The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci

[Shaky]

I think the point was it looks like Iannucci himself.

Genuinely thought it was supposed to be a pre-bald Biggy.

[buzby]

Do they use Hammersmith Town Hall during the funeral? I did wonder about that when I was seeing the film.

Hammersmith Town Hall was used for filming interiors of the Kremlin (along with Freemason's Hall and Goldsmith's Hall). Mansion House was used to double for the Hall Of Columns/Pillar Hall in the House Of The Unions, where Stalin was lying in state.

[PeasOnSticks]

Thought this was good. First half hour or so excellent, then a bit more uneven with occasional high points.

Oh, and the cast is fabulous.

[Shaky]

Watched this last night and very much enjoyed it. Only about four big laughs but it was consistently amusing and more emotionally affecting than I'd expected. The only weak link for me was Jason Isaacs - really the one role where the non-ruskie accent thing jarred. Brilliant to see Palin with a meaty role again. Also, at the end I remembered we've got a new Morris film coming in the near future. How great would it be if he and Armando teamed up again? Obviously they gelled on TV & radio and I think they'd be a great fit cinema-wise too.

PS: The line-up of actors in the film The Death of Stalin was both impressive & wonderful.

[Noodle Lizard]

Am I the only one who finds Iannucci's movies nigh on impossible to follow first time round?  The first time I watched In The Loop, I found individual characters and scenes funny, but basically had no idea what was going on for half of it.  Had the same problem with this, except I didn't find it very funny either.

I might just be an idiot, but I don't often have problems following fairly complex plots in other films.  I think it's the sheer amount of main characters he tends to have, all with disparate storylines and perhaps not quite enough introduction.  Maybe because he made his name writing for TV series, he struggles to convey everything effectively in just one 90 minute block.  I certainly never had trouble following The Thick of It or Veep.

Like I said; could just be that I'm an idiot.

[Default to the negative]

Am I the only one who finds Iannucci's movies nigh on impossible to follow first time round?

I found this one hard to follow at some points. Maybe Iannucci assumes that everyone will have knowledge of the history. I have a passing familiarity with it but that was not enough for me to keep up with everything in the film. And I think a lot of other people would have the same problem.

For example, there is a scene where Beria tries to pacify Vasily by telling him, 'I know about the hockey team.' Luckily for me, I did know the real-life incident he was referring to. But the film does absolutely nothing to explain it and I imagine many viewers would be scratching their heads at that line. I was scratching my own head at various other parts.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

The hockey team thing is explained in the first scene with Vasily, when he's training the spare team.

[Shaky]

I got a bit lost with In The Loop plotwise but this was fine. The only real confusion was between a few of the names at times, particularly Molotov and Malenkov.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

No issues, and not in a 'fucking get me' way, it must have among the simpler plots going.

Leader dies, underlings have a power struggle for a replacement, it boils down to two, one loses.

---

Likewise In The Loop

UK does bidding of neo-con hawks to get a UN vote to go to war - senior US military guy + minor UK political figures fail to stop them.

---

Both are quite light on exposition but it's clear from the actors, the way things are said, the context of what they say what their role is and what their objectives are. Struggling to see the problem.

[Default to the negative]

The hockey team thing is explained in the first scene with Vasily, when he's training the spare team.

Ah okay, I missed that. I'll admit that it might be my own fault sometimes.

But there are so many wild histrionics, it's easy to miss the exposition in-between.

[Default to the negative]

Both are quite light on exposition but it's clear from the actors, the way things are said, the context of what they say what their role is and what their objectives are. Struggling to see the problem.

I don't think it ever really establishes the power dynamics. When they are getting ready to execute Beria, Zhukov says they have to wait for the NKVD to leave the premises.

It's not entirely clear why this is necessary. Zhukov seems to have enough power to overthrow them quite easily. And we don't know why the NKVD would be loyal to Beria - we only ever see him being a dick towards them.

Apart from his blackmail material, we aren't given much of a reason to see him as a serious threat to the others.

[phantom_power]

It is set up earlier that there is animosity between the NKVD and army so even if you don't know exactly why they need to get them out it works on a dramatic level

[Ferris]

I don't remember having an issue following the plot. It is very fast paced so maybe that's disconcerting if you're not expecting it

[Pranet]

I had problems with In The Loop and one of the Thick of It specials- not the general gist, but some details. It put me off seeing Death of Stalin a bit because I assumed it would be the same but for some reason I didn't have the same problem.

[Mister Six]

I know nothing about the end of Stalin's reign, but other than occasionally getting mixed up about the characters' names I had no trouble with the plot. And I'm someone who also struggled with In the Loop.

It wasn't as funny as I was expecting, but that's more because Iannucci's comedies tend to have fifty gags a second than because it wasn't funny on its own terms.

The direction was pretty assured if rarely memorable, I thought. The scenes of the Terror - especially the cleaning house after Stalin's death - were brilliant, though. Cast were amazing, of course. Beale deserves an Oscar nominations for his turn as Beria. It was extraordinary. The most chillingly malevolent figure I've seen in cinema in ages, but then his breakdown just before his execution was absolutely believable and even sympathetic, as the (marginally) more likeable characters turn into braying bastards revelling in his fear.

One thing me and the missus argued about was Molotov's motivations. She thought he was just pretending to be a true believer to avoid getting Gulag'd - thought he was supposed to be an utterly brainwashed Stalin acolyte. What's the consensus?

[Dex Sawash]

What's the consensus?

Great cast

[Shaky]

I know nothing about the end of Stalin's reign, but other than occasionally getting mixed up about the characters' names I had no trouble with the plot. And I'm someone who also struggled with In the Loop.

It wasn't as funny as I was expecting, but that's more because Iannucci's comedies tend to have fifty gags a second than because it wasn't funny on its own terms.

The direction was pretty assured if rarely memorable, I thought. The scenes of the Terror - especially the cleaning house after Stalin's death - were brilliant, though. Cast were amazing, of course. Beale deserves an Oscar nominations for his turn as Beria. It was extraordinary. The most chillingly malevolent figure I've seen in cinema in ages, but then his breakdown just before his execution was absolutely believable and even sympathetic, as the (marginally) more likeable characters turn into braying bastards revelling in his fear.

One thing me and the missus argued about was Molotov's motivations. She thought he was just pretending to be a true believer to avoid getting Gulag'd - thought he was supposed to be an utterly brainwashed Stalin acolyte. What's the consensus?

At the risk of fence-sitting I thought it was a mixture of both. Too scared to rock the boat but definitely a bit disillusioned with the whole thing. Seemed like he'd really prefer to fall asleep somewhere with his new dog at his feet.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

The historical evidence is that he carried on insisting that Yossif was a great man long after his death, when there was no vital reason to do so and it was actually out-of-favour. Molotov finally dropped out of power because he wasn't happy with the revisionism under Khrushchev (which was quite limited). He was out of the Party for a while, which at the height of his power would have meant a death sentence. In the mid 80s I read an article in Labour Weekly noting that he'd been re-admitted, and then also detailing just how bad things were under Stalin and who the surviving henchmen were (Kaganovich was the last to go in 1991).

Notable fact: Molotov was the only human being to have met Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill and Mao. During the Nazi-Soviet Pact period 1939-41 he had summit meetings in Berlin with the German leadership, in addition to the later conferences with the Allied leadership and flights to Washington.

[Ham Bap]

I probably need to watch this again but I don't think I laughed once.

[sevendaughters]

I really disliked this film and thought that applying the comedy of Blairite fudgery to a more overtly murderous beast made it come off like an odious Footlights production. Really wanted to like it so much that I took a train 40 miles to the nearest place showing it. There is probably something inherently funny about the situation but I didn't think that this was the way to go.

[phantom_power]

I thought the mundanity of evil was part of what made it funny, and so chilling

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

I found the way it handled the grim violence (and the perpetual threat of violence) far more honest, believable, sickening and shocking than in many wholly serious films. I felt that the utterly horrific nature of the situation was conveyed in a thoroughly convincing way and at no point did I think the filmmakers were treating that horror lightly.

[checkoutgirl]

I had no trouble with the plot

Me neither, and I'm such an absolute idiot I sometimes have trouble following the plot of an episode of Neighbours. I really am a complete dolt when it comes to keeping up with plot twists in films.

[checkoutgirl]

Molotov was the only human being to have met Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill and Mao.

And he had a cocktail named after him too! Fascinating. I wonder if he bumped into Calamity Jane or Buffalo Bill on his way to meet Roosevelt.

[checkoutgirl]

I thought the mundanity of evil was part of what made it funny, and so chilling

Not only the mundanity of evil but the sheer weak willed cowardice of evil, and the unbelievable power and terror of a personality cult on a national level.

[sevendaughters]

I never felt like they were mocking or traducing the extent of the evil, I understand it had a reasonably serious point, I just didn't rate the way in which it was done. Felt like a bridge too far for this style. I liked In The Loop.

[jobotic]

A bloke sitting behind me did laugh when Beria made a joke about one of the young women he'd raped. Yeah mate, I don't think that was meant to funny.

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

Just watched this, it's probably my least favourite Iannucci thing to date.

I love his work - The Armando Iannucci Shows is one of my favourite comedy series - but I'm not a fan of the creeping "Tuckerisation" of his dialogue that started in "The Thick of It", gathered pace in Veep and reaches critical mass in The Death of Stalin. The hallmark is not so much the sweariness, more the elaborate and impossibly clever wordplay that his characters are able to conjure on the spur of the moment. And not just one or two characters, but an entire fucking ensemble of potty-mouthed Oscar Wildes, a bit like that Monty Python sketch. It's a device that becomes increasingly wearying to listen to and feels like it's becoming cemented as "his style", rather than a card that he plays when appropriate.

I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why the relentless smart-arsery grates with me. It doesn't bother me that it's unrealistic (ok, politicians and their aides are probably a pretty wordy bunch on the whole, although documentaries such "The War Room" suggest that the real life equivalent is more prosaic). I think my gripe is that it feels as though the intention is to impress us - "you might not like these guys, but you've got to admit, they're fucking clever - and to come up with that stuff under pressure!".  In that sense, it feels as though he wants us to laugh along with these characters, rather than at them, and when the characters are this odious, I have a resistance to that. Additionally, over time, he's running out of combinations, so sometimes I'd swear I can sense the actor straining make increasingly contrived insults sound natural.

I'd always put it down as a style that Iannucci thought was appropriate to the culture of Whitehall and Washington, but for me transposing it to this scenario felt like a stretch too far.

Great cast though!

[Zetetic]

Having just watched this, and enjoyed it well-enough, I found something about the characterisation or motivations of the characters quite underwhelming.

There's not much to either for any individual beyond Beria being a massive twat (which, granted, is very well-drawn) and Khrushchev being sort-of contrasted with that. (I'll also grant that it manages some stuff across the group as a whole - their common complicity, at the very least, in the terror - and broad-strokes for Malenkov and Zhukov.) The cast do add some colour to this but, for me, it didn't feel like enough to fill them out.

Difficult to balance with it being a film, and also a comedy, perhaps.

[Lord Mandrake]

I just saw this also and from the opening scene with Paddy Considine being unable to open his pen and then telling off his subordinate for always eating bloddy apples - I was loving it.