From a collection of the Russian State Film Foundation
We are fed up with heavenly sweets
give us a huge loaf of rye bread to eat!
We are fed up with paper passions
let us live with a living wife!
We exist!
Today, above the dust of theaters
our motto will shine:
"From a clean slate!" Lo and behold!
A curtain
Mystery
Bouffe
Prepared by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Played by actors,
musicians
and colored by painters
Hear ye, Hear ye
Come in, people
Listen people
Now before your very eyes -
the noblest nobles -
athletes will strut by in well-matched pairs:
they're here to eliminate each other
Parade Allez!
Look, young and old,
nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles!
All eyes open wide! See!
Look, first row
Look, second and third
Look, fourth and fifth too
a more disgusting mug you'll never see
Spotting a bourgeois
is easy
We know their kind!
Fat and short in height
and with a cigar in his mouth
Even the youngest specimen
puts in a gold tooth
And that is a speculator, our countryman
175 pounds of fine flour he lifts with one hand
He bears high the fine flour,
while bearing down on us with it
Manufacture Colonialism Market
It's easy to spot a merchant
Consult any propaganda material
Here's a merchant - horribly fat
wearing pleated boots
Neither proletarian, nor non-proletarian
neither capitalist, nor non-capitalist
Inch by inch,
he creeps before everyone like a worm
Aristocrat Aristocrat
And here's an aristocrat
Clean shaven, funny haircut
A disgusting sight
While over bold patches
rises a top hat that matches
This is a priest
for his prayers
he gobbled down almost the whole grain harvest
Introductions are finished
All these gentlemen have arrived
to get at each other's throats
for the sake of profit
And you - what are your nationalities?
We're a roving band,
used to wandering through the world
we have no nationality:
labor is our native land
We're a roving band,
used to wandering through the world
we have no nationality:
labor is our native land
We're a roving band,
used to wandering through the world
we have no nationality:
labor
is
Our native land
The gist of Act One is as follows:
the world is leaking
The War
Is Declared
Evening Paper!
Evening Paper, Evening Paper!
Evening Paper, Evening Paper, Evening Paper!
And
on
The square
blackened
gloomily
by poor
a crimson
stream
of blood
has flooded!
The North Pole is flooded,
the last refuge is gone
So they all begin building,
not just an Ark
but a great big super-duper one
The public takes a trip on the ark:
here you'll find both autocracy
and a democratic republic
A man and a woman
Woe is me
I remember how the whole family
used to gather round the table for tea
the muffins
the caviar
Gentlemen!
Since we are all so immaculate,
is it fitting that we should work and sweat?
Let's make The Unclean work for us
I'm all for that!
But what can I do? I'm delicate
And each of them has the strength of two
Oh, there'll be no fight - God forbid!
We'll have no mayhem
But while they're gobbling up their meal
while they're drinking and hollering
we'll cook up a deal to betray them
We'll give them a king!
A king
Why a king?
Because the king will hand down
A DECREE
The Czar, frightened, issued a manifesto:
Freedom for the dead, prison for the living
That's the Constitution - sugar and honey
Freedom for the dead, machine-gunning for the living
Smile, mouth, rejoice, people!
Freedom for the dead -
the opposite... for the living
The Czar, frightened, issued a manifesto:
Freedom for the dead, prison for the living
That's the Constitution - sugar and honey
Freedom for the dead, machine-gunning for the living
Smile, mouth, rejoice, people!
Freedom for the dead -
the opposite... for the living. Hey!
AUTOCRACY
By the grace of God,
we, King of all chickens The Unclean fried
and Grand Duke of all eggs said chickens have laid
without ever having flayed any men seven times
we take only six hides, and leave the seventh
hereby decree to our subjects:
bring in everything -
dried bread crumbs, fish, porpoises
and all else that suits our purposes for eating
The Senate, without delaying a minute,
will inspect the heap of foodstuffs you bring,
and select the best to regale us and your King
And then we'll divide the booty,
for such is our Christian duty
We hear and obey, Your Majesty
What's this?
Did a Mongol horde wreak a havoc here?
How could one lone man munch all that much?
I'd like to give him one good punch in that bulging mug!
Silence! I'm anointed by the Lord on High!
Do you hear
the Guards' spurs jingle:
the King has sent
the crack unit
To the rear, march, Forward, march,
Half-right, face
Whoever kills freedom-loving people
will have honor and fame
Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
Fight for the glory of the Czars two-headed eagle
Hey! One! Two!
Prepare to load! Load!
All of Moscow will remember the Red Epaulets!
Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
Fight for the glory of the Russian two-headed eagle
Company, halt!
Ready, aim, fire!
Sing, throats!
We will earn, tra-la-la-la, sausages and vodka
Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
Fight for the glory of the Russian two-headed eagle! Hey!
A curse on him! He looks so sleek!
It's cold
and damp is the night
Gentlemen, you know what?
I believe I've turned democrat
Well, you don't say! As for me I've always loved the People passionately
And who was it proposed we pledge faith to His Majesty?
No more poisonous barbs, gentlemen!
Autocracy, as a form of government, is undoubtedly obsolete
It certainly is, if there's nothing to eat!
Seriously, gentlemen! Seriously!
Revolution is hatching
Let's bury the hatchet
and keep things friendly
Hurray!
Hurray for the Constituent Assembly!
Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
Citizens!
Please come to the meeting
Citizen,
are you for a republic?
A meeting?
A republic?
What's that?
Wait right there. The intellectual will explain some things
Citizens!
That great big King has a mouth that's incredible!
True!
True, Citizen Orator!
He'll gobble up every existing thing that's edible
True!
We've had enough of that! Break your rusty chains!
Down with him!
Down with autocracy!
A one-off
world show!
Autocracy
Democratic Republic
/fast forwarded, unintelligible/
Comrades, you just can't imagine how delighted I am!
No more of those age-old barriers now!
Congratulations!
Ancient social foundations have collapsed
The rest will arrange itself easily
the rest is a snap
Now we're for you, and you're for us
Well, citizens, that's enough. You've romped to your heart's content
Now let's set up our democratic government
Citizens, in order to make this easy and quick,
we will be ministers and deputy ministers
and you, citizens of a democratic republic,
will bake rolls, make boots, and hunt walrus
Long live our democratic republic!
Comrades, what's this?
Before, one mouth chowed; now a regiment claws
The republic turned out to be the same thing as a king,
but one with a hundred jaws
Why so excited?
We promised to share things equally, and we've done it
one man gets the ring of doughnut,
the other man gets the core
That's what a democratic republic is for
Somebody has to take the seeds,
not everyone can have the melon
We will
show you
a class struggle!
Hold, citizens! Our policy...
Come on! We'll roast 'em on four sides
We'll show 'em a policy to remember!
Stand fast, damn you!
You'll never forget this day in November!
Rise! Rise! Rise!
Workers and peasants
Hold fast, a mower and a smiter,
a gun in your iron fists!
Flag - upwards!
Ragged rise!
Foe - down!
Day is foul
For bread! For peace! For freedom!
Take the plants away from the owners
Take the lands away from the rich
Fraternize with your brothers in arms
Enough! Enough! Enough
being humble and meek
Tremble, lackeys of the capital
Quiver, crowns on the foreheads
Away with the old
Boldly unfold
Fight the rich!
Bang! Bang!
Knife the rich guy on the spot
Mister owner, gather your belongings, quick!
The time has come
step out, in boots or without
Sharpen the axes
Raise the scythes
What Pugachev and Razin started burn and blast with force
All the manors of the rich we will set ablaze
Set ablaze!
Raise the blades!
Oh, keep burning with all force, dear fire
Famine
The Republic ate up the last food supplies
Comrades!
Kick the weaklings over the side!
But come, people, why don't you raise up a cheer?
Let's cheer!
Cheer?
Have you thought about bread?
Cheer?
And where could we plant grain, anyway?
Cheer?
With no furrowed fields - only trough in the waves?
We've got nothing to fish with - our nets are torn
How can a man get across that water?
If we just had some dry land near!
There's a leak in the ark!
De-vas-tation
Listen!
What's that?
Do you hear the music?
Who am I?
I'm of no class,
no nation,
no clan
I've seen the 30th,
the 40th Century
I'm simply a person of the future
Are you waiting for Ararats? There aren't any Ararats - none!
They're just something you saw in a dream
And if the mountain doesn't come to Muhammad
then to hell with it!
Far be it from me to preach of a Christian Heaven
where fasting fools lap up unsweetened tea
The Heaven I'm shouting about is a genuine, earthly one
There, labor is sweet, and won't callus your hands
work will bloom in your palms like a rose
There, sun will perform such miracles
that at every step you will sink down in flower beds big as the sea
We'll all go!
What's there to lose?
But will sinners like us be let in?
Come all who are not pack of mules,
and all for whom life is cruel and unbearable!
My kingdom - earthly, not heavenly - is for you
The gaping maw of the gulf bodes ill
Only one path remains:
through the clouds! Forward!
Through the sky - forward!
We are ourselves now a loud-thudding prophecy
Let's go and try to get us out of despondency
Let's go
let's catch our last chance
There victors can rest up after the fray
Though our feet may be tired, we'll make shoes from the sky
For our bleeding feet, we'll make shoes from the sky!
Heaven's gates are flung wide!
Up ladders of sunbeams and stairs of rainbows!
Up ladders
of sunbeams
and swings
of rainbows
Enough prophets!
We're all Nazarenes!
Climb up the masts!
Grab hold of the yards!
To the masts!
To the shrouds!
In the Third Act we show and tell
how the workers have nothing to be afraid of -
not even the devils in Hell
Hell
What's that looming there?
A mast
Why a mast?
What mast?
Quiet, you devil!
Cut the crap!
Run and notify Beelzebub and his staff
Is this hell?
Hell
Comrades, don't stop! We'll go straight ahead!
Come off it!
"Come of it!" did you say?
I did. You should be ashamed
An old devil like you, with gray hairs on your head
As if you could scare us that way!
Have you ever visited a foundry, by any chance?
A foundry? I've not had the pleasure
Just as I though!
If you had, you'd have shed your fur
In this place you live like some fancy-pants
So sleek!
Yet acting tough!
And you think we're scared?
So you've kindled your petty fires!
So you've hung your pots up!
Fine devils you are!
Why, you're no more than pups!
Laugh till it brings tears to your eyes! We show the bowers of Paradise
Well,
aren't they in view yet?
The edge of that cloud has begun to swell suspiciously
Here they come! Here they come!
Can it really be they?
They're in Paradise,
yet they have the look of chimney sweeps covered with soot
We'll scrub it away
Ugh. Not all saints, one would gather, are of the same feather
Drop in quick - make yourself slick!
Barbershop
I strolled hither,
I strolled thither
building bridge into socialism
I'm not finished, I got tired
and I paused to sit in quiet
One time and one more time and many many other times
Grass is growing,
Sheep are passing
We desire - it's so simple -
just repose near this river
One time and one more time and many many other times
That's enough!
Down on earth, people
humbly resign themselves to death, hoping to see you
If they only knew
what lies ahead
Down there, paradises like yours are a dime a dozen!
We never thought it would be like this!
What's to talk about? Let's wreck the joint!
This is one institution where we don't belong
The Promised Land!
Seek it somewhere beyond Paradise!
With our seven-league strides we'll plow up Paradise!
Let's go and plow up the whole universe!
We break, we break and we break
the clouds
Isn't it time we got past them?
How long till our weary bodies
are bathed in the freshness of May?
Where to? Won't we land in another Hell?
We've been duped - and duped well
And what comes next?
The farther we go, the worse it gets
Chimney sweep, go out ahead and scout!
This way, comrades! This way!
Disembark for the landing!
The factories are all festooned with banners,
mile upon mile
Wherever the hundred-legged worm of my gaze turns,
I see, decked in flowers the joiner's bench and the lathe standing idle
Standing?
Idle?
And here we are, getting in trim via verbal athletics!
We may have rain that will rust the machines!
Break in!
Shout! Hey!
Who's there?
It's dear mother earth! Our own native soil!
I'd like a saw. I'm young
Take it
And I'd like a needle
My hands itch to work. Give me a hammer!
Take it, caress it!
In the last Act comes the Commune
Everyone
must sing out at the top of their voice!
Look as hard as you can!
Why did we bellow like oxen under the yoke?
We waited and waited
and waited for years
and never once did we notice
all the blessings right under our noses!
Why do folks go to museums, anyway?
All around us, treasures are heaped high
Is that the sky or a piece of bright-colored cloth?
If this is the work of our own hands,
what door will not open before us?
We are the architects of earths,
the decorators of planets
We're miracle-makers
We'll tie rays of light into bundles and use them as brooms
to sweep the clouds from the sky with electricity
We'll make the rivers of many worlds splash honey
We'll pave the street on this earth with stars
Dig!
Gouge!
Saw!
Bore!
All shout "Hurray"
Sun-worshipers in the temple of this world,
let's show them by example how we can sing
Form into choruses
for a psalm to the Sun!
Mayakovsky
Mystery Bouffe
Script R. Vikkerg
Director David Cherkasskiy
Art Directors: V. Budz R. Sakhaltuyev
Music G. Firtich
Cinematography: F. Gilevich S. Nikiforov
Editor T. Pavlenko
Consultant A. Fevralskiy
Sound I. Pogon
Animators: N. Marchenkova, Ye.Sivokon, Ya. Volskaya, A. Lavrov, D. Cherkasskiy
Cast: A. Chernova, V. Pasenkov, V. Fedotov, V. Krasnoshchekov, Yu. Medvedev, V. Belyaev
Voices of actors of the Moscow Taganka Theatre
Assistants of Director T. Shvets, V. Taranova
Assistants of Art Directors: E. Shchepkina, O. Radkovskiy, A. Kalyniuk
Producers: I. Mazepa S. Epshtein
Creative Association of Animation Kyivnauchfilm 1969
The End