Background
Sergey was born on 28 December 1904, in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire (now Russia).
Sergey was born on 28 December 1904, in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire (now Russia).
He began work as a teen doing puppet shows. Between 1921 and 1923 he studied under Vsevolod Meyerhold. Later he helped found the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS), which was primarily concerned with circus and music hall acts.
Not many came through the vicissitudes of Soviet cinema as unscathed as Sergei Yutkevieh; or retained such enthusiastic memories of “astonishing and wonderful days ... a period of tumultuous expansion for Soviet art” when theatre and cinema rushed forward uncertain of whether they were on the edge of chaos or revelation. In childhood, Yutkevieh worked in puppet theatre, and went on to study painting and stage design. As a young man he was a founding member of the Factory of Eccentric Actors with Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. Its aims were to inspire actors with the spirit of circus and music hall; naturally enough, it enjoyed American slapstick comedy and Yutkevieh wrote a book on the virtues of Max Linder. In addition, he had enormous enthusiasm for the Pearl White serials and for the work of Louis Feuillade. He worked in the theatre, with Eisenstein and Meyerhold, and began to work in movies in the mid-1920s: “I experienced the feel¬ings of a simple mortal who has liberated magic powers which are beyond his control, on the memorable, icy morning of the winter of 1924, when I found myself for the first time alone with a camera." That thrill is more winning than much of the work that Yutkevich did. Bolshevik art is so vibrant with liberation that it is often out of control. Time has led to a grim reassessment, just as the Revolution betrayed Victor Serges lyrical account ol its Year One.
It is difficult in retrospect to believe in the spirit ol slapstick adding to Meyerhold’s mechanical analysis ol acting, and hard to see any personal development in Yutkevieh’s films beyond a cheerful leeling for people, warmer, more playful, and more naturalistic than the work of Eisenstein and Pudovkin. In fact, Yutkevich was part of the group that tended to rebel against Eisenstein in the earlv 1930s. Above all, Yutkevich wanted to reach the ordinarv man. notably in Vstreclmyi, and the construction of a gas turbine. The documentary element. persistently adhered to by Yutkevich, does not prevent a deliberate sentimentalization of the workers or blatant underlining of an old message.
II Eisenstein felt that Yutkevich had surrendered once shared ideals, at least Yutkevich survived and continued to work: it is impossible to discuss the artistic achievement in isolation from the harsh political realities. Equally, it is barely possible to judge Yutkevichs talent or personality because of the contortions imposed on both by the state. In the 1930s, he directed a training program; even so, his own Shakhtory was reedited on official orders. During the war, he made both patriotic martial documentaries and a version of the Soldier Schweik story. After Stalins death, he emerged as a director of sympathetic but archaic bio-pics of Russian heroes, supposedly freed from the personality cult but irretrievably marked by prudence. More questionably, he had the distinction of having directed the first feature film made in Albania, The Great Warrior Skanderbeg.
Member, Communist Party, since 1939.
Member, Communist Party, since 1939.