. That gruesome act as well as Stalin’s cunning rise…the screwing of the peasants—“collectivization” per the below…and so many other bits of this (WW II and the naive trust Stalin put in Adolph), lead me to believe this would be a great movie in the hands of the right director. So many chapters. It’s hard to make lifetime movies—Ragtime is one I recall. You can’t do any one chapter justice. Perhaps an incredibly long Netflix (or whatever) mini-series is in order. Personally I’d like to see the direction tagged team by a bunch of talented folks—Ken Burns, C. Nolan, M. Scorcese, J. Cameron, the younger ones I can’t think of right now…even Tarantino or Guy Ritchie for the ice pick episode—they tend to thrive in cold blooded killing….
I’d love to see parts done in the epic tradition of Lawrence of Arabia…and it would be cool to see it on a big screen. (The English Patient is one in that realm…great cast.) But mostly I’m just looking for modern film techniques, good story-telling, teaching—and so much of it could be drama, not murder/thriller genre….how Stalin organized the party core, quietly, perhaps a Kafkaesque bureaucrat on the outside, but soon would be one of history’s more evil characters. Pretty sure he was evil and I trust the below and many other things I read…but he did have challenges—the Hitler backstabbing mentioned. I suppose the flashback formula might work and should be considered.
I had to check and see if that Steve Buscemi movie already did this…a comedy…but no, it centered around Stalin’s death, (Death of Stalin), and the power struggle after…tried watching it twice but it was not very good.
Who best to play JS? Harvey Keitel….Edward Norton…Mickey Rourke (years ago)…Gary Oldham…Bryan Cranston…hell, even Buscemi…best to have several to properly cover the younger (Shia LaBeouf?), the middle and the elder…new faces might work best. The director could do a lot with his deformed arm…I can see him keeping it a secret, perhaps rubbing it when feeling sorry for himself or about to take revenge…and while negotiating with Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran. Only the audience would know.
What do we know of the Russian revolution from film? Reds (not bad as I recall)…did it have a Trotsky figure in it? I remember one zealot, icy cold dude, saying something about the train of the revolution is leaving the station. Dr. Zhivago…wasn’t that mostly a “crap…sure would’ve been nice if we could’ve kept this boujie thing going…” movie. Omar and Julie Christie made such a photogenic couple—and both do-gooders, (with good taste in homes, furs and wine). The revolution part was merely the ‘complication’ in terms of the four parts of the novel.
The below is quite sad, the revolution set out to free the country from the Czars, yet a classic case of “meet the new boss, same (or worse) as the old boss….” The credit (not shown) was public tv…or radio…I forget which.
PBS: Biography of Joseph Stalin
Obituary of Joseph Stalin’s daughter
Dave S.
A fascinating character, Uncle Joe. Seriously, he was commonly referred to in the States as Uncle Joe when he was on our side during WWII and had not yet been universally demonized. There’s a book by Domenico Lusurdo (recently translated into English) called “Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend” that is all about the creation of the myth and legend of Josef Stalin. It’s not about the man, but about the popular image and legend of the man as generated both within and outside the USSR. Spoiler alert, Kruschev’s “secret speech” was not secret at all and was very intentionally created for public consumption. Anyway, it was in the interest of leaders throughout the world to transform Stalin’s generally positive image in 1945 to one that put him on the same moral plane with Hitler by 1956.
If this historic character piques your interest and you have too much time on your hands, I recommend Stephen Kotkin’s bios of Stalin. I have only read the first volume, Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928. The second volume devotes 1000 pages to 1929-1941. I intend to get to that some day. Or maybe you can produce the film version Dave and I can save my eyeballs a lot of strain.
Cheers.
MarkO
The animated version of Animal Farm is a decent thumbnail biography of Stalin (Napoleon) and Trotsky (Snowball).
The short biography you have attached is excellent. My only complaint is that it downplays the contributions of Lenin. He was truly indispensable. The October Revolution (actually a coup) would not have happened without Lenin’s iron fisted insistence.
Trotsky? That would be a younger Richard Gere. He already wears the glasses.
Young Stalin – Aaron Eckhart (he was the DA in a Batman movie). Old Stalin – middle-aged Robert Mitchum. Or the Godfather-aged Marlin Brando.
Marshall Zhukov (WW II chief general) – Robert Redford.
Kruschev – Ned Beatty.
Mark M.
Interesting idea—Stalin on film. I have to disagree with you on The Death of Stalin, Dave. I thought it was probably one of the darkest satires I’ve seen. The depiction of his daughter there was priceless, and Buscemi as Kruschev was hilarious.
How about Stalin the musical? I mean they did a hip-hop biography of Alexander Hamilton, right? Anything’s possible. A younger Robert Duvall might have been a good choice for Stalin—but can he sing? Maybe Mark Ruffalo or Robert Downey, Jr.? How about Benedict Cumberbatch for Lenin? Maybe Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) or Christian Bale could do it. What about a romantic lead? Who was Mrs. Stalin? Could Sally Field do it? Could Taylor Swift play Stalin’s daughter?
Personally, I would love to see a musical called Impeachment starring Stanley Tucci as Robin Vos, James Corden as Scott Fitzgerald, and Dennis O’Hare as Scott Walker. I think Melissa McCarthy or Frances McDormand as Judge Janet and Will Ferrel as Ron Johnson. Hit songs might include “Dropping the Bomb”, “Dammit, Janet”, and “Climbing the Ladder”.
G
Ooh, how about John Cusack as Walker and Andrew Garfield as Lenin? Sorry—mixing my musicals here.
G
All great ideas…oh to go back in life and be in Casting…or a Director….or on Offensive Coordinator. I love scheming, trickery…so delightful to identify human frailties, then pounce on them.
Creative thought to do the Hamilton venue. Though I’m still partial to David Lean arduous epic. Hope vanquished, back-stabbing, misery, mud, lots of mud, suffering and dying. These would be on the Posters.
-Dave.
The Joseph Stalin Epic: Why hasn’t this been done before? Maybe it’s just too dark? IDK.
It is a classic descent-into-evil type of story: Born Josef Jughashivi, young Stalin was a smart but mischievous seminary student when he found his true calling as a rabble-rouser for the Bolsheviks. Unlike the pansy Marxist intellectuals who sipped coffee in cafes and argued about dogma and the wording in their revolutionary pamphlets, Josef took pride in doing the dirty work and getting shit done. He fomented riots and strikes. He robbed banks and trains to raise money for the cause. He did time in prison and escaped (crawling through lots and lots of mud?). He used the pseudonym Stalin (translates to “Man of Steel”) to avoid recapture. He kept his bad-ass new name as he rose to power in the new Communist regime of Russia.
It could be an action-packed first act anyway. The crux would be how did he lose his humanity? How did he morph from adventurous, clever, trickster revolutionary to paranoid, power-mad, mass-murdering dictator.
Cillian Murphy, like Geoff says, might be pretty good as Stalin .Ever see him in “Peaky Blinders”? But Murphy is rail thin and the older Stalin is rather portly — so maybe Russell Crowe with a huge ‘stache?
Did you ever see Body of Lies? (Crowe and DiCaprio) Crowe is in DC, DiCap in Jordan—both CIA operatives. Crowe always has bud in his ear and is calling missile strikes while dropping his kids off to daycare in suburban DC. Talk about multi-tasking. He is a great actor. Mark Strong is in it too—another fave of mine.
DC
How does that go exactly? Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that everyone is not out to get you…
MarkO
You got it. Related: “I can’t remember the last time I passed out.”
-Dave
Ha. Yeah. I think that’s it. BTW. Did you that after WW II, Joseph Stalin developed a strange paranoia of German meats and sausages? He always felt that the wurst was yet to come…. Ba-ding.
DC
I can see the award-winning soliloquy now: Kenneth Branaugh as the aging Stalin. He’s alone with a bottle of vodka in his dimly lit study, sitting behind a huge mahogany desk where a solid gold hammer-and-sickle paperweight holds down the scrawled pages of his memoir. He’s reliving past grievances (which sets up flashback sequences), talking to himself, rubbing his gimp arm, getting drunk and angry:
“Trotsky and his lackeys. Malishdeks they were. They dared to sneer at my boots of mud while in the panties of their wives they pranced about in their parlors. (He imitates the Marxist intellectuals in a sissy voice) — “Oh goodness, my dear Leon, such pretty panties, let us drink more champagne and sashay about while we speak of revolution and have that fool Josef do all the dirty work’. On them I spit.”
DC