Development The film is inspired by the short story
The Nose by
Nikolai Gogol and the opera
of the same name by
Dmitri Shostakovich. Their works presented avant-garde ideas that intrigued the public. However, the works especially the opera received meager publicity during the Stalinist government of the 1920s. By 1960s, the
Soviet Union during the
Krushchev Thaw, decided to adapt a cinematic rendition of the short story.
Andrei Khrzhanovsky was noted as the ideal director for such an adaptation. The initial idea for the film only started through coincidence. At a coincidental meeting in the street with cameraman Zhenya Chukovsky, who was the son-in-law of Dmitri Shostakovich, director Khrzhanovsky was able to establish a connection with composer Shostakovich. Director Khrzhanovsky pitched the idea of adapting the composer's opera
The Nose in a cinematic format. Shostakovich at the hospital bed sent reply back through a postcard to the director stating authorization to use the opera as the soundtrack for the film. Thereafter the director developed the concept of a film that at first became a tribute to
Vsevolod Meyerhold through the script
The Transformation Machine that became more formalized after the release of the 2008 film
Room and a Half. Composer Shostakovich used to write music for Meyerhold in the early 1900s whose Soviet Union plays violated the regulations of Stalin's government. The script writing team in collaboration by
Yuri Arabov continued to recognize the pattern of the repression of the arts that were also found in the symbolism of the play
The Nose. At a session in Kinotavr, critics noted the developing script needed more refinements with request to remove Meyerhold's story. The director rewrote the play and focused more on
The Nose adaptations. The final script synthesized into the animated exhibition ''The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks. The script describes the innovators and mavericks in arts and science from the twentieth and twenty-first century who came at the crossroads of authoritarian societies. Condensed into three parts with an adaptation that included
Antiformalist Rayok, the script references an unprecedented meeting of such people as
Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Meyerhold,
Bulgakov, Gogol and
Stalin. The inspiration for converging the time periods of the two centuries that the film presented, came when the director was on a flight. Many bright screens of the airplane played different movies of different eras and countries despite the cabin room being closed off from light. The director was inspired by this event to create a multi-screen collage approach to edit and combine different fragments and stories with stylistic switching.
Themes The Nose developed the concept of Russian pictorial realism. As Khrzhanovsky stated, Gogol is one of the founders of realism and surrealism. The film tried to re-order the discordant chronological events in the same way a museum orders the culture and heritage "into a coherent, intelligible whole." Without limited to the space and time of historical discontinuity, the film uses the cinematic space to join creative forces of history into a
polyphony medium. The director also states the film has can't be limited to one genre. The film explores politics and history through animation. The events described are based on real life events. The character Nose depicted as a living monument, is developed as a totalitarian symbol. A review noted the separation of the Nose from its owner is denoted as a means for a new frontier for direction. The face of Major Kovalyov becomes flat as a pancake after the separation that becomes an allegory to possibilities for new point of reference. The film's conflict explores the Nose and in general the oppression of the arts during the initial years of the Soviet Union by the reference to the editorial
Muddle Instead of Music written by the leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin himself in the Soviet newspaper
Pravda.
Animation The animation team drew the film using cut-outs, drawings, and live-action collages to bring to life the phantasmagoria sequences of the script. A review found that animation was the only technique that can put to life
The Nose. Collage animation is the main technique used for the film as it juxtaposes anecdotes with a document or a newsreel with a painting. Character outlines are glued with
daguerreotype faces.
Soundtrack As news of a possible Andrei Khrzhanovsky adaptation of
The Nose reached the public media in 1969, composer
Dmitri Shostakovich personally sent a postcard to the director stating authorization to use the opera
The Nose as the soundtrack for the film. Compiled in 1920s, the opera was put on the shelves after censure from the Stalin authorities. However, in the year 1969, the opera at the Bolshoi theater as well as the literary novel by Gogol received critical acclaim again. The soundtrack of the film uses Dmitri Shostakovich's operatic score. A review found the musical aspect of the film became so convincing that it could be seen as a separate part of the film. == Release ==