Americans are most likely to have encountered the work of the Soviet Armenian
composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) through "The Ed Sullivan Show," where
Khachaturian’s jabbing "Saber Dance," from his 1942 ballet "Gayane," was almost
invariably used to accompany plate spinners, knife throwers and jugglers of
large objects.
Peter Rosen’s documentary "Khachaturian," which opens today in Manhattan,
means to demonstrate that there was far more to the composer’s life and work
than writing background music for fading vaudevillians. Narrated by Eric
Bogosian, "Khachaturian" is an account of a talented idealist who was at first
caught up in the excitement and potential of the Communist revolution but found
himself labeled a bourgeois formalist with the rise of Stalin and his oppressive
aesthetic of socialist realism. Along with his peers Dmitri Shostakovich and
Sergei Prokofiev, Khachaturian was officially denounced and his music banned.
Khachaturian, a rotund, jolly-looking fellow (Zero Mostel might have played
him in a Hollywood biography), eventually regained his standing in the late
1950’s, when his ballet "Spartacus" earned party approval. But his creativity,
Mr. Rosen suggests, was forever damaged by his Stalin-era ordeal.
"Khachaturian" is a very well-made if conventionally conceived documentary
that combines, in approved PBS fashion, contemporary material with archival
images. Luckily for Mr. Rosen, Khachaturian remained in favor long enough to
generate miles of newsreel material, from intimate visits to his home to
extensive coverage of his elaborate state funeral.
Mr. Rosen supplements these official images with more personal material
gathered through interviews with friends, scholars and relatives (a son and a
nephew, both named Karen and both composers themselves). The film’s only misstep
is to cast Mr. Bogosian’s narration in the first person, which leads to some
purplish passages ("We would dance deliriously, our laughter blending with the
music!") in an otherwise sober, intelligent film.
Directed by Peter Rosen
Not rated, 83 minutes
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