#163: The Master and Margaret
A bleak tale of self-expression, faith, and the day the Devil came to Moscow
This review was originally posted to Twitter on August 21, 2019.
Initial release: 1972
Director: Aleksandar Petrović
Whatever else you may think of the Soviet Union, its suppression of artists is well documented. Nobody knew this like Mikhail Bulgakov, a Soviet writer, doctor and playwright who wrote a book about that censorship —only for it to get censored. Ah, but the joke’s on Stalin: The Master and Margarita outlived him to become a regular in the film adaptation circuit.
Bulgakov knew that there was no way in hell his book was ever going to be published in his lifetime, and if the NKVD knew about it, he’d disappear. It languished in obscurity for nearly 30 years after Bulgakov’s death, until finally seeing daylight in an unlikely print run, albeit one that was cut up. The book is split between two settings: the first is Stalin-era Moscow where Satan (in the guise of a stage magician) and his friends wreak havoc in the literary world; the other is the court of Pontius Pilate as Jesus is put on trial. Eventually the two settings are connected as it’s revealed that the biblical stuff is all part of the book that the Master is writing. It’s a book that seems to defy any real pigeonholing in a specific genre, and for a while after its initial release, it was deemed to be unfilmable. Of course, now there’s a bunch of adaptations of it, on film, on TV and on stage, among other mediums, but it’s the 1972 one (the title changed in English to The Master and Margaret) we’re going to talk about.
There’s a few reasons why I picked this version. One is that despite being a very loose adaptation, it’s the oldest existing adaptation that covers the Stalin-era setting, albeit almost exclusively, by cleverly moving the Bible stuff to a stage play that serves as the source of the central conflict. Many adaptations actually skip the Moscow side of the story to focus on the Biblical portion, which I think kind of misses the point of the book.
The other reason is that I am a fan of the weird shit that was cinema in the 1970s, especially foreign cinema like the kind that Italy (or in this case Yugoslavia collaborating with Italy) cranked out on the regular. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in — and I was still surprised. People who are fans of the book are often not fans of the movie; while I can see how the film is a departure, I’d go so far to say that it’s a fine work on its own. Some things were obviously changed around, but in my view, it’s still true to the book’s spirit.
Anyway, on to the film: it’s 1925 in Moscow and Nikolaj Maksudov, a playwright known around town as “the Master,” is having trouble with the literary bureaucracy, especially its leader Berlioz, over his latest play, Pontius Pilate. It seems his rather revolutionary characterization of Jesus offends Soviet sensibilities; well, when you have him saying shit like “all power is violence” I can see how that wouldn’t fly in Stalin’s Soviet Union — let alone telling a Bible story in the officially (and aggressively) atheistic regime.
While he’s dealing with this, he also falls in love with Margaret, a young blonde woman who’s been hanging around wherever Maksudov goes. It turns out she’s been following him for some time, trying to catch his attention. In the end, she becomes the only person he can trust.
Meanwhile, the Devil has arrived in Moscow in the guise of Professor Woland, and he seems very interested in making sure this play gets performed. To that end he frequently fucks with the literary bureaucracy, sowing confusion and removing those he deems as obstacles. One day, as the political noose begins to tighten around Maksudov, Woland interrupts an argument between Maksudov and Berlioz to start another argument with Berlioz over belief and myth, and eventually predicts Berlioz’s death in a very specific manner — which soon happens.
Maksudov becomes convinced that the Devil is real and in Moscow; this and his growing disillusionment with, and contempt for, the literary scene (which is populated by pompous, well-connected elites) drives him to distraction, eventually leading him to burn his manuscript. (This mirrors fairly closely Bulgakov burning the original version of his manuscript for the book — in a very real way, the novel was autobiographical, and expressed a lot of his feelings about Soviet politics and how aggressively it pushed state atheism.)
Tankies, everyone’s favorite self-assured political LARPers using leftist trappings as cover for their own imperialistic worldview, would hate this movie. It’s deeply cynical about the Soviet Union; Maksudov also espouses some pretty anarchist sentiments, both directly and through Jesus in his play; at one point he accuses his comrades of betraying the revolution in favor of dogma. It’s also quite depressing; Ennio Morricone’s melancholy score is a blast of winter air on director Aleksandar Petrović’s expertly emulated post-revolution Moscow, portrayed through a few well-placed exterior shots and smart interior set design.
It’s not a perfect film; the finale can seem rather abrupt, even confusing. Margaret herself isn’t terribly fleshed out. It’s not for tankies or fans of the book. But as an atmospheric, dreamy 1970s exploration of freedom in an unfree world, I’ve seen little better.
