Oh to Believe in Another World
Film by William Kentridge. Symphony no. 10, New York Philharmonic/Keri-Lynn Wilson, 7 December 2024.

Films about Shostakovich have an uneven history; both fictionalised treatments and documentaries have often struggled to address the ambiguities in his life and music, portraying them as black and white, Shostakovich vs. Stalin, instead of in anything approaching full colour. When I read about William Kentridge’s project Oh to Believe in Another World in DSCH 59 and that it involved puppets, I was immediately worried that we had another Into the Cold Dawn in the offing and that Shostakovich would end up haunted by an enormous head of Stalin at some point. After seeing the film accompanied live with Symphony no. 10, with the New York Philharmonic under the able baton of Keri-Lynn Wilson, I am happy to state this is not the case. Kentridge’s film is brilliantly realised as a work of art and also challenges the viewer/listener to expand their horizons about what they know about Shostakovich and his world.

Wilson was an ideal choice as the conductor for this work; as an experienced conductor of opera (notably in the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk two years ago) she is well-versed in the challenges of synchronising a musical performance with an unfolding visual spectacle. In this case, however, it emerges that Kentridge constructed his work so that, in his words, the conductor “would not be terrorised by the film.” Projectionist Kim Gunning was charged with syncing each segment of the film with the musical cues; it is created to be about 55 minutes in length, but the conductor remains in control of the pace. Wilson’s reading of the symphony was superb, bristling with explosive energy in the climaxes, with particularly strong work from the woodwinds and none of the horn bobbles that can mar the third movement.

Kentridge’s design aesthetic for the film is very much rooted in his earlier production of The Nose for the Metropolitan Opera in 2010 (revived in 2013). In that production, Gogol’s absurdist story was placed within a Constructivist-inspired set, brimming with typography and a strong palette of black, white, and red. The Constructivist roots persist but evolve within Oh to Believe in Another World. The film takes place mostly within a miniature set created out of cardboard and dressed with photographs, typography, miniature sculptures, found objects (dressed and given life) and yes, puppets. But the humans in the film are also portrayed by dancers wearing costumes that might not have appeared out of place in an actual performance of one of Shostakovich’s ballets, with enlarged photographs of the heads of the various protagonists of the film superimposed over their own: Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin; Mayakovsky and Lili Brik; Elmira Nazirova, and Shostakovich himself. At certain points, they hold the portraits like masks. While they move in a stylised manner evocative of puppetry, they are still human.

In the first movement (Moderato), the viewer is first met with a variety of photos and of ordinary Soviet citizens—some with their faces scratched out, as in Rodchenko’s defaced portraits. In a series of statements presented not unlike the dialogue in a silent film, the narrator—assumed to be Shostakovich, but this is ambiguous—sets up the film to show why he is the way he is, but also challenges the viewer, borrowing Mayakovsky “Comrades of posterity,” asks one screen. “You, possibly, will inquire about me, too.” This technique persists throughout the film, using Sovietstyle revolutionary declarations with an absurdist bent—declarations about the world being built through belief and action, borrowed from Mayakovsky’s poetry.

The viewer is ushered into a room—perhaps a museum, perhaps a memory palace—where sculptures decorate halls and various objects (many which will be seen later in the film) are behind glass. There’s a stage and even an (empty) swimming pool. Photographs and posters line the columned walls, and on the stage, a figure wearing the face of a young Shostakovich waves a tiny red flag, conducting, exuding a sense of confidence. Kentridge indicated that this movement represents the idealism of the revolution and its creativity, represented in Shostakovich and the dancing poet, Mayakovsky. The heroes of the revolution—Lenin and Trotsky, and eventually, Stalin—also play a starring role. In the central turmoil of this movement, Shostakovich appears again, bifurcated. Towards the end of the movement, in powerful imagery, he is whole again, older, once again conducting with his small red flag, but behind him, his shadow appears to be conducting something entirely different. Lenin and Trotsky reappear, along with Stalin, gazing out from the stage into the future.

The second movement (Allegro) discards the usual “portrait of Stalin” narrative in favour of portraying how the arts became the machinery of the State in the Soviet Union. Entirely consisting of extant footage, it opens with vigorous scenes of artists, sculptors, dancers, and musicians in the act of creation, culminating in images of Shostakovich himself composing—almost as if he is writing the very notes the listener is hearing. This cuts to footage of him playing the piano that evoked (at least for me) Shostakovich’s furiously fast piano four hands recording with Weinberg of this very movement. The subsequent images are of machinery and factories as art becomes the relentless locomotive of the State.

The third movement (Allegretto) begins with the figure of Elmira Nazirov alone, performing an angular dance with two empty chairs. The off-kilter waltz of this moment then passes to Lili Brik and Mayakovsky dancing with other, switching heads. Tools kitted up with accordion filters, seen earlier behind museum glass, also seem to breathe and dance, expanding open as the music swells. The climax of the movement features Stalin’s own waltz of death with Trotsky, gun in hand. The movement closes with Shostakovich, absent until now, attempting to dance with Elmira, who keeps eluding him. A quote from Mayakovsky: “If you had loved as I have loved, you would murder love.” The personal becomes the political; love becomes death, the lines are blurred, the machinery is willing, but the dance is awkward and inherently dangerous.

In the final movement (Andante-Allegro), the photos from the opening sequence return and the reason why some are circled or scratched out is made manifest: Comrades, let’s get on with life! Stalin, now alone after Trotsky’s end and Lenin’s death, stands on the diving platform at the swimming pool, which seems to fill with swimmers struggling to stay afloat, spins a wheel, and where the arrow lands, faces are blacked out or erased. This pool image, incidentally, is strongly evocative of perhaps the most famous empty swimming pool in the entire former Soviet Union, located in Pripyat, the city abandoned after the Chernobyl accident—often seen as the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. And indeed, this will be Stalin’s end, as at the climactic DSCH motif of the movement, all goes dark—and the older Shostakovich himself is revealed atop the diving platform, once again conducting with his red flag, the pool now once again abandoned. Yet this is no victory. The museum lies in tatters at the end, and the artist’s hand (literally) fills the hall. “I didn’t want it,” says one of the title cards (again, Mayakovsky). The dream of another world has been denied.

This is a complex and multivalent film, and I very much would have loved to have seen it a second time as I suspect more layers would have revealed themselves. The more the viewer knows about the historical figures portrayed and their own stories, the more thought-provoking the film becomes. In its abstract way, the film does an admirable job of conveying the imagery and milieu of Shostakovich’s young adulthood and how it deeply impacted the rest of his life. Oh to Believe in Another World has now been screened with a live performance of Symphony no. 10 in several cities around the world; it is highly recommended.

Oh to Believe in Another World Film images: William Kentridge.

Oh to Believe in Another World Film images: William Kentridge.

Oh to Believe in Another World Film images: William Kentridge.

Susan Carroll-Clark
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