Žizn’ za žizn’ was conceived as an ‘artistic’ film able to compete with foreign box office hits and as an answer to Ermol’ev’s Pikovaja Dama. Of the scripts offered to him, Evgenij Bauer, the leading director at Chanžonkov’s company, chose an adaptation of Georges Ohnet’s novel. Musja and Nata, daughter and stepdaughter of the loving millionaire Mrs. Chromova, both fall in love with an irresponsible prince and seducer. Musja marries the prince and is forced to witness his betrayals and extravagances. It will be her mother who avenges her tears.
All the resources of the Chanžonkov studios were poured into the film: the cast was made up of the best actors around and Boris Zavelev was one of the leading directors of photography of pre-revolutionary cinema. The time available was catastrophically limited for such a grand production: the producer wanted it to be released before the end of the film season. As Bauer’s colleagues recall, however, the director loved working with tight schedules and under creative tension. Filming even ended before the deadline. The movie was met with a stream of positive reviews. Such commercial hits usually showed rich and varied tinting and toning, but in the surviving fragments none of that is evident. For Bauer the visual component was more important than the work of the actors and dramatic construction, and the absence of tinting and toning in the existing print is significant.
Contemporaries appreciated lead Vitol’d Polonskij’s elegance, Ivan Perestiani’s efficacy, Ol’ga Rachmanova’s intensity, Moscow Art Theatre actress Lidija Koreneva’s performance, and the perfect harmony between the ‘queen of the big screen’, Vera Cholodnaja, and the film set. Cholodnaja’s slow, lethargic movements with her almost frozen gestures, transforming her into a luxurious piece of furniture or into an icy stone sculpture, fit perfectly with Bauer’s artistic intent. Bauer was especially interested in the spatial complexity of shots enhanced by a photography that truly embodies the etymological meaning of ‘writing in light’. Light fills the frames, it lurks everywhere and draws the gaze of the camera, which was mostly static until suddenly forced to move forward and back in the scene of the double wedding.

Alisa Nasrtdinova