Tairov's Death

Tairov's Death (Смерть Таирова, 2004) is a Russian drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Boris Blank.

Alexander Tairov founded the Moscow Chamber Theater and shaped it into one of the most distinctive companies in the country — his productions of Princess Brambilla, Phaedra, and Optimistic Tragedy were known internationally. In 1949, the anti-cosmopolitan campaign reached him: the theater was taken away and renamed. The actors he had trained for decades stayed silent. The press delivered what was asked of it. A year later, Tairov died in a psychiatric hospital.

Blank builds the film around a stark collision: Tairov's exuberant, surrealist Princess Brambilla set against the all-Union pageant celebrating Stalin's seventieth birthday. One production belonged to another era; the other belonged to this one. Mikhail Kozakov plays Tairov, with Alla Demidova and Alexei Petrenko in supporting roles. At two and a half hours, the film is a deliberate portrait of an artist erased not by violence but by bureaucratic contempt. Stream Tairov's Death (2004) online on iFILM.