Black and White (1932)
Mezhrabpomfilm
Technique
Black and white is a Soviet propaganda animated film directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Leonid Amalrik, based on the poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The film is a traditional cel animation in black and white with a simple but expressive animation style.
The film, being common in the European animation industry at the time, resembles a notorious difference from the American entertainment. Instead of looking for personality in animation, this one gets little regard to give more weight to communicate a message.
The short film had a more abstract approach for character design and backgrounds, making stronger the narrative that wanted to follow. The backgrounds, specially in sequences where camera movement was needed, had patterns that can save time in production for movement sequences and at the same time bring depth to the world the story was being taken.
Black and white was a point of evolution alongside The Tale of Tzar Duranda, another Ivanov's film, specially to the natural combination of visuals and sound in a way that music was correctly according the timing of the animation, and the poem was vocally recited and visually adapted. This was to appeal the need to strengthen the speech that was needed to resemble.
Representation
The movie is a depiction of racial slavery and oppression, specially from United States, where black people where seen being abused and manipulated during their work, being publicly assaulted if they want to speak, being executed with electric chairs of being hung, and treated as only object rather than a human being. The poem talks specifically about the horrid conditions in Havana, Cuba.
In the film, there were various kinds of oppressors that can be seen: the most obvious is the boss who oversees the workers, a black priest who is the "connection" for the workers with the white people so they serve well their masters, and the public authority that "puts in their place" to those who oppose when actually do not want to hear them say a truth. Each one of them had a solid role that clearly made distinguish from one another, making it a clear explanation in depth to the topic.
Even though the cartoon's scenes were not directly connected with each other and work as stories on their own, all of them work correctly and transmits adequately the message with a proper organization of the shots without losing track on the premise.
Reception
Talking about the general reception, the film is praised by those who had seen it. Making it recognized as a strong and captivating call against racism and oppression that crudely resembles the defections of the US. The people who watched it agree that Ivanov-Vano and Amelrik done a great job to address the topic being direct and maintaining the poem's premise.
The film was apparently screened in various movie theatres from Russia. Of course, outside the country, it was not so resonated in comparison to the American animation, but still succeeded to reach its target audience by its simple and effective narrative back then, but it had several challenges that made the production more complicated.
 |
| This chart presents how many films did Mezhrabpomrusfilm produced by year, starting to reduce from 1930 |
 |
| This chart presents how many animated films were produced in Russia, having constant ups and downs |
 |
| This graph represents how many Soviet films were produced from 1918 to 1935, declining from 1931, but started to welcome the sound films, eventually recovering. |
First of all, the film came out three years after the film production shortage in Russia because the cultural revolution was at full swing due to administrative and economic problems caused by wrongful decisions.
The most affected by this were the studio administrators, because they were the first to be purged due to the little support from the film industry they were having and their .
Also Mezhrabpomrusfilm had several internal conflicts related to the foreign ideologies the chairmen of the studio. Because of that, the company was resisting restructuring to the point the personnel cleanup was done in 1931, having an aftermath of reconstruction.
Despite these problems, the studio managed to bring a production with higher quality for the time and that let the studio resist until its closure in 1936.
Additional information
As an additional note, some articles confirm that black activists Langston Hughes, Louise Thompson, and about 20 other partners who were filmmakers and screenwriters, did a collaboration with Mezhrabpomrusfilm to supervise the production of the film as an opportunity to express their position against the everyday oppression they were living.
But,
also according to these articles, the film had got cancelled and never
got a finished script. Some factors that were mentioned, includes the
agreement between USA and USSR that forbids Russia to do propaganda
against racial violence and the production was being constantly delayed,
generating conflicts between the studio and the collaborators.
Eventually, Thompson, Hughes and the crew would abandon the project.
It can be confusing this last statement. It can be possible that Hughes and Thompson did collaborate in the project; but talking about the cancellation, there could be ambiguous information and inconsistencies, specially when the agreement between the USSR and the USA was fully established in 1933 (even though some sources say the film ended in said that year, meaning that it got more complications) and the film is being shown online, being mentioned in film and animation related books. Of course, the script could have been unfinished or unpolished and the producers had to work with what they had.
Personal perspective
I knew about this film after making a general research in Soviet animation history before, and this film caught my eye once I looked at it. The film was available in YouTube reuploaded by multiple channels. Despite I could understand the main premise of it, a certain portion at the start was notoriously cut in all versions.
The
internet movie Database says that it lasts three minutes, but it may be
referring to an edited version with the song "Sometimes I feel like a
motherless child" playing in the background. The longest unedited
version uploaded online was about six minutes long.
In my perspective, the film is a production of its time, it did its job to speak the topic and make it readable for all audiences, for what I could watch. Of course, it had some technical details and the story could be driven to a better path, but still I give a particular appreciation for almost everything, every time I watch the full movie it feels like being in the absurd of life for how the places and situations are being illustrated. For that, I can recall this film as something unique, even the freeze frames had such level of impact to me.
References for this research:
Amid, Amidi, "Cartoon Modern: Style and design in fifties animation", Chronicle book LLC, 2006, pages 9-10
Leyda, Jan, "A history of the soviet and russian film", MacMillan company, 1960, page 308
Youngblood, Denise J. "Soviet Cinema in the silent era 1918-1915", University of Texas, 1980, first edition 1991, pages 189-190, 240,242,246
All soviet movies on RVISION (2016), "Black and white", October 9 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm5MvnX4i4s
Indiannn (2008), "Black and white", October 9 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qg7UOMIcj4
Mayakovsky, Vladimir (1933), "'Black and white', the film forum", October 9, 2024, https://digital.library.yale.edu/catalog/1703414
Lynn, Denyse (2021), Louise Thompson and the Black and White film, October 10 2024, https://www.aaihs.org/louise-thompson-and-the-black-and-white-film/
Miller, Jamie (2014), Politics and the Mezhrabpom studio, October 9 2024, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/srsc.6.2.257_1
Internet Movie Database, "Blek end Uayt" (1932), October 9 2024, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1240905/?ref_=tturv_ov
Atlanta Daily World (1932), "Withdrawal of Russian plan for movie on race issue 'strands' 22 Negroes", October 9 2024, https://blackquotidian.supdigital.org/bq/august-17-1932
Internet Movie Database, "Ivan Ivanov-Vano", October 9 2024, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0412108/
Office of the Historian, "Recognition of Soviet Union, 1933", October 10 2024, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/ussr
Iaroslavtsev, Nicholas (2018), "Langston Hughes’ Visit to the Soviet Union (1932-1933)", October 10 2024, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/langston-hughes-visit-soviet-union-1932-1933/