Brother Russia

Collaboration undoubtedly leads to fantastic works of art. Film especially is typically an entirely collaborative medium. Auteur theory, which positions the director as the author of the film, is useful in understanding the role of a director in creating cinema. However, it can fairly be critiqued for underselling how collaborative film really is. Look no further than a standard credit sequence to see that this is true.

Music is not so inherently collaborative as film. Great artists like Bob Dylan and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields can be considered truly responsible for all the music on their records. But of course collaboration is vital for some of the greats. Groups as famous as The Beatles or as influential as Sonic Youth have made incredible things through complex interplay. How these heights of interplay are realized is not clearly understand. In both of the aforementioned bands, there were many years of history involved. So their ability to know each other and respond to each other, in a sort of literal conversation expressed in sound, was vital. Clearly in our context, we have no such advantage, because most of us were strangers just a few weeks ago. The fact that we are relatively unacquainted with one another further necessitates a capacity for humility and an effort to appreciate the work one’s partner has done.  

I think this assignment was a good lesson, if not a success, for me inasmuch as my ability to collaborate is concerned. To be wholly truthful, my partner and I did not communicate very well. To be clear, this was not the product of a clash in personality. Rather, it seems more the result of busy schedules and a miscalculation of what it is like to share screenwriting duties.

I went into this project wanting to write something serious and dark about a strange part of history. I have known about Grigory Rasputin for some time, but my interest was sparked during a discussion of him in a class I had last semester. The design of the class was to look at Russian history via its depictions in cinema. Rasputin, though mythic, was a very real Orthodox Monk who had an illicit sexual relationship with the Queen of Imperial Russia. Fearing his influence, a group of nobles conspired to kill him. The anxiety caused by his rise in power was sufficient enough that our textbook, Gregory Freeze’s Russia: A History, discussed him for a considerable length of time. The rumors surrounding this event relay that Rasputin was, as though superhuman, nearly impossible to kill. The obvious absurdity of this man appealed to me. The latent comedy of this absurdity manifested itself to me more than ever when I stumbled upon a song called Rasputin, by a group called Boney M. I sought to make the dialogue reminiscent of how young Americans speak. To me, there is something inherently funny about the contrast between Imperial Russians and my own ilk.  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwdUB0l0cDmjUTFvbndwcmpsekE/view?usp=sharing