Stalin's snuffed it

By: Tanishka D

Comedy is a genre where the  creativity of language usage flourishes. One movie that made me laugh out loud was 'the death of stalin'. The movie is funny as it uses over the top humour and eggageration to drive home the absurdisty surrounding the circumstances around stalin's death. While the film is set in Russia and characters are modelled after their real life counterparts, the movie  is not very true to history with the accents used. This article will examine the usage of non Russian accents in the film and how it is significant in charater development. allons-y! 

Context for the comrades 

The death of stalin is a 2017 comedy film directed by Armando Ianucci and is based on a french graphic novel of the same name. The movie shoes how members of stalin's cabinet try to consolidate power in the USSR after his death. It was conterversial in Russia but beloved by critics and  international audiences alike.  The film has been criticised by historians for the creative liberties they took with the historical accounts surrounding the events and made people like me raise a few eyebrows as to why the accents spoken are not Russian! here is why :)

ACCENT BREAKDOWN

1) Stalin 

Stalin, played by Adrian Mcloughlin speaks in a cockney accent. The cockney dialect of english is associated with lower and working class individuals, which parallels IRL Stalin's upbringing in a poverty stricken family in Georgia ( the country not the american state). This particular accent was chosen to portray the differences between the dictator and the comrades in his cabinet who came from more well off backgrounds within Russia. Furthermore, the accent further cements Stalin as an outsider despite his influence over the USSR.

2) Nikita Kurushchev

  How do you do, fellow comrades? Kurushchev is portrayed by Steve Buscemi, who is American. He speaks with his usual brooklyn accent in the film and it feels very out of place. Kurushchev has some ideas that oppose his fellow comrades in the film which makes the accent all the more fitting. It also helps accentuate the quips made by the character, adding to the film's unique comedic flavour.

 3) Field Marshal Zhukov

Perhaps the most iconic character from the film is Zhukov, who is played by Jason Issacs. He chose to portray Zhukov with a yorkshire accent as he noted that the bluntest people he met in his life were all from yorkshire. The accent conveys that the charater is very direct and has no time to mess around, just like this section of the article.

4) Georgy Malenkov

Now the story of a union which was on the verge of falling apart, and the one man who had no choice but to try and hold it together. It's Malenkov played by Jeffery Tambor. Malenkov speaks in a california accent, which signifies his naivety as leader of the USSR after the death of stalin. The california accent is associated with laid back and chill people but also with materialistic, shallow and self critical people such as influencers and individiuals who subscribe to the valley girl aesthetic. Overall, it signifies to the audience that malenkov is not very competent in making desicions and is being manipulated by figures such as Nikita Kurushchev.

These were some examples of the different accents used in the film. However, it can be said that the perspective of Russian people who had to suffer the consequences of Stalin's regime were excluded when making the film, hence making it representative of the hegemony that places such as the United kingdom or the United states have in the film industry. Moreover, it takes away the opportunites from Russian filmmakers to faithfully depict their history in a way that is faithful to way things played out in real life .

Thank you for sticking around till the end! Hope toy enjoyed and learnt something new. If you enjoyed this article, do leave a suggestion in the suggestion box to suggest more interesting peices of media I can cover on this website.  Bye :)

References and further reading:

1) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/20/jason-isaacs-on-the-death-of-stalin-cameron-told-me-it-was-exactly-like-what-was-going-on-in-downing-street 

2) https://screenrant.com/death-stalin-movie-characters-different-accents-not-russian-reason/ 

3)https://celluloidblogsite.wordpress.com/2020/10/22/the-death-of-stalin-the-accent-challenge/ 

4)https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TheDeathOfStalin 

5: https://catherinebrown.org/the-death-of-stalin/ 

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