It was Shklovsky who gave Khokhlova the idea of a programme composed of newsreels about Gorky’s return to Moscow and three adaptations of his short stories. Only one of them was made, Delo s zastezhkami, a religious satire published in 1896 with four characters: three hoboes and an old bigot. The writer approved of Khokhlova’s script. It was a difficult shoot, mainly using exteriors, and “marked by the search for the autumn sun” (Khokhlova, 50 let v kino). She applied Kuleshov’s preparatory methods. “When I delivered the film, one of the executives asked me where I found real tramps for the film”, said Khokhlova. “I had to admit that one of the tramps was Kuleshov’s very active actor and production designer Galadzhev and the other two were students at the GTK” (the Moscow Film School that later became VGIK). She put them opposite an experienced stage actress who played the role of the bigot. According to Ana Olenina (Aleksandra Khokhlova, Women Film Pioneers Project, Columbia University, New York 2014): “Kuleshov’s lessons in analytical editing and the rhetorical power of montage is there in a scene that creates an ironic perspective on the matron: multiple shots of her zealously kissing relics in church, are intercut with images of tired workers waiting outside. A sarcastic title card comments ‘The lady is accumulating sanctitude.’ In another scene, Khokhlova’s montage juxtaposes an angry conversation between the matron and her workers with shots of a boiling pot of jam, the steaming liquid becoming a metaphor for escalating tension, as a boiling kettle works in Po zakonu (By the Law)”.

Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz