Bed and Sofa

This article is about the 1927 film. For the item of furniture, see sofa bed.

Bed and Sofa
Movie Poster for Tretya meshchanskaya
Directed byAbram Room[1]
Written byViktor Shklovsky
Abram Room[1]
Produced bySovkino Studio[1]
StarringNikolai Batalov
Lyudmila Semyonova
Vladimir Fogel[1]
CinematographyGrigorii Giber[1]
Release date
  • 15 March 1927 (1927-03-15)[2]
Running time
75 minutes[1]
CountryUSSR
LanguageSilent

Bed and Sofa (Russian: Третья Мещанская) is the English name of a 1927 Soviet silent film originally released in the Soviet Union as Tretya meshchanskaya, and is sometimes referred to as The Third Meschanskaya. In addition to the title, Bed and Sofa it was also released outside of the Soviet Union under the alternate titles of Three in a Cellar, Old Dovecots, and Cellars of Moscow.[3][1] The film gets its Russian title from the street on which the main characters live, Third Meshchanskaia Street.[1]

Directed by Abram Room and written by Room and Viktor Shklovsky,[4] the film starred Nikolai Batalov as the husband, Kolia, Lyudmila Semyonova as the wife, Liuda, and Vladimir Fogel as the friend, Volodia. Billed as a satire and comedy, Bed and Sofa nonetheless portrayed the realities of the Moscow working poor, while also dealing with starkly sexual situations, such as polygamy and abortion.[5][6][7] It was originally banned in both the United States and Europe due to those stark sexual situations.[1]

The screenplay was supposedly based on the true love story of the acclaimed Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky who lived with his "muse" Lilya Brik and her husband Osip Brik for some years. The characters themselves also resembled the trio, with Vladimir Fogel as Mayakovsky, Lyudmila Semyonova as Lilya and Nikolai Batalov as Osip Brik. The parallels were so obvious that some critics and associates accused Viktor Shklovsky of indelicacy and gossiping. Shklovsky himself never openly admitted it, yet in his diaries he mentions that during the work on the screenplay they «were living next to Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik», which is an obvious hint.[8]

While movies made in the USSR would soon be regulated to the ideals of Soviet realism, some films at this time were able to present starker themes. Even so, Bed and Sofa was controversial at the time of release in the Soviet Union, due to its focus on human relationships, while the state and the party are almost completely disregarded. In fact, at one point Kolya even declines to go to a Party meeting. In addition, the film's resolution is ambiguous and comes about without any input from the collective.[9]

However, it is now considered a landmark film because of humor, naturalism, and its sympathetic portrayal of the woman.[9]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Tretia Meshchanskaia". filmreference.com. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  2. ^ DeBartolo, John (2004). ""Bed and Sofa" (1927)". Silents Are Golden. Archived from the original on 3 April 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  3. ^ Peter Rollberg (2009). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. US: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 691. ISBN 978-0-8108-6072-8.
  4. ^ "Tretya meshchanskaya". Theiapolis Cinema. Archived from the original on 28 January 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  5. ^ "Recent Films – Bed and Sofa". Close Up. Pool Group. December 1927. pp. 69–74.
  6. ^ Kleinhans, Chuck (December 1981). "Shampoo, page 2". Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, no. 26, pp12-18. Retrieved 9 July 2009.
  7. ^ Jay Leyda (1960). Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. George Allen & Unwin. pp. 215–216.
  8. ^ Nea Zorkaya. Marriage for Three — Soviet Version article in the Iskusstvo Kino magazine, 5 May 1997 (in Russian)
  9. ^ a b "Abram Room – Tretya Meshchanskaya AKA Bed And Sofa (1927)". World Cinema. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2014.