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Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman bring the Romanovs to life in Nicholas and Alexandra |
Nicholas II (Michael Jayston) is Tsar of all the Russias.
With the film starting with his (typically) disastrous decision to fight the
Japanese in 1905 (a war that literally sunk Russian naval dominance) we see a
parade of misguided, poor and short-sighted-but-well-meaning decisions by
Nicholas – encouraged by his strong-minded but politically naïve Tsarina
Alexandra (Janet Suzman) – eventually lead to the First World War and a
revolution that will overthrow him. On a personal level, the couple also deal
with the heartbreaking haemophilia of their son Alexei (Roderic Noble) and
Alexandra’s dependence on the destructive Rasputin (Tom Baker). As their lives go
from supreme power to imprisonment and eventual murder, the film also covers a
host of Russian politicians from statesmen to socialists, all of them wanting
to build Russia in their own image.
Franklin J Schaffner’s epic sometimes gets a bit overwhelmed
by its impressive reconstruction of Imperialist Russia – the set design and photography
is wonderful and the film marshals the inevitable cast of thousands with
skilful effect. What the film does very well is marry up the epic with the
personal. Because this is both a chronicle of the reasons for the outbreak of
the Russian revolution, but also a domestic tragedy of a royal family
horrendously ill-suited to the high position birth has called them to.
The film’s vast scope does mean it has to make a frequent
resort – particularly in its first half – of feted stage actors explaining
events at each other. Particularly rushed are scenes featuring the socialist
revolutionaries, where actors like Michael Bryant, Vivian Pickles and Brian Cox
have to contend with bullet point dialogue and lines of the “Trotsky, let me
introduce you to Stalin, he’s just back from Siberia” variety. Nicholas attends
frequent meetings where the likes of Laurence Olivier, Eric Porter, Harry
Andrews and Michael Redgrave carefully fill him in on what’s happened and the
likely (invariably historically correct) outcomes. At times it does make the
film a rushed pageant.
The film however makes it work by continually bringing itself back to the personal story of Nicholas and Alexandra themselves. The film is expertly carried by relative newcomers (at the time) Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman. Jayston – an astonishingly close physical match for Nicholas II – gives a perfectly judged characterisation of the Tsar. He’s a decent, well-meaning, dedicated and hard-working man who would make an excellent bank manager. As a supreme leader he’s a disaster – stubborn and so convinced that it is his holy duty to be father of the nation, while with a weary smile he short-sightedly vetoes any social or political progress what-so-ever. As one character tells him late in the film, he lacks any imagination: he can’t reinvent an absolute monarchy in the modern age, because it’s fundamentally beyond him to picture how anything can be done differently from hundreds of years of precedent.
Rational and calm he’s strangely almost more content out of
power, focusing on his family and tending his garden. Not that his flaws depart
– he remains an appalling short-sighted judge of character and situations to
the very end (nearly every statement he makes is wrong). Jayston tackles a
difficult role with ease and assurance – he carries most of the film and I
think it’s only that Nicholas remains such a reactive character that Jayston
doesn’t get more credit for his work here.
Much of the “nominations” attention went to Suzman, who has
the more electric (but in some ways simpler role) as Alexandra. She brings to
the marriage all the qualities Nicholas lacks – defiance, determination,
ambition – and those are just as destructive. Just like her husband she’s
stubborn and a terrible judge of people and situations, who clings loyally to
terrible influences (like Rasputin) and puts her family and personal concerns
above the preoccupations of the throne and the people. She’s prickly and harder
to like than Nicholas (who she clearly dominates with her stronger personality)
– but Suzman grounds her confrontationalism in a genuine love for her family.
The film’s second half, which largely focuses on the end of
the regime and the last few months of the families lives being shuttled from one
inhospitable safe house to another, makes a successful contrast with the
grander scope of the first half. With the focus now more intently on the family
themselves, particularly quietly contrasting their former supreme power with
their new helplessness, it helps to bring out the heart. Schaffner’s film is
very good at quietly building the dread as we head towards the inevitable end
(the final few moments of the film are almost unbearably tense). In the whole
family, only Prince Alexei seems able to comprehend that they are doomed. But
removed from supreme power, Nicholas and Alexandra relax into what they would
have been happier being: decent, kind, middle-class homebuilders.
Schaffner’s direction may not bring the burst of poetry that he managed with Patton – but he’s very good at building our empathy for these misguided and foolish autocrats. So much so, you’ll be screaming at Nicholas “Of course you should give the people a parliament!” while never actually hating him – because, stubborn and misguided as he is, he means well. However the film doesn’t let us forget what Nicholas is a figurehead of. Sequences demonstrating the sour, resentful poverty of most Russians are common – not just the 1905 march on the palace (that ends in a panicked officer ordering a massacre), but the grim faces of average Russians greeting the celebrations of the centenary of the Romanovs, while pissed aristocrats and Cossacks barrel about throwing empty of bottles of booze around. The tensions of Russia, and the inevitability of disaster, is never forgotten.
The all-star cast throws up several fine performances,
backing the quietly assured leads. Olivier brings moral force as Count Witte –
with an impassioned speech on the eve of the breakout of the first world war,
all but breaking the fourth wall as the rest of the court continue their work
around him. Hawkins demonstrates he has one of the most emotive faces in cinema
as retainer Vladimir, while Andrews is bluff and loyal as Grand Duke
“Nikolasha”. Irene Worth brings a sanctimonious pride to the Queen Mother’s
talking truth to power.
There’s also some great work from less recognisable names.
John McEnery (who should have become a bigger star) is fabulous as an impassioned
Kerensky who finds himself stuck in the same mistakes as the Tsar. John Wood is
very good as a Colonel feeling increasingly morally conflicted. Alan Webb is
chillingly affable as their final warden. Later to take on the mantle of Doctor
Who, Tom Baker gives Rasputin a mixture of restraint tinged with madness (as well as having the most prolonged death scene on film).
Nicholas and Alexandra is, in some ways, grandly
old-fashioned. But it’s got a surprisingly strong heart and sense of empathy in
it. It acknowledges the dreadful mistakes and stubborn lack of imagination of
the Romanovs – and the many that their misguided principles led to poverty and
death – but it also acknowledges both their well-meaning intentions as well as
presenting their tragic ends. At times it’s a run-down of events of the final
years of Tsarist Russia, but it also manages to tell an affecting family story
of flawed people. It’s what makes it work.
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