Despite its impressive accuracy in several aspects of space travel, the Soviet sci-fi film COSMIC VOYAGE (1936) was scarcely known to exist until recently. Fritz Lang’s German sci-fi film WOMAN IN THE MOON (1929) received much wider distribution and exhibition and is still a delight to watch, even if it is less technically accurate than COSMIC VOYAGE. Fortunately Seagull Films has included COSMIC VOYAGE in its current package of sci-fi and fantasy film prints, “From the Tsars to the Stars: a Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema.” I looked through several histories of Soviet cinema, but found no reference to COSMIC VOYAGE. Fortunately French cineaste Claude Merrant has created a meticulously researched and illustrated history of the creation of COSMIC VOYAGE.
In 1932 Komsomol, the Communist youth organization in Stalin’s Soviet Union, insisted that filmmakers create works that would appeal to young people. Various subjects, including science fiction, were proposed. Director Vasili Zhuravlev asked screenwriter Aleksandr Filimonov, with whom he had worked before on THE BOMBIST (1932), to write a script about mankind’s first trip to the moon. Conversations ensued with legendary filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, who had been relegated to an executive position at one of the Soviet film studios. The world famous Eisenstein was no longer allowed to make films after returning from America and Mexico. However, the proposed sci-fi film was approved and Zhuravlev and Filimonov set to work.
To insure scientific accuracy they visited with Constantin Tsiolkovski, a professor, scientist, and author. He became so excited by the possibility of seeing some of his scientific theories about space travel put into a film that he offered his services as a consultant. While understanding that the cinematic form and dramatic content would necessitate some bending of scientific probability, Tsiolkovski did insist that six elements must appear in the film:
1. The rocket would be launched from a ramp rather than vertically because of its huge size
2. Individual voyager’s cabins would fill with water during take off to ease the effects of extreme pressure on the human body
3. Stars in space would not flicker once earth’s atmosphere was left behind
4. Voyagers would experience weightlessness during the coasting phase of the flight
5. The voyagers would be able to jump about the moon surface “like sparrows” on earth
6. Return of the space cabin to earth would be accomplished by parachute once the earth’s atmosphere had been entered
Over a series of meetings, the film director and other crewmembers learned a great deal about probable realities involved in a trip to the moon. Even Tsiolkovski’s stainless steel dinnerware made them realize that Soviet scientists and technicians could now make the type of steel necessary for a rocket ship. They discussed the look and size of the central cabin in the rocket ship, the launching, flight, lunar landing, trajectories from earth to moon, and weightlessness. Tsiolkovski answered all their questions, as they took notes.
Tsiolkovski, 78 years old at the time (1857-1935), helped with calculations and provided 30 drawings to keep the design scientific. The old scientist seemed rejuvenated by the realization that his ideas and theories might achieve a visible form and appeal to a large number of people. His experience as a professor of math and geometry helped him make the ideas simpler and understandable. His earlier sci-fi novels also contributed to the final scenario. Long after the Russian’s death, Werner von Braun, one of several German scientist brought to US at the end of WW2 to direct the American space program, commended Tsiolkovski’s calculations and understanding of space travel. In Russia he was rightly called the “Father of Rockets.”
Even though the Communist youth organization had specifically asked for sci-fi films to be produced, by 1934 Stalin had decreed that all works of art must adhere to the highly restrictive style and content of socialist realism (realistic by form and socialist in content). However, any work which extolled Soviet scientific progress was allowed, provided the story line didn’t get too strange (probably would have prohibited any extraterrestrial creatures). This emphasis on socialist realism was a direct repudiation of the marvelous cinematic experiments of the 20s legends Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko, and others. The actual effect of socialist realism was that many of the subsequent movies were pure socialist fantasy involving tractors, singing peasants, and Uncle Joe as a smiling, waving benefactor. The socialist realism of COSMIC VOYAGE was certainly reflected in the ending with the flowers, parades, and smiling people, but that’s not so really different from ticker tape parades in New York for Lindbergh, a retiring Gen. Macarthur, winning baseball teams, and later astronauts. However, there would be aspects of COSMIC VOYAGE that displeased the censors.
In May 1934, another meeting was conducted with Vasili Zhuravlev, Youri Shvets (production designer), Alexander Galperin (cinematographer), and the scientific advisor Tsiolkovski, who checked their blueprints and new designs for the production. As they were leaving Tsiolkovski said that they were now ready to film a voyage into space. That same month the Komsomol youth newspaper printed an article about the film script and celebrated the collaboration between scientists and filmmakers.
At a final meeting in early 1935 Tsiolkovski validated the final designs and made some modifications in the script. Even though he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the script, Tsiolkovski realized that it mustn’t become overly technical if it was going to appeal to young people and become inspirational and educational. Unfortunately that fall Tsiolkovski died before the film was finished.
The film’s director, Vasili Zhuravlev, was just 30 years of age when he started work on COSMIC VOYAGE. He began his professional track as a student of acting, finishing in 1927, but then decided to become a director. Starting as an assistant director, he then directed two films of his own, a comedy and an historical drama, before tackling COSMIC VOYAGE. Unthreatening politically he was able to make films for twenty years before going to China in 1954 to teach directing to young filmmakers in the emerging Communist country. By 1956 he was back in Russia directing his own films.
Animator Fiodor Krasne worked brilliantly with models and small figures who seemed to move through stop-motion photography. Both the construction site of the giant rocket ships and the scenes on the surface of the moon are delightful to watch. However, Soviet censors thought that his presentation of the leaping cosmonauts was too frivolous and comic. His name was stricken from the credits, and although he was allowed to go on working in film, his name did not appear in credits for decades.
The set designer, Youri Schvek, created the futuristic version of Moscow. He was so successful that he bypassed Stalin’s purges of original minds and went on to create the look of other films of the fantastic in the 1950s.
Executive producer Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky, who had his name on all Soviet film productions from 1930 to 1937, was executed for unknown crimes in 1938.
Before filming could begin, giant models were built. The rocket ships were named CCCP 1 [USSR 1, Joseph Stalin] and CCCP 2 [USSR 2, Klim Voroshilov, at the time the minister of war of the Soviet Union], probably not names in the script, but selections that were deemed politically wise. The actual appearance of the rocket ships differed from the more oval form suggested by Tsiolkovski, but the filmmakers followed the idea of the 2-stage rocket, which would separate once a certain stage in the flight had been achieved. Even so, Tsiolkovski and the filmmakers envisioned powerful engines that would propel a much larger rocket with roomier living quarters than realized even today. Other elements were more in line with what has been discovered to be true: a large supply of oxygen, severe effects of acceleration at the beginning and deceleration with the arrival, weightlessness, a need for special clothing, and tight double doors.
Tsiolkovski had studied the effects of rapid acceleration and suggested that the passengers should be in diving suits surrounded by liquid in an enclosed cabinet during takeoff and landing. In this way the pressure would be distributed evenly over the body. In an earlier work of fiction (1920) Tsiolkovski had imagined the travelers in hammocks without liquid and with straps on the floor and ceiling to make navigation inside the ship easier during weightlessness. This idea was actually used in Fritz Lang’s WOMAN IN THE MOON (1929).
For the scenes of weightlessness inside the cabin in COSMIC VOYAGE, wire supports were used. Interestingly, one advisor insisted on eight wires per person. They tried to keep the wires (one source says “cords”) similar in color to the background, but they obviously show up from time to time. It was soon realized that eight wires would be even harder to camouflage, so they narrowed it down to 3 cables. The actors tried gamely to use the wires, but eventually circus acrobats doubled for them in some shots. In the moon scenes the actors did their own wire stunts, but in many scenes the “actors” are really stop-motion puppets animated.
With a futuristic setting of 1946, Moscow had to look somewhat different from the way it did in the mid-30s (even if the automobiles looked antique). Set designer Youri Schvek envisioned the proposed Palace of the Soviets as actually existing by 1946. In 1934 Stalin had already approved the designs for such a monumental building to celebrate the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The building was to be 315 meters high with another 100-meter-tall statue of Lenin on top. To prepare for the construction of this building, the Cathedral of Christ Savior was demolished in late 1931, but the palace was never built. In a fitting irony, the cathedral was rebuilt in 1995. Taking those submitted designs, Schvek and his crew produced a scale model of the Palace of the Soviets. They then tackled construction of the Institute of Space Flight, where the rocket ships are actually imagined, researched, and constructed. To add realism to the appearance of the two giant buildings Shvets and crew put tiny mirrors in each window.
The hangar and the buildings were constructed at 1/25th life size. Thus, the rocket, which was supposed to be 100 meters long, was created as a 4-meter model.
By 9 December 1935 the final cut of the film was finished. COSMIC VOYAGE premiered on 21 January 1936. It was very popular throughout the Soviet Union even though it was silent, while most other Soviet films of the time already had sound. One reason for making it a silent film was to allow it to be seen even in the smallest villages, which didn’t yet have sound projectors. However, despite its popularity, the film was removed from circulation after a short time. The censors, besides being disappointed in the “frivolous moon-hopping,” evidently felt that the characters were too interested in achieving scientific knowledge rather than furthering the socialist cause. Other sci-fi film projects were abandoned for the time being. It wasn’t until 1984 that COSMIC VOYAGE was rediscovered by TV audiences in Russia. In the following year director Vasili Shuravlev, aged 80, exhibited a perfect print of the film. Just two years away from death, he must have felt somewhat vindicated by the applause for his prescient work.
-- Chale Nafus, Director of Programming, Austin Film Society
Sources
• Claude Mettavant, comprehensive website on COSMIC VOYAGE [in French, English translation “helped” by Yahoo Babel Fish]
• Jean-Luc Algisi, COSMIC VOYAGE, Kinoglaz
• IMDB.com, various
• Seagull Films
• Jay Leyda, Kino: a History of the Russian and Soviet Film (1960)
• Edvard Radzinsky, Stalin (1996)
