#igor fomchenko

Каток и скрипка / The Steamroller and the Violin Andrei Tarkovsky. 1961

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The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961

The Steamroller and the Violin (1961, Soviet Union)

Founded in 1919, the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) is located in Moscow. The school’s alumni boasts a number of famous directors, but perhaps its Soviet-era graduate roster contains the most acclaimed names: Sergei Eisenstein (1925′s Battleship Potemkin), Sergei Parajanov (1964′s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), Alexander Sokurov (2002′s Russian Ark). This roster also includes the great Andrei Tarkovsky (1966′s Andrei Rublev, 1972′s Solaris), who graduated from VGIK in 1960. As a graduation requirement from VGIK, directing students like Tarkovsky needed to complete a short diploma film to showcase their artistic abilities for prospective studios. Very few of these student diploma films are shown to audiences today, but Tarkovsky’s entry – The Steamroller and the Violin – is among the most widely distributed of these VGIK graduate movies.

Without too many connections and with graduation upcoming, Tarkovksy assembled his crew. In his late twenties and unknown to Soviet cinematic figures outside VGIK, Tarkovsky sought the acclaimed cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky (1957′s The Cranes Are Flying, 1964′s I Am Cuba) to assist on the project. Urusevsky declined, but so began Tarkovsky’s lengthy working relationship with fellow student, cinematographer Vadim Yusov (1962′s Ivan’s Childhood and Andrei Rublev). Andrei Konchalovsky, who later became an eminent director himself, signed on as co-screenwriter (Konchalovsky would also co-write Andrei Rublev) Another long-term, fruitful artistic collaboration between Tarkovsky and composer Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov – a Moscow Conservatory graduate in music composition – also began with The Steamroller and the Violin. Off this starting block were the elements Tarkovsky needed to spark what became a profound cinematic career – defying expectations of film structure and form, subverting the Soviet Union’s ideal of homogeneous collectivism in favor of individual artistic expression.

This tension is the humanistic center of The Steamroller and the Violin. Seven-year old Sasha (Igor Fomchenko) is a gifted violinist. His days are dedicated to practice, violin lessons, and music theory; he doesn’t interact with other children nor makes his own play. For that isolation he is bullied by local children, only to be saved one day by steamroller operator, Sergey (Valdimir Zamansky). With Sergey, Sasha has found an adult he can trust and walk around Moscow for the fun of it. While at the music conservatory, Sasha is chastised for his overuse of rubato (a musical term defined as a temporary disregard of the marked tempo at the discretion of a conductor or, in this case, an instrumentalist… this is used to shape musical phrases rather than to play music metronomically). Rubato can easily be abused by a soloist, but trust yours truly, a pianist-violinist, as I contend that Sasha is using rubato beautifully. Sergey, a World War II veteran, does not seem to have many people to talk to either, and enjoys listening to his new friend play his violin – without the constraint of a metronome. Sasha and Sergey make plans to watch a movie, but Sasha’s mother learns of the steamroller friend her son has made, and disapproves.

When shooting The Steamroller and the Violin, Tarkovsky was influenced by Italian neorealism (a movement which emphasized working/lower-class narratives shot on location, oftentimes employing non-professional actors, and commenting on post-War conditions in Italy) and Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956 short, France). The Red Balloon had caused a sensation among Western audiences with its complete lack of dialogue and – what seemed revolutionary in the 1950s – child protagonist. Lamorisse shot The Red Balloon through a child’s point of view, and that is what Tarkovsky wished to accomplish for The Steamroller and the Violin. In over three-quarters of an hour (more than double the length of typical VGIK diploma films), Tarkovsky creates a tone poem – those expecting a detailed plot need to abandon their beliefs that films need such things – that explores Sasha’s loneliness, his silent suffering towards his artistic repression, and the liberation of his friendship with Sergey.

That friendship (I don’t read it as a surrogate father-child relationship) with Sergey is where Italian neorealism enters and where things might seem derivative. Sasha and Sergey’s relationship feels almost airlifted from Bicycle Thieves (1948, Italy) – many of their moments walking around Moscow’s various neighborhoods (the film is almost like a travelogue without being tourist-y; this includes a few minutes showing Moscow’s urbanization by demolishing older residential buildings) share compositional similarities with De Sica’s movie. Where Tarkovsky might be quoting De Sica visually, The Steamroller and the Violin contains its own approaches to childhood. Where Enzo Staiola, as the son Bruno in Bicycle Thieves, shared in his father’s financial and moral desperation, Igor Fomchenko’s Sasha is a child only beginning to realize he has not had a typical childhood. Sasha’s longing is expressed through his instrument – the pace of the bow (okay, it is obvious Fomchenko cannot play the violin like almost every other actor who picks up the instrument, but one can hear it through the soundtrack), the use of rubato, the placement of silence. Regarding silence, part of a musician’s expressive authority includes how they use rests in music and how they let a piece die away at its conclusion – the relationship between the end of a piece and the silence that follows gives music its tragic dimensions. By playing his violin, Sasha has begun to accept how he will never be a child like his peers. With Sergey, there is an opportunity to claim a piece of what he never had.

Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov’s music – original compositions all played by Sasha – is often accompanied with shots of Sasha and Sergey’s surroundings. There might be a pool of water with late droplets of a recent rain making ripples on the surface, a flock of pigeons taking flight, an array of windows of an apartment building. These spaces are touched by the music, as well as Vadim Yusov’s camera – showing the viewer the beauty in the Muscovite ordinary. As Sasha plays his violin, these images are presented with a dreamlike, perhaps recollective, quality. The film’s final scene – a dream – are reflective of childhood innocence, of beliefs that what we want most in moments of suffering is the exact opposite of those very moments.

With this work, Tarkovsky was hired as a first unit director at Mosfilm – the premier studio during the Soviet era, and still one of the most prominent studios in Russia (and in Europe) today. His first non-student feature, Ivan’s Childhood, would be released the following year. The Steamroller and the Violin was dismissed by Tarkovsky himself late in life, as he urged audiences to ignore his earliest works – believing them to be the films of an untested, unwise youth. But this is not a pedestrian children’s film that could be made by anybody armed with a camera (or, these days, a phone capable of shooting video). Through silence, imagery, and use of music, The Steamroller and the Violin represents the maturation of one of the greatest Soviet/Russian directors in film – evoking the melancholy that defined Tarkovsky’s career, as well as passing joys.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961

The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961

The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961

The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961

The Steamroller and the Violin | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1961