ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVOCH
Directed by Caspar Wrede
Written by Ronald Harwood
Starring Tom Cortenay
Released in 1970
Directed by Caspar Wrede
Written by Ronald Harwood
Starring Tom Cortenay
Released in 1970
By now most of us are familiar with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. You may not know that in 1970 a film adaptation of the book was released. Directed by Caspar Wrede and shot in northern Norway, the film was banned in Finland until 1993 for fear on the part of the Finnish government that the movie would hurt relations between Russia and Finland. This film sticks quite closely to the author's fictionalization of his own time as a prisoner in a Stalin-era Soviet gulag.
The movie is not much fun.
It is, however, excellent propaganda.
I avoided reading the book for years and avoided even more strenuously viewing the film, not because I didn't believe the author's narrative, but rather because I did believe it and suspected that if anything he might have downplayed certain matters. I resisted the book and film because I already understood that these two things would cause me to hate totalitarian systems even more than I already hate them and yet somehow that never stopped me from reading about the Nazis or watching movies about the Holocaust. So what exactly was my problem?
I'm on the left. There is no sense denying that.
What bothered me was being reminded that my pro-government, pro-bureaucracy, pro-collectivist proclivities could turn into the type of nightmare Wrede so magnificently conveys in the film. The things I believe in are not supposed to turn into bad dreams. And yet they unquestionably do, just about every day.
Mitt Romney was on camera a couple weeks ago, getting fresh with an Occupy supporter about how if the supporter didn't like things in the United States he was free to go live somewhere else and let us know how he liked it elsewhere. That made me mad and I fired off a letter to Romney that suggested he himself might enjoy spending this summer in an internment camp in Cuba. I have yet to hear back.
But I meant what I said, which is more than the presidential candidate can claim. The old saw about "love it or leave it" still burns, just as he knew it would, which is why he said it, which is why I responded, which is why I watched this film.
The reason utopias turn into dystopias is because dreams make lousy realities. When the Soviets declare that the sun is at its peak at 1pm rather than noon, Ivan wonders if the commissars can actually make that happen. Whenever any of my leftist friends (or myself) demand the overthrow of the capitalist economic system, we need to be prepared to defend the people involved in that overthrow from the smirking evil that lies behind the misery any economic system is capable of instilling, be it social democratic, communist, libertarian, or what have you, because once the real life nightmare takes hold, it does not allow you to wake up. The people in One Day in the Life do not look forward to the sunrise. One of them even looks forward to blizzards to avoid having to go out into the weather. In the film, if the temperature drops below forty degrees below zero, they do not have to go out. A man climbs the pole to see the temperature, reporting that it says only twenty-seven below. the other replies, "They's never but up a thermometer that told the truth."
Or you may recall the first sentence of Orwell's most famous novel, the one that begins with the clock striking thirteen. It's part of an old joke. What time is it when the clock strikes thirteen? It is time to get a new clock. Just make sure the new clock doesn't make a habit of striking fourteen.
The movie is not much fun.
It is, however, excellent propaganda.
I avoided reading the book for years and avoided even more strenuously viewing the film, not because I didn't believe the author's narrative, but rather because I did believe it and suspected that if anything he might have downplayed certain matters. I resisted the book and film because I already understood that these two things would cause me to hate totalitarian systems even more than I already hate them and yet somehow that never stopped me from reading about the Nazis or watching movies about the Holocaust. So what exactly was my problem?
I'm on the left. There is no sense denying that.
What bothered me was being reminded that my pro-government, pro-bureaucracy, pro-collectivist proclivities could turn into the type of nightmare Wrede so magnificently conveys in the film. The things I believe in are not supposed to turn into bad dreams. And yet they unquestionably do, just about every day.
Mitt Romney was on camera a couple weeks ago, getting fresh with an Occupy supporter about how if the supporter didn't like things in the United States he was free to go live somewhere else and let us know how he liked it elsewhere. That made me mad and I fired off a letter to Romney that suggested he himself might enjoy spending this summer in an internment camp in Cuba. I have yet to hear back.
But I meant what I said, which is more than the presidential candidate can claim. The old saw about "love it or leave it" still burns, just as he knew it would, which is why he said it, which is why I responded, which is why I watched this film.
The reason utopias turn into dystopias is because dreams make lousy realities. When the Soviets declare that the sun is at its peak at 1pm rather than noon, Ivan wonders if the commissars can actually make that happen. Whenever any of my leftist friends (or myself) demand the overthrow of the capitalist economic system, we need to be prepared to defend the people involved in that overthrow from the smirking evil that lies behind the misery any economic system is capable of instilling, be it social democratic, communist, libertarian, or what have you, because once the real life nightmare takes hold, it does not allow you to wake up. The people in One Day in the Life do not look forward to the sunrise. One of them even looks forward to blizzards to avoid having to go out into the weather. In the film, if the temperature drops below forty degrees below zero, they do not have to go out. A man climbs the pole to see the temperature, reporting that it says only twenty-seven below. the other replies, "They's never but up a thermometer that told the truth."
Or you may recall the first sentence of Orwell's most famous novel, the one that begins with the clock striking thirteen. It's part of an old joke. What time is it when the clock strikes thirteen? It is time to get a new clock. Just make sure the new clock doesn't make a habit of striking fourteen.
