What especially catches my attention here is the keen eye that directors Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg illustrate for shot composition. In the use of lighting and shadow, particular perspectives and camera angles, and the otherwise arrangement of elements in a scene, this is an unexpectedly rich visual experience. There's surely no mistaking that the film-making techniques and technology of the Soviet Union in 1926 are a far cry from what modern moviegoers are accustomed to - somewhat modest even by the standards of other contemporary fare - but there's nonetheless a superb artistry to the fundamental craftsmanship of 'The overcoat' that I greatly appreciate. To my pleasure, this extends as well to the art direction, costume design, and even the editing.
Such skills are really the primary strength that this can claim, in fact, for when it comes to its function as a piece of narrative fiction I find myself less certain if this picture is up to the task it set for itself. At times the imagery and intertitles impart merely the faint wisps of a story, with far too little concrete communication and clarity to completely piece together the plot; the analogies come to mind of trying to discern the identity of a person when only their size and outline can be made out through thick fog, or of trying to collect mist in a drinking glass to sate thirst. Select specific notions herein are self-evident, yet without the benefit of outside context and knowledge I plainly admit there are wide swaths of the plot - in the very least, most of the entire first half - that I would simply be unable to explain.
Would that writer Yury Tynyanov, taking his cues from the works of Nikolai Gogol, had fashioned scene writing and intertitles that were more carefully descriptive of the course of events. In fairness, those issues that dog the first half, inspired by 'Nevsky Prospekt,' are not nearly so present in the second half, adapting that tale from which the movie's name is taken. I don't think it's unfair to say that the trouble perhaps stems from Tynyanov's reduction and simplification of the former so as to append it to the latter in the construction of a single unified narrative; on the other hand, to the screenwriter's credit, the ideas and themes of Gogol's short stories mostly remain intact. Intact - though imperfect and less than fully illuminated, as I've suggested. Still, though not without its shortcomings, Tynyanov's screenplay is more solid and admirable than not, and Kozintsev and Trauberg's shrewd orchestration compensates for the weakness such that the whole is, overall, quite splendid.
There can be little doubt that this feature is an example of older cinema that will not appeal to those who have difficulty engaging with the silent era. Even at that, the faults I see are ones less of style than they are of writing, and communicating the course of events. Yet it speaks very well to Kozintsev and Trauberg, to the cast and crew, and yes, even to Tynyanov - and not least to the staying power of Gogol's oeuvre - that the film still comes off as well as it does. I do like this; I just also see where it could have been improved. I would recommend 'The overcoat' above all to major fans of the nineteenth-century author, and to those who are already enamored of silent movies, but one way or another it's worth exploring if one has the opportunity to check it out.
