The Universe of Discourse

The Death of Stalin

Today I went to see The Death of Stalin. If someone is going to go to the trouble of making a comedy about the death of Stalin, that seems like a worthy attempt, and I will do them the courtesy of going to watch it. At least I can be sure it will not be the same old shit.

I was interested to see if it was possible to make a comedy about the death of Stalin, and if so, would it would be funny? I got my answer: no, you can't, and it isn't.

It was worth a shot, I guess, and I give the writers and director top marks for audacity. The cast was great. The acting was great. I thought Jason Isaacs as Marshal Zhukov stole every scene he was in. But yeah, it's hard to be funny when Lavrenty Beria is raping a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls, and the movie didn't work for me.

There's a long and solid tradition of comedy about completely loathsome people, but I think most of it follows pretty much the same pattern: terrible stuff happens to the loathsome people and it is funny because the people are so loathsome and because they so richly deserve all the terrible stuff that happens to them. It can be fun to see a horrible person sabotage themselves with their own horribleness.

(Examples off the top of my head: Fawlty Towers. Otto in A Fish Called Wanda. Jack Vance's Cugel books. Married With Children. I think this might have been the main attraction of Seinfeld, although if it is I didn't get the joke until after the series was over.)

Unfortunately this movie, being historical fiction, has to stick to the history: Malenkov gets swept under a rug. Khrushchev seizes power. Molotov keeps on doing what he does. Beria is murdered, but there is nothing funny about it, and I found it unsatisfying. Indeed, all of these horrible people are suffering because of the horrible world they have created for themselves, but I found no fun in it because there were another 170 million people suffering much worse from the same horrible crap. The coyote's look of dismay as he falls of the cliff loses all its savor if he has the road runner's broken body in his jaws when it happens.

So, eh. Sorry, Iannucci. I wanted to like your movie.

[ Odd trivium: I started writing articles in the “movies” section of this blog back in 2007, but this is the first one that has seen publication. ]

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