Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

258 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe
science fction flms, such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926). 16 however, Aelita was
in fact not a close adaptation of tolstoy’s Aelita, consequently shifting the central
theme of the flm away from science fction. In fact, protazanov’s liberties with the
novel’s plot turned the flm into a fantasy melodrama that, while appealing to the
public, drew harsh criticism from the ideologically strict party elite. In the movie
version of Aelita, the heroes Los and Gusev do travel to Mars and precipitate a
worker’s revolution, but the travel takes place in Los’s dream that he has because
of his jealousy over his wife.the director turned the export of revolution into a
fantasy. his liberties transformed space exploration from a revolutionary activity
into the daydreams of an engineer with lingering bourgeois sentiments. Moreover,
protazanov’s production dwelled on the corruption and hypocrisy of the Nepmen
and pointed out that no one was above the corrupting infuences of poverty.
the Martian sequences and Los and Gusev’s travel to the planet are of
particular interest for their style and design even though their signifcance to
the story is diminished. In contrast to the Soviet-set portions of the movie,
which were flmed largely in the streets of Moscow, Mars was represented
entirely with the constructivist set. Modern-designed costumes and even the
movements of the actors seem to follow the choreography of modernist dance
in the manner in which Sergei diagalev’s Les Ballet Russes was popularizing in
exile at the same time. Yet protazanov used these modernist images to portray
a dream fantasy of a feudal, slave-owning society. By doing so, he broke the
intellectual link between the utopian ideal and modernist art that constructivist
artists were demonstrating at the time. 17 even though protazanov disassociated
the revolutionary notions from space travel, his version of Aelita nonetheless
established a standard for fctional space travelers in russian culture. Los, in
his dream, discovered his true self through spacefight, even though the fight
was imaginary. he discovered that his dreams of spacefight interfered with his
acceptance of reality, much in the way that the Nep period had been a step
back from revolutionary idealism.
the implications of protazanov’s inclusion of modernist and constructivist
designs and sets in Aelita merits separate discussion. In many ways, the period
16. Ibid.
17. art historian Christina Kiaer defnes constructivism as “this concept of the ‘socialist object’ as
russian Constructivism’s original contribution not only to the history of the political avant-garde
art movements of the 20th century, but also to the theory of a noncapitalist form of modernity.”
Christina Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions:The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism (Cambridge,
Ma:the MIt press, 2005), p. 1.“From this it may be concluded that the term ‘Constructivism’
arose in russia during the winter of 1920-1921 as a term specifcally formulated to meet the
needs of these new attitudes towards the culture of the future classless society. Strictly speaking,
the term should not be used with reference to those works of art which were made prior to
the revolution, completely free of any utilitarian content of social commitment on the part of
the artist who produced them.” Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New haven, Ct:Yale
university press, 1983), p. 3.