The Cinema of Sergei Parajanov by James Steffen

Author:James Steffen [James Steffen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Outtakes

Fortunately, most or all of the outtakes for The Color of Pomegranates appear to survive. In October 2006, over four hours of footage, including both screen tests and outtakes, were broadcast on the film program Fuori Orario on RAI 3 in Italy. Unfortunately, the shots were also arranged in more or less random order, but the broadcast enabled the public to see this rare and undeniably fascinating footage for the first time. The documentary filmmaker Levon Grigorian, who served as an assistant director on the film, also used some of the same out-takes in his half-hour documentary Memories about “Sayat-Nova” (Vospominaniia o “Sayat-Nove,” Armenfilm 2006). This section will describe some of the more noteworthy episodes in greater detail and place them within the context of the film as a whole.

An alternate opening to the Sanahin episode depicts the young Arutin arranging bunches of yellow flowers around the outline of a human figure carved on a gravestone, representing his early affinity for art and beauty. A rainstorm compels him to leave behind his creation, which gets washed away in a growing stream of water. Presumably, this scene was to continue with the images of rain flowing down the interior walls of the monastery in the finished film.

Other footage from the poet’s childhood expands upon the episode at the Surb Gevorg Cathedral. In Arutin’s imagination, everything around him disappears except for the Armenian cathedral, the Georgian cathedral (Sioni), and the mosque; stylized white miniature models of these three buildings appear on the ground. Saint George comes riding through on horseback, dwarfing the models, and invites the young Arutin to jump up and ride behind him on his horse.

A significant amount of discarded footage relates to the bathing sequence. One group of shots depicts various women in the nude or with cloths wrapped around them, lying or sitting on dark-colored blankets atop a wooden floor streaming with water, recalling the floor-washing imagery from Kyiv Frescoes. Metal pitchers and trays sit at their side and occupy otherwise empty blankets. The overhead angle of most of the shots and the women’s stylized poses emphasize the flatness and strong graphic design of the compositions, bringing to mind paintings by Matisse. Another shot (most likely filmed at Sanahin) depicts a nude woman, perhaps the young Princess Ana, standing on a metal tray with scalloped edges that alludes to Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus. A pair of female attendants dressed in long robes and head-coverings wash the woman with scrubbing mitts. An alternate take shows the woman with a cloth draped around her waist. Thus Parajanov initially envisioned a much more prominent place for the beauty of the female body than is the case with the finished film. However, it is unlikely that most of the shots, with their full frontal nudity, would have passed the censors regardless of their painterly merits.

Another sequence set at the baths depicts King Erekle wrapped in a red cloth printed with an elaborate paisley design, standing proudly next to his throne, a pomegranate in his left hand.

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