10 minute read
The Misadventures of the New Satan
Johannes Lõhmus writes about The Misadventures of the New Satan, a film where metaphysics and Estonian literary classics meet.
By Johannes Lõhmus Photos by Estonian Film Institute & Film Archive of the National Archives of Estonia
The Satan usually spends his time collecting the souls of the dead in Heaven, but suddenly everything changes for him. As he knocks on the gates of Heaven, it turns out that God has started to doubt humanity’s ability to become blessed, which endangers the previous agreements between Heaven and Hell, thus God may no longer send the souls of the sinful down to the Satan in Hell. The only way to maintain the status quo is for the Satan, himself, to go to earth as a human to prove that one can become blessed through work. This is the prologue for the film The Misadventures of the New Satan, co-directed by Jüri Müür and Grigori Kromanov, where Elmar Salulaht plays the scruffy-headed hulk of a Satan-Jürka who takes on the challenge of trying to become blessed among the humans, even when the Almighty, Himself, has personally cast doubt on the idea. The film was made in 1964 in Soviet Estonia where “the figure of the Satan was one that generates fear in ideology. If there is no God, then there should also be no Satan, but suddenly the Satan appears in Estonia,” said the Estonian SSR Cinematography Committee Chairman Feliks Liivik when looking back on the era in 1990s independent Estonia. Indeed, the film’s release at the time was surprising since the period of 1959 to 1964 saw an active anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union.
But by some miracle, this film with a deeply religious and philosophical subtext was shown all over the Soviet Union and became the first significant success in Estonian film history. The reason is probably the gravity of the original material, and the policy adopted at the Tallinnfilm Studio to bring more national literary adaptations to the screen, which, of course, does not guarantee the success of a film in and of itself.
Success requires the alignment of several favourable elements, but it all starts with the script and the director’s deep understanding of the opportunities afforded by the material.
THE ORIGINAL NOVEL AND PLACE IN ESTONIAN HISTORY
The Misadventures of the New Satan is the last novel by Anton Hansen Tammsaare, the greatest classic of Estonian literature. It was written in the summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II when Europe trembled in fear of war and different ideologies clashed – capitalism against communism and national socialism. The work is considered to be the author’s most multi-layered novel as it contains political, folkloric, theological and intertextual layers, which become the basis for an exciting and original film.
The film, which does justice to the combination of satirical symbols and deeper meaning of the original work, premiered on June 15, 1964 and the leading film critic of the time, Valdeko Tobro, was full of praise: “Müür and Kromanov’s The Misadventures of the New Satan is the best Estonian film ever made. It lays the groundwork for the screen adaptations of not only Tammsaare’s work but also our other literary classics.” It is a film that is still written about 55 years after its premiere: “The Misadventures of the New Satan is the first total hit of Soviet Estonian film art and still often called one of the best Estonian films of all time.” But how was such an exceptional and original film even made?
THE SHOOTING AND THE EXTENSIVE PRODUCTION
In 1955, Estonian Jüri Müür went to Moscow to study feature film directing at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) (where his course instructor was Aleksandr Dovzhenko). Only a couple years later, he was already infected with the Satan bug and got VGIK screenwriting student Gennadi Koleda involved to thoroughly work through the material and write many versions of the script. Müür had a definite plan to make his graduate film a full-length feature, and that it had to be The Misadventures of the New Satan (the script’s working title at the time was Earthbound). “Dovzhenko told us that you have to choose your first script like you choose your bride. I’ve also been eyeing my bride for the last four years,” said Jüri Müür at the VGIK Study Council where they were discussing producing the script together with Koleda on March 24, 1960.
Unfortunately, the film was not given the green light at the time and Müür received his diploma for directing the film Men from the Fisherman’s Village (1961), which is also an important work in Estonian film history, as it is the first full-length feature film in Soviet Estonia made with a creative crew composed entirely of Estonians. During the shooting period for the film, he met Grigori Kromanov, who was working as the second director whose job was to direct the actors. For a debut film, Men from the Fisherman’s Village was quite an achievement and, more importantly, it opened the door for Müür to start work on his passion project.
With The Misadventures of the New Satan, Müür and Kromanov were equals as director in the film hierarchy even though they still had quite different roles to play, which probably only benefited the film. Kromanov continued to focus on working with the actors, deliberately staging the dialogue scenes in an uncharacteristically static manner similar to other well-known directors of the same era like Ingmar Bergman or Luchino Visconti. The result finally gave Estonian theatre legend Ants Eskola, who portrayed Clever Ants, a role worthy of his talents and Heino Mandri and Kaarel Karm’s performances were even named the best supporting roles in Estonian cinema.
The film’s production designer Rein Raamat remembers the shoot: “Grigori Kromanov was a director who was masterful in his work with actors. His background was in acting so he understood scenes and knew how to play them out through the performances. Kromanov always had a lot of rehearsals with the actors to get the characters working precisely. He also worked through the contrasts in the characters of the Satan and his wife and the Satan and Clever Ants. Once Kromanov had finished the prep work with the actors, Jüri Müür arrived on set and took over. Müür determined the technical direction, the camera work and the lighting. The cooperation between the two directors worked as a nice symbiosis.”
Most of the film was shot in real locations. The Satan’s farm was built in Suure-Jaani and the spectacular fire that takes place at the end was filmed for real. Together with the firefighters, the villagers and the film crew, there were about 200 people to manage on set, which was quite an achievement for the time, and for the two fairly inexperienced directors.
The gates of Heaven with their large scales where Peter and the Satan have their discussion on bliss in the prologue to the beginning of the film had to be built in a studio. Since the set was so large, it wouldn’t fit into any sound stage in Tallinn, then they had to go to Leningrad (modern day St. Petersburg) and build it there. Cranes were holding the giant scales in place and the smoke used to create the atmosphere meant that a separate, metre-high barrier had to be built around the set so that their impression of heaven wouldn’t spill out into the rest of the pavilion. Production designer Rein Raamat had to decide the style for the gates and he went with gothic because of the style’s strong ties with religion.
For the life-and-death struggle between the Satan and the mother bear, they searched all over the Soviet Union for a suitable bear until they found one somewhere in the expanses of Russia. The bear cubs came from Tallinn Zoo, and all of the bear roaring we hear in the film are original recordings.
A TIMELESS AND RELEVANT PIECE
As a result of all the challenges faced and preparation done, a completely timeless film was made that talks of themes as relevant today as probably at any time, as long as the world still has a capitalist market economy and some form of currency in use. There has always been a danger of working one’s self to death but, today, an era striving more than ever to combine work, a lifestyle and self-realization at any cost possible, these topics are even more relevant than they were in the Estonia of the first half of the 20th century when Satan-Jürka roamed.
The film perfectly presents the absurdity of the situation where the Satan, usually associated with evil, seeks bliss, so he enslaves himself to the big banks, or to loan sharks, or to the embodiment of an inhuman boss, Clever Ants, who keeps raising the rent because that is how our people are supposedly able to live better, even if that means the worker has to sell his worldly belongings and still ends up taking out another loan on top of it all.
There is an absurd atmosphere in The Misadventures of the New Satan, which is enhanced by the brilliant dialogue and excellent supporting roles that help to highlight the contrast between slowwitted Satan-Jürka’s benevolent, extra-terrestrial strength and Clever Ants’s boundless greed. The final phrase that slips from his lips at the end of the film: “Let it burn, the money will come!” is the historically symptomatic attitude of the entire Western worldview that believes in endless economic growth and the reason why humanity and our planet are in danger of catching fire here in the 21st century. It is exceptional how accurately a writer from a small country, and two film directors working together were able to put the confrontation between human greed and sincere benevolence unprotected against exploitation into such an effective, 95-minute, explosive form. EF
THE MISADVENTURES OF THE NEW SATAN
Premiered on June 15, 1964 in Tallinn
Length 95 minutes, black and white
Production company: Tallinnfilm. Filmed at the Tallinnfilm and Lenfilm pavilions and the Moscow Popular Science Film Central Studio zoological base; outdoor locations in different parts of Estonia.
Directors: Jüri Müür and Grigori Kromanov; director of photography: Jüri Garshnek; production designer: Rein Raamat; scriptwriters: Jüri Müür and Gennadi Koleda; composer: Eino Tamberg; managing director: Veronika Bobossova. Cast: Elmar Salulaht, Ants Eskola, Astrid Lepa, Leida Rammo, Heino Mandri, Eili Sild, Jüri Järvet, Kaarel Karm and others.
First Tallinnfilm film to win the Grand Prix - Big Amber of the Film Festival of Baltic States, Belorussia and Moldavia (USSR).
