Triumph Over Violence

Triumph Over Violence (Russian: Obyknovennyy fashizm, Обыкновенный фашизм — ″Ordinary fascism″) is a 1965 Soviet film directed by Mikhail Romm. The film is also known as Echo of the Jackboot in the United Kingdom and Triumph Over Violence in the United States. It is mainly in the form of annotated excerpts of archival film in order to describe the rise and fall of fascism, and especially the example of Nazi Germany.

Triumph Over Violence
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMikhail Romm
Written byYuri Khanyutin
Mikhail Romm
Maya Turovskaya
StarringMikhail Romm
Music byAlemdar Karamanov
CinematographyGerman Lavrov
Edited byValentina Kulagina
Mikhail Romm
Release date
February 1968
Running time
138 minutes
133 minutes (Germany)
82 minutes (USA)
129 minutes (Japan)
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

Plot summary

This documentary film is about the German society, Nazi Germany government and Holocaust during World War II.

Art features

The documentary follows the style of Mikhail Romm wrought by the Soviet filmmaker Esfir Shub, a pioneer in the use and development of compilation film, which involves the creation of unpublished works (mainly documentary) from an assembly made by another pre-existing film material.

Esfir Shub, used for material for her pioneering documentary films, public newsreels aging to the days of Czar. The result of the compilation was The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (Падение династии Романовых, Padenie dinastii Romanovykh), a film obtained only from the recycling of pre-existing material, in which the filmmaker, shows the decline of the Czar and the message of the need for revolution. Following the footsteps of Shub, Mikhail Romm used material belonging to German archives, archives of post-war antifascist organizations, photo archives and military archives seized from the German military to make the documentary Triumph Over Violence.

Disciple of film by Eisenstein, Vertov and Pudovkin, Romm, in this film masterfully uses the means of expression editing, musical design, and journalistic language to describe the Nazi regime. It is through the counterpoint archival footage, voiceover and film music has such a strong emotional impact on the viewer.

A curiosity of the film is the fact that the narration was made by Romm himself. Initially, the filmmaker had sought a speaker for this job, but when his comrades heard working versions of the comments written by himself, he was advised to record his own voice-over. Finally, the comments by his peculiar vocabulary and intonation, became one of the main identifying features of the film.

Mikhail Romm utilizes "on the edge" techniques in his documentary. For example, using the reverse playback technique, Romm achieves repetitions of sequences like the kiss of a Nazi party official with industrialist Alfried Krupp, with which Romm aims to highlight the servility of the Nazi party towards the capital. Another example is the usage of Freeze-frame shots, especially with the faces of Nazi leaders with the most unattractive facial expressions. Using techniques of this type, Romm shows a high mastery of different film techniques to convey his convincing message about the totalitarian nature of the Nazi regime and its manipulation of consciences.

Influences

Vadim Abdrashitov in an interview mentions "Ordinary Fascism" as the film that prompted him to create a movie. He, in particular, notes that this film not only reveals the essence of the Nazi regime, but totalitarian regimes in general, demonstrates the principles of totalitarian propaganda, behavior of the crowd, proclaimed humanist ideas.

Cast
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