Summary:

As the title suggests, Gallez’s article examines two artists‘ collaboration not only on Nevsky, but also on Ivan the Terrible, a movie Eisenstein made few years after Nevsky. The essay is structured around the scope of Prokofiev’s film music and his collaboration with Eisenstein, in order to offer a comprehensive analysis of the audio-visual structure of Nevsky and Ivan (the latter is unimportant for the purpose of this bibliography). Gallez notes that although neither artist characterized their approach to Nevsky as approaching a production of an opera, when wedding music and film in this movie their style is ultimately “operatic”. Echoing another film critic Sadoul, Gallez argues that Nevsky is an instance of a “cinematographic opera”, employing “aural-visual counterpoint” (16) - it intertwines the realism of cinema per se (film as a medium of art) with the stylization of dramatic work (opera as an art form). However, for Gallez, the result of such mixing produced an “awkward result” (17). He identifies the “inconsistent design” as the major fault - Eisenstein switching between the realistic and symbolic approaches; between using pre-recorded score and altering the music to fit the edited material; and the overall absence of logic in musical entrances and exits (20). Nevertheless, Gallez also admits it is partly due to the obsolete film and sound equipment in the Soviet Union at that time, and ultimately declares that Nevsky is more than a clumsy attempt at creating a cinematic opera; because above all, it is a unique and totally original film music work that “should be judged for its overall merit and the totality of its effect” (28).

Evaluation & Analysis:

This article is by far the most outstanding academic work on Prokofiev-Eisenstein collaboration and with its special emphasis on placing the Nevsky score within the larger context of Prokofiev-Eisenstein teamwork, it is also the most significant one within this annotated bibliography. Gallez offers a very systematic and structural analysis – he divides the essay into various themes and topics and then peels off the unimportant stuff by either refuting, or taking useful insights, from others’ arguments, and eventually getting to the real core of the issue and offering his own standpoint. His research on this topic is the most extensive among others, he presents correct factual information, his reasoning is very sound and to-the-point, and his writing style is truly elaborate. In pure analytical terms, Gallez’s article does not have any logical inconsistencies. The only challenging aspect to Gallez is the fact that he is asking himself “How does the music relate to the film?” while he could be further asking “And how does the film relate to the music?”. But not to be unfair to Gallez, his thesis does state that he intends to consider “the merits of the music as support for the films and as pure music” and not vice-versa. From this perspective, Gallez’s assessment of the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration and his analysis of the functional and conceptual aspects of Nevsky film score are unmatched in the academic circles.

 Nesbet analyzes Disney’s impact on Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, especially the similarities between style of Snow White and Eisenstein’s film. Like Disney, Eisenstein valued full understanding of the characters and stories he portrayed on film. He studied Ivan’s story from multiple angles, from folklore to histories, to do just that. Eisenstein admired Disney for the comfort he brought to America and the world through his films. He believed that Americans were trapped in a world of torment and injustice, and Disney offered a temporary escape from that. Even though Disney films seem to support a form of obliviousness to the misfortunes throughout the country, he gives the nation something else that they need: laughter. One critic cited the American proverb: “A laugh a day keeps the doctor away,” which certainly brings to mind the similar proverb about an apple, and how it connects to the stepmother in Snow White and her deceptively beautiful poisonous apple that leads to “sleeping death.” Nesbet wonders if Disney has played the role of the apple for Eisenstein, irresistible to the Russian director.

            Eisenstein valued animation as a medium, due to its versatility of form. It allows for metamorphoses and transformations otherwise unachievable on film. The fire behind the mirror’s mask in Snow White, for example, also exhibits “flowing diversity of forms.” Shadow, too, has this quality. In Snow White, the dwarfs’ shadows occasionally move independently. At one point, Doc’s shadow turns and motions for quiet from Dopey’s shadow. Soldiers’ shadows in Ivan also seem to occasionally move independently across the wall. Disney uses the versatility of form to create comedy. However, occasionally malleable forms seem more grotesque than comedic, so certain characters had to be drawn more realistic than others. It was acceptable for the dwarfs to have unusual and exaggerated features, but Snow White could neither be comedic nor grotesque, so Disney based her motions off those of a real actress.