The Death of Stalin

I saw the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. There's a part of me that kind of wishes it had been filmed in Russian, though. The English language kind of robbed it of some of its authenticity.

Did anyone else read the comic this was based on? I read it some years ago, and while the movie more or less tells the same events, the tone it takes is completely different.

Curious about that comic- like whether it was at all satirical, or if it was basically just a retelling of history. I kind of figured there must have been some tonal similarity, as otherwise the movie could just have been based on history and there wouldn't be a need to cite the comic.

Also, wanted to note that while I haven't seen this movie yet, in a lot of ways it reminds me of Conspiracy, in terms of the all-star cast of character actors Not Even Bothering with the Accent, more more so the sort of similar premise of taking the framework of a dark workplace comedy and populating it with some of the most monstrous people in history. Granted, that's true of everyone in Conspiracy but not everyone in The Death Of Stalin, but it seems like both movies do similar things in presenting at least one person as a Hate Sink but playing with/undermining the audience desire to see anyone else as A Lighter Shade of Black.

I haven't read the whole comic but I did peruse it once at a local comic book shop. I could probably take another look at it on the weekend.

The comic is basically a straight-faced dramatization of real-life events, with little satire involved. There are a few stylistic touches that the film does borrow from the comic, like the captions that introduce all the major players involved.

Beria actually comes off as worse in the comic. Literally the first thing we see him do there is graphically raping a woman.

I think the comic is at least somewhat more historically accurate — for one, it doesn't portray the coup against Beria as happening on the day of Stalin's funeral.

"The English language kind of robbed it of some of its authenticity. "

It's a pastiche, and a black comedy. They didn't bother hiding the accents because it would have ruined the film. Leaving the actor's real accents made it feel MORE authentic, such as Zhukov speaking with a thick Oop North accent. And funnier.

I agree, actors faking Russian accents would be a bad idea.

I'm not advocating for fake accents, I'm advocating for the film being in Russian. I do realize that's a total pipe dream in today's film industry, but films like this —where it's actively distracting to hear the characters speaking English — are kind of making me wish that weren't the case.

This is less of a problem I have with this film specifically, and more with the film industry in general and the sheer dependence on an English-speaking audience and the marketability of English-speaking film stars in order to break even, even in nominally international productions like this one.

I do agree that having no accents at all is still better than having everyone speak with phony Russian accents, since that compromise just draws attention to the weirdness of these people speaking in English at all.

edited 6th May '18 9:39:55 AM by DrDougsh

Armando Iannucci doesn't speak Russian. His cast wasn't Russian. Being mad at The Death of Stalin for not being in Russian is being mad at an apple because it isn't an orange.

One could have a discussion about the general unwillingness of Anglophone audiences to watch foreign films, but that has nothing to do with this movie.

I think a hurdle towards the film being spoken and cast as Russian is that Russia has been notoriously censorship-heavy, especially on this film. Russian-American casting, perhaps, but definitely not in the actual country.

I'm not "mad" at the film, as I said I quite liked it. It's a regret I have about the global film industry that I believe affected this film in a noticeable way, albeit not to the point of detracting from its enjoyability.

I finally bought the film and watched it. I really enjoyed it, though it must say the film portrayed the horror of living under the regime pretty well.

Did they actually execute the workers in Stalin's Datcha after his death?

I was wondering about that as well. In general the bloodthirstiness of the Soviet regime decreased a lot after Stalin. Like when Brezhnev deposed Khruschev, Khruschev was just sent into retirement, lived the rest of his days in a country dacha.