State Funeral
In 2017, you could see The Death of Stalin in theaters. More about it on IMDB, Filmkrant, VPRO Cinema and Wikipedia; trailer on YouTube. See also In Russia, nobody’s laughing at Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin (The Guardian, 2017).
Monty Pythonesque, reported de Volkskrant, but close to historical reality. Quite high praise for a film featuring supposed Russians speaking English.
State Funeral
Much more interesting and far closer to historical reality is State Funeral (2019, in Russian Государственные Похороны), by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. It’s not about Stalin’s death (March 5, 1953) but what followed right after.
Here’s a trailer (2 m) as a placeholder, the full version (129 m) was briefly available on Current Time/Настоящее Время. More on IMDB, reviews via the links below, and see also Sergei Loznitsa on State Funeral, the Death of Stalin, and Archival Footage (Film at Lincoln Center, 2019, 34 m).
Via Current Time/Настоящее Время, 2020.
See/read:
- ‘Meduza’ reviews new documentary film composed entirely of archival footage from Joseph Stalin’s funeral (Meduza, 2019)
- ‘State Funeral’: Film Review (Hollywood Reporter, 2019)
- ‘State Funeral’: Venice Review (Screen Daily, 2019)
- State Funeral – first look review (Little White Lies, 2019)
- A Hypnotic but Contextless Portrait of Stalin’s Death and Its Aftermath (The New Yorker, 2019)
Lost and Found
There is also a Потерянное видео похорон Сталина, снятое майором США (lost video of Stalin’s funeral, filmed by a U.S. major). Read ‘supposedly’ after ‘lost’ and be glad.
(Current Time/Настоящее Время 2017, 10 m)
More
- Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin (Wikipedia)
- How Stalin’s demise resulted in the deaths of dozens of Soviet citizens (Oleg Yegorov, Russia Beyond 2019)
- Mourners Crushed at Stalin’s Funeral (Evgenii Evtushenko, Soviet History)
- The True Story of the Death of Stalin (Jackie Mansky, Smithsonian Magazine 2017)
- Watch Newly Discovered Color Footage of Stalin’s Funeral (The Moscow Times, 2017)
- Soviet Files: The Mystery of Stalin’s Death (RT Documentary, 2014, 26 m)
- Stalin Dead (1953) (British Pathé, 2014, 2 m)
Brezhnev and Yeltsin
Also worth watching is Похороны Брежнева (Brezhnev’s funeral) from 1982, in HD Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev Funeral (2016, 86 m). If you’re curious about the funeral of Boris Yeltsin (2007), you’ll have to settle for these three or six minutes.
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