Armando Ianucci's The Death of Stalin

I predict yanklx will love this to the deserved extent ukilx obv just hates things these days cos brexit or w/e

Iannucci = centrist dad par excellence, amiriteukilx?

Centrists > ukilx

Khrustalyov, My Car >>> The Death of Stalin

by miles as well. I've got to admit I really enjoyed Simon Russell Beale's Beria in this, because I don't h8 fine actors. But it was pretty wank overall, just predictably shrill, shouty Iannucci type comedy, which is quite painful + predictable if it's not to your taste.

It is to my taste usually, or was, haven't seen much of it recently. I get the impression Iannucci's ship has sailed in the UK, and not just on ILX.

I used to like it, but find it exhausting these days. Not just because of his Centrist arrogance or whatever... I just feel like if you've watched the trailer to this there isn't much more to see really.

I just stuck the centrist dad bit in for laughs tbh, all I care about is whether the thing's funny or not.

i really enjoy all of ianucci's stuff despite him urging us to vote lib dem in the election that brought us the coalition and his other centrist crimes.

haven't seen this yet mind you

Both screenings of this sold out at the local intl film fest.

Should note that this is tbf far from flawless it doesn't really hang together as a movie but as a collection of scenarios and performances it's a beaut

i loved this

Iannucci's ship hardly seems to have sailed commercially as this was a lot more succesful than In the Loop with audiences. (Haven't watched it yet)

that's all that matters really, innit?

No, but it is an answer to "I get the impression Iannucci's ship has sailed in the UK, and not just on ILX."

It hasn't sailed commercially on ILX? I've no idea how it's done at the box office, but Iannucci and his style doesn't seem like a thing anymore in the UK, it seems to be still novel in the US though. For what it's worth, which isn't much, I've not heard a single person talking about this film outwith this thread.

Right well, anecdotes aside, I don't know what factors we can look at outside of Ilxor other than commercial and critical response, both strong for his latest project.

Did this even open in the US?

Out this week, I think

It hasn't sailed commercially on ILX? I've no idea how it's done at the box office, but Iannucci and his style doesn't seem like a thing anymore in the UK, it seems to be still novel in the US though. For what it's worth, which isn't much, I've not heard a single person talking about this film outwith this thread.

― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Tuesday, 6 March 2018 10:10 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he hadn't done anything in the Uk for several years prior to this. I saw it in a busy cinema in its third week or release and talked to lots of people about it, so i'd describe this post as "rabid", "pig-ignorant" and "stultifyingly ill-informed".

drag him jed

LOL OK I admit to bias because Iannucci is such a smug dickhead.

And I am personally bored with his shtick.

this was funny and taught me nothing

Funny is something though.

i liked it when stalin died

but true story i did briefly fall asleep ftb too much pre-cinema beer

Some of the sketches were excellent

But taught oh no oh deary me no at the cinema oh god no

it's half a satire

felt like a full satire to me. i think that some of ianucci's pet themes are a little obviously trod in this (the buffoonery & cravenness of politicians, the apolitical nihilism of power) but there were some genuinely good ideas as well i thought. the jockeying for approval from and then slow decline of the influence of stalin's immediate family. that beria's hands were just too stained w/ blood to either move to reformer or weather the immediate storm. molotov insisting on his wife's guilt even after beria returns her to him. the shock of khruschev being the last man standing. i enjoyed a number of performances in this - jason isaacs as zhukov was great. buscemi was great. tambor was eh. russell beale was great. it was v funny. i'm not sure ultimately how i feel about it being done in english and english accents and also stalin - for the brief period he was alive on the screen - was totally unbelievable. some of the stuff was like classic soviet stuff (re-performing the musical performance bc stalin demanded a recording after the show had ended, all the stuff with people chiding each other for saying politically incorrect things where bugs could pick them up) but still enjoyable. i liked when they stop the executions midway through an execution and all the men left to be shot look over at all the people already been shot as if to wonder why god spared them. i liked the kid informing of his father and then his father coming back.

i thought it was just packed w/ good stuff and even if it doesn't hold together as like a singular work of a complete political/aesthetic vision there was still plenty to enjoy imho.

I still feel despite the lols that this didn't quite work, but six months later I do think of Jason Isaacs' spectacular entrance from time to time

he was maybe too good. i didn't quite get why khruschev had won and not zhukov since isaacs plays him w/ such aplomb and charisma and he seems to be underwriting the entire thing (and quite literally so since it's the army that ultimately establishes power). ianucci kinda handwaves that away in the final scene by saying that khruschev later demoted him and maybe showing how the complete acquisition of power occurred was out of this film's remit but that was an unsatisfying loose strand for me.

The whole last 20 minutes or so was kinda unsatisfying to me - still think this would have been much better suited to being a miniseries

Agreed - would've loved to see as a series.

"i'm not sure ultimately how i feel about it being done in english and english accents"

A stroke of genius imo

You couldn't have everyone doing hammy Russian accents surely to goodness.

i like some of the reasons for doing it - a) get to use the actors you want and they get to be funny (whereas who knows what happens if you force buscemi to talk in russian or a russian accent), b) suggest the universality of political jockeying, c) make the players seem even more pathetic and trashy than presumably they would in russian or russian accents. but otoh russians can be trashy too easily and i think a more competent filmmaker would accomplish some of these other things despite having more fidelity to the language. idk maybe ianucci can't make this film in russian, or it's not funny in russian. but at a number of points i felt like it was totally unbelievable and kinda cheap feeling and i think the vox had something to do w/ that.

maybe he had to do it, but it doesn't make it a fantastic choice imo.

the suffering in the film feels very cheap and meaningless partly bc it's not a generous film and no one seems rounded enough to be real let alone likeable, and also bc it's v silly & broad in a pythonish way. if this was by some unknown I would enjoy it more heartily but given it's IA there's this nagging feeling that the film is operating under the illusion that it's more than a lolsy romp about the paranoid politburo murdering ppl

The suffering is apparent and real and not underplayed by those suffering. It's merely not the focus of our main cast and the camera follows this approach for both dramatic and dark comedic effect, successfully so imo.

Mordy, I think the choice of accent in each case for the English actors is deliberate and is a further layer that possibly the American audience wouldn't get?

i was expecting a really grim black comedy that would make me puff out my cheeks thinking about soviet russia but it was lighter and more absurd than that. the ppl suffering were all clowns, ppl getting executed in the background edited into a giddy, rollicking ride. nothing about it felt real and so everything was underplayed

xp very likely! Please explain

I knew the regional accents thing had been done before and here's where:

Red Monarch is a 1983 British television film starring Colin Blakely as Joseph Stalin. It is directed by Jack Gold and features David Suchet as Lavrentiy Beria and David Threlfall as Stalin's son Vasily.[1]

Red Monarch is a comedy based on The Red Monarch: Scenes From the Life of Stalin, a collection of short critical essays by the Russian dissident and former KGB agent Yuri Krotkov. The film depicts Soviet politics and the interplay between Stalin and his lieutenants, particularly Beria, during the last years of Stalin's rule. The reading of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "The Heirs of Stalin"[2] in the final scene supposedly warns that the threat of totalitarianism is constantly present.

And, from a review in IMDB:

A clever touch is the use of British and Irish regional accents to reflect variations in regional accents of the USSR. The Georgians are all Irish and Stalin himself is very audibly from the north of that country. Molotov (Nigel Stock) is Welsh, Mikoyan (Freddie Earlle) apparently a native of Glasgow, Kruschev (Brian Glover) from the north of England.

Kruschev (Brian Glover)

"i read a book once, red it was"

Pretty much something like that.

Not sure why people have an issue with this being done in english accents. Did people have the same issue with that War & Peace recent miniseries?

BTW as others have said, Isaacs was the standout in this, he was hilariously OTT.

Have to admit I fell asleep at about the 3/4 mark but thats not on the film, I'd had a long day and a big dinner (this wasnt in a cinema it was at home)

Did people have the same issue with that War & Peace recent miniseries?

i probably would! it makes a big difference whether they're speaking in russian or french at a given time!

Thats a fair point, and yeah it wasnt too obvious who was who, no one even bothered with accents.