Armando Iannucci – The Death of Stalin (2017)

“Had The Death of Stalin been made in the 1950s, it might have been called Carry on Comrade—and yet it suggests the venerable mantra, “think Yiddish, act” (or “dress” or “look”) “British.” The Death of Stalin is not as funny or as transgressive as The Producers but it has some of the same flavor. The spirit is less that of a Punch and Judy show than a Purimshpiel—particularly those Purim plays that, performed for and by Holocaust survivors in the immediate aftermath of WWII, conflated Haman with Hitler.

What suffering gave Iannucci license to make Stalin a joke? And how accurate is his movie? While few might agree with the historian Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov’s theory that Stalin was poisoned by Beria, perhaps with Khrushchev’s knowledge, both men, as well as other members of the Politburo, had reason to believe themselves the targets of the impending purge. (The obscure Ukrainian apparatchik Semyon Ignatyev, who was then in charge of Stalin’s security and was an ally of his landsman Khrushchev was certainly a player in the palace intrigue, if not a character in the movie.)

In keeping with its attitude, The Death of Stalin advances a novel theory of the dictator’s demise—his fatal stroke is brought on by a fit of laughter provoked by a feeble attempt by a young concert pianist (Olga Kurylenko) to challenge his authority. Plenty of stuff is, however, too crazy to have been invented by the filmmakers. The opening scene, in which a Mozart concert has to be repeated with the audience kept in their seats because terrified technicians forgot to record it per Stalin’s request, did in fact (or legend) occur, albeit a decade earlier during WWII. Stalin was a music lover. Strains of Mozart are subsequently heard in Beria’s Lubyanka dungeon.”

From J. Hoberman’s review: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/the-death-of-stalin-by-way-of-monty-python

The.Death.of.Stalin.2017.720p.BluRay.X264-AMIABLE.mkv

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Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 46 min
Size: 	4.37 GiB
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Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
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Audio
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https://nitro.download/view/3B53457CEC5FF0D/The.Death.of.Stalin.2017.720p.BluRay.X264-AMIABLE.mkv

Language(s):English
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