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GORKY PARK (1983)
MGM DVD (region 0)
d. Michael Apted; pr. Howard W. Koch, Gene Kirkwood; scr. Dennis Potter; novel. Martin Cruz Smith; ph. Ralph D. Bode; m. James Horner; ed. Dennis Virkler; cast. William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Brian Dennehy, Joanna Pacula, Ian Bannen, Michael Elphick, Richard Griffiths, Alexei Sayle (128 mins)
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Arkady Renko and the Last Vestiges of Soviet Authority
There is now a tendency to look back on a number of films from the 1980s that deal with the then Soviet Union for some evidence of the ideological collapse and compromise of the communist power.
This is an inherently retrospective issue since once the Berlin Wall came down previous films set in communist Russia effectively became dated period pieces. History simply overwhelmed these movies; but, nevertheless, there are intriguing glimpses back to the impending demise of the Cold War mentality in a number of these dated works, amongst them director John Frankenheimer’s under-rated thriller The Fourth War and Michael Apted’s box-office hit Gorky Park. It is this latter film that perhaps summarizes the last vestiges of pre-collapse Communist Russia. It is a British-American adaptation of a popular novel by Martin Cruz Smith who, in a series of novels, would address life in Moscow towards the end of the Cold War as moderated through the eyes of a Russian detective, Arkady Renko. Gorky Park was the first of these novels and its British perspective perhaps meant that the American characters within it were seen through rather condemnatory and cynical eyes. Indeed, it is the irony and extensive ideological cynicism in the film that remains potent, particularly in retrospect. However mixed the reception was to this intriguing film, it was still a notable populist success of the 1980s.
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Synopsis (contains spoilers)
Gorky Park is a thriller set in Moscow. One night, three bodies are found buried in Gorky Park near the center of the city, their faces and fingerprints apparently hacked off to prevent identification.
William Hurt is the detective on the case, although he is annoyed and so is cautioned when the KGB have an unusual interest in his territory. An arrogant man, he resents such intrusions. His superior officer (Ian Bannen) urges him to continue seemingly no matter where it leads. Hurt pursues the clues and finds that skates on one of the bodies belonged to a young lady (Joanna Pacula) who now seems connected to an American businessman (Lee Marvin). Indeed, he takes the corpses’ heads to a forensic sculptor for reconstruction and believes one of the dead to be an American. Following further clues, he discovers an American policeman (Brian Dennehy) now in Moscow in search of his missing relative. Hurt wants the two of them to combine their efforts but Dennehy is doubtful. Soon the KGB seems unusually pressured although Hurt continues undaunted, soon uncovering a smuggler with a tangential relationship to the case and pressuring him for information. Hurt seems intent to establish an American connection to the murders and believes that Pacula is hiding information from him. He tries to break her silence by confronting her with a shattering revelation, fully intending to destroy her remaining hope.
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Humanism Amidst the Inescapable Universality of Ideological Corruption
It is perhaps the novelty of the Russian setting that elevated this detective mystery story to the front ranks of the bestseller lists and then the box-office, whatever dissatisfaction the book’s author or his fans may have had with the movie.
Although it brings out the sense of ordinary Soviet desperation with some reserve, the film focuses more on widespread issues of ideological corruption. Significantly, however, the filmmakers do not depict the American as an ideological savior and towards the end of the film the impression is left that American capitalist interests are an insidious strain that has tainted the ideals of the Soviet Union. Hurt’s dilemma is that however strong his own ego is, he is a small man, with a personal history of antagonism to the KGB, who is engulfed in a declining ideology. In this context of increasing socio-political contamination it is illusory for the innocent Russians in the film to hope for escape to America as their ultimate salvation. The apparent American deliverer here is far from benevolent and as the mystery unfolds, the film becomes ever more disparaging. In a sense Hurt is the last ideologue in Soviet Russia, a proud man who mistakenly holds on the belief that the truth shall triumph – his protracted lesson in the realities of ideological disintegration is for him a kind of humiliation as he seeks to avoid subservience to a system he can no longer validate but is powerless to prevent.
In its story of a man struggling with events that may prove beyond him, the film captures what it feels is the bleak despair of Soviet life. Of course, the setting in Communist Russia means that themes of freedom and repression saturate the movie, but what is remarkable is the cynicism with which the film’s conception of political reality is treated.
The unstoppable American is the paradox in this movie, and Marvin’s moral ambiguity speaks volumes about the true market intentions of American idealism. Such is life in Russia that Pacula can only go on living in the hope that someday she can be smuggled out of the country, a view taken as representative of many Russians who presumably put their hopes in the much-vaunted values of the United States, most of whose representatives in this film are exploiters. If taken as ideological criticism, this film is scathing and contemptuous towards the USA, and in turn towards the Russian authorities for their dealings with their so-called ideological enemy: it is a film which both longs for individual freedom but fears the repercussions beginning to emerge as Communist ideals are withered away by American enterprise. Director Michael Apted thankfully lets this criticism unfold as the plot is revealed and so the film becomes naturally cynical and skeptical rather than unnecessarily heavily handed: ultimately about people and their ideology in a state of moral entrapment.
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EXTRACTS
Winter, Compromise & Control
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen visual transfer on this DVD is evidence of a clean, clear print, nicely capturing the film’s bleakly wintry feel and its frequent deep shadows.
It is always elegant and sophisticated in composition, look and texture although ultimately rather formal, remote and even inaccessible as a drama; as if director Apted (noted and respected also as a documentary filmmaker in addition to his narrative features) seeks deliberately to avoid undue stylization. The idea of a snow-bound society proves a potent metaphor for the ideological compromise and corruption examined in the course of the movie, and makes for a dominant visual motif: the heavy burden of a Russian winter is almost overpowering. The cramped world of everyday Russian citizens is nicely contrasted to the spacious realms of the Soviet hierarchy, a world perhaps long out of touch with the people it supposedly protects. Hurt is placed nicely between the official and the personal worlds as mediated in his developing relationship to Pacula. Earthen, drab colors predominate to capture the somber experience of life under Soviet control. There are some intriguing uses of spotlighting effects and nice use is made of Russian sables, whose fierce nature (perhaps representative of an exploited nation) makes for a highly symbolic final gesture – maybe even a note of hope after all in the film’s otherwise bleak resolution.
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Preserving the Wry Stylization of Scripter Dennis Potter
The sound transfer on this DVD is efficient enough in Dolby Digital mono but inherently loses out on some directional opportunities to enhance the gently profound sensation of inhospitability running through the movie.
It has a deadening effect at times, but the centricity of the sound mix here is full and crisp enough to be more than functional though less than ideal. What remains intact is a sense of off-screen sound, implying vaster spaces and interactions than seen initially on screen. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the transfer is that it crisply preserves the rather stylized and slightly mannered dialogue by veteran English television writer Dennis Potter. This stylized approach to dialogue carries with it a sense of the interpretive and expressive rather than the naturalistic, giving the film its sense of dramatic propulsion (and distance) as it examines the workings of a monstrous international and interpersonal sense of pride. What humor there is present is wry indeed, almost bitter. The score has been thought of by some critics as one of James Horner’s least characteristic or distinctive but still makes for some tense underlying moments and sudden outbursts. Indeed, the score resembles much of the electric work of Giorgio Moroder, then emerging from Scarface. Interludes of classical music function as a fine counterpoint and the final sable growls are well utilized.
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...THIS FILM IS NOT AS YET AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY...
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