Cinema of the Soviet Union

Partant des débats entre « film joué » et « film non-joué » ayant entouré la sortie d’Octobre d’Eisenstein en 1927, nous interrogeons la notion de punctum de Barthes à travers le rapprochement qui a pu en être fait de celle d’attraction. Remettant en question l’existence même du punctum, d’une vérité intrinsèque de l’image, nous proposons avec Merleau-Ponty de cesser de considérer l’image cinématographique comme une « seconde chose » pour en faire valoir la rencontre, seule capable de nous en faire comprendre la réalité. Nous rappelons alors la figure de « précession réciproque » évoquée par Merleau-Ponty dans L’Œil et l’esprit, qu’il identifie à la « vision même », pour montrer combien elle peut nous aider à saisir les potentialités de l’image cinématographique déjà entrevues par Eisenstein qui voyait en elle un phénomène de « momification dynamique ».

In late 1929, as he developed his preparatory notes for a film called Glass House, Sergei Eisenstein considered the material significance of the glass used in the construction of camera lenses. In these notes, he reimagines the history of optics—one not founded upon the placement of an objectif before a camera obscura, but rather one that recognizes the subjective “will and intention” of the one controlling the ground glass device and the film frame (the director).

These thoughts are couched within the director’s ongoing polemic with Dziga Vertov’s kinoki and what Eisenstein saw as their theoretical overinsistence on cinematic objectivity. Against the background of his recently published essay “The Play of Objects,” this essay focuses Eisenstein's insistent slippage from the objective to the subjective through the director's proposal that the objects which fall before the subjective camera lens might be made capable of “acting” and his later writings on Walt Disney's method of animating objects.

Visionary Utopianism is eminent in Soviet films, which is particularly manifested through the protagonists or supporting characters themselves. Under propaganda pressures, film directors aimed to construct the Soviet ideals, thereby educating the masses on what is expected from them in the everyday life. The films explored in this paper are Friedrich Ermler’s a Fragment of the Empire (1929), Grigori Aleksandrov’s Circus (1930), Abram Room’s a Severe Young Man (1936), Ivan Pyryvev’s Cossacks of the Kuban (1949). The deconstruction of the socialist ideal is portrayed in Mikhail Kalatazov’s film The Cranes are Flying (1957) during the Thaw era, 'varnishing reality' of the Soviet Union.

Hukkunud Alpinisti hotell (Отель ‘У Погибшего Альпиниста’/The Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel; Kromanov Estonia 1979) was made at the height of the era of Soviet political stagnation in the late 1970s. It is a stylish screen adaptation of the novel of the same name written ten years earlier by the celebrated Russian sf authors Arkadii and Boris Strugatskii, who also scripted the screenplay. Hukkunud Alpinisti hotell was the first of their works to be filmed, closely followed by Сталкер (Stalker; Tarkovsky Russia 1979), based on their 1972 novel Пикник на обочине/Roadside Picnic. This article concentrates on two aspects of the film: its interesting combination of genres and intriguing interpretation of gendered representations. A certain sense of ‘queering’ prevails in relation to the film’s rather unconventional
approach to genre as well as its discourse on gender and sexuality. Our analysis is primarily concerned with the film, but also considers various units of its intertextual universe, such as
the novel and the different versions of the script.

This article uses Sino-Soviet film festival diplomacy to show how anticolonialism played a crucial role in the cinematic Cold War. First, it analyzes the Sino-Soviet cinematic cooperation at the Asian Film Week in Beijing in 1957 and the First Afro-Asian Film Festival (AAFF) in Tashkent in 1958. Second, it examines the breakdown of Sino-Soviet cinematic ties at the Third AAFF in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1964, and via the trenchant Chinese critique of Grigorii Chukhrai’s films. The Chinese retreat from Soviet cinema paralleled the deterioration of political relations between Mao’s China and Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. Immediate diplomatic needs informed ideological clashes at festivals and brutal film criticism. But cinematic encounters exceeded state directives. They redefined revolutionary film aesthetics and the role of cinema in liberation struggles in ways that inspired the militant «Third Cinema» movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

“Of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important” (Lenin, 1922).  By this statement, Lenin did not want to give a personal aesthetic appreciation, but a strong political conviction on cinema. The Soviet leader recognized that cinema, yet at a rather than early stage of development, would have a huge and influential future. Lenin was not wrong: during the Soviet Union, cinema has been referred to be the most efficient and effective tool of political communication between the new government and the masses. Furthermore, unlike the other mass media, cinema could play a limitless key role for the Soviet propaganda. Books and newspapers were largely useless because of the widespread illiteracy in USSR, especially among a good deal of the Russian peasantry. Posters could exert enormous visual power, but were static and therefore had a limited appeal. The potential of cinema, indeed, was enormous and the government knew how to take advantage of it. During the Stalinist regime, propaganda represented a constructive part of the new Soviet society, and “one of the chief means by which they could contribute to the building of that society” (Russel, 2009). For this reason, in the early 1930s, Russian filmmakers applied the socialist realism to their works since it represents the best way to build an image of a new society through a glorified depiction of communist values and a rather than positive view of USSR.
This paper explores cinema and Soviet propaganda under the Stalinist regime, focusing on one of Grigorij Aleksandrov and Isidor Simkov’s masterpieces, Circus (1936). The film is a blend of a lavish, Hollywood-style musical, witty satire and love story placed in an unequivocal propaganda framework. The movie has been chosen for the purposes of this paper because it represents the perfect example of how in the thirties in the Soviet Union, film and music were used for propaganda attempts (The Master and Margarita, 2017). Nevertheless, as any propaganda movie, it is important to underline that Circus was not what we can define as “reliable portray” of the Soviet society. On the contrary, the reality was not as Marxist Utopian as Aleksandrov, or even better, as the Soviet authorities, wanted to show to the entire world.

Buscaremos acercarnos al cine soviético del periodo de la Desestalinización, a partir del XX Congreso del PCUS, en el año 1956. Para ello tomaremos  centralmente el film PASARON LAS GRULLAS del año 1957 (también traducido como ?Pasaron las cigüeñas?) dirigida por Mijail Kalatozov, al tiempo que analizaremos y pondremos en vínculo otros films representativos del período, que nos permitirán dar cuenta de manera más exhaustiva de los valores estéticos y la forma de abordar determinados temas en esta coyuntura específica. En el trabajo partiremos de los aspectos centrales del Deshielo en términos políticos, así como también de una breve referencia a la industria cinematográfica de entonces, para  finalmente analizar el film Pasaron las Grullas y sus puntos de relación con las otras obras. Como objetivo principal, nos proponemos dar cuenta que debido a la relativa apertura política y cultural del periodo analizado, saldrán a luz rasgos de la sociedad fuertemente censurados hasta entonces, siendo en este caso el eje central de la serie de films seleccionados, el conflicto entre el individuo y lo colectivo.

Статья посвящена феномену речевой диссипации (в пределе - распаду речи) в фильмах Алексея Германа (1938-2013). Автор последовательно рассматривает фильмы Германа с целью продемонстрировать дискурсивные изменения, касающиеся как уровня персонажей, так и самой повествователной структуры. Поначалу Герман придерживается вполне традиционного способа организации речи (и шире - звука), иллюстрирующей визуальное событие, но чем ближе к концу XX века, тем более отчетливой становится концепция нарушенной речи, беспокоящей реципиента, выводящей его восприятие из равновесия. Эффект звукового хаоса превращается в специфический признак авторской манеры Германа-режиссера и оказывает значительное влияние на эстетику поздней Ленинградской школы.

Referāts tapis laikā, kad scenārists Alvis Lapiņš strādāja kopā ar režisoru Pēteri Krilovu pie filmas "Uz spēles Latvija" . Referātā tiek apskatītas visas filmas, kas tapušas pēc Lapiņa scenārijiem, izvērtējot to dramaturģisko struktūru pēc mūsdienu scenāriju rakstīšanas principiem.

What do we know about the punk and post-punk practices in the USSR? How was the music scene and the atmosphere inside a zone where most of the materials about punk was prohibited or unknown? How was the general feeling of being a punk, listening and recording punk and post-punk music? What were the main differences between the West and the Soviet regime in terms of experiencing punk and post-punk? This article deals with these questions in the light of the temoignage of Alexei Borisov, the lead singer and guitarist of Notchnoi Prospekt and the writings of the philosopher and synth player, Ivan Sokolovsky. Furthermore, the text suggests a philosophical interpretation of two notions (phono-eye and atmosphere) deriving from the argumentation and the perceptive world of the Soviets, which may be linked with music theory and cinema.

Walter Benjamin is today regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. Often captured in pensive pose, his image is now that of a serious intellectual. But Benjamin was also a fan of the comedies of Adolphe Menjou, Mickey Mouse, and Charlie Chaplin. As an antidote to repressive civilization, he developed, through these figures, a theory of laughter. Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Film is the first monograph to thoroughly analyse Benjamin's film writings, contextualizing them within his oeuvre whilst also paying attention to the various films, actors, and directors that sparked his interest. The book situates all these writings within Benjamin's 'anthropological materialism', a concept that analyses the transformations of the human sensorium through technology. Through the term 'innervation', Benjamin thought of film spectatorship as an empowering reception that, through a rush of energy, would form a collective body within the audience, interpenetrating a liberated technology into the distracted spectators. Benjamin's writings on Soviet film and German cinema, Charlie Chaplin, and Mickey Mouse are analysed in relation to this posthuman constellation that Benjamin had started to dream of in the early twenties, long before he began to theorize about films.

In this research, the codes produced by the Soviet animation cinema, operating for nearly seventy years and showing the consequences and reflections of the political ideology it is involved in as the product of a systematic mechanism, have been determined. In line with the conclusions, it has been examined that these animated films form a kind of cultural memory that reflects the political history and social culture of the Soviets. The content analysis method proposed by Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss for the analysis of qualitative data was used in the article. This method aims to gather and interpret similar data within the framework of specific concepts and categories. Content analysis was created in four stages: a) coding of data, b) finding categories, c) organizing codes and categories, d) defining and interpreting findings. If a structure is formed in line with the decisions, it is perceived that two separate groups are created as 'we' and 'they' in the films analyzed, and the expression 'they' is based on two elements: anti-Westernism built in the context of capitalism and imperialism, and anti-Nazism within the connection of fascism. The expression 'we' is based on bringing socialism and communism to the forefront, spreading and rooting them. In this connection, it has been noticed that the films used as data can be combined under three main titles: 'Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist Films', 'Anti-Fascist Films', and 'Films with Praise for Socialism and Communism'. After considering all the findings and inferences made, it was comprehended that the animated films were documents that exhibit the period in which they were described or referenced. From this point of view, it can be assumed that the propaganda actions carried out by the Soviet Union not only ensure the development and persistence of existing political ideas and ideologies but also found a cultural memory in the society.

Sevindi, K . (2021). Concepts and Categories Used in Soviet Propaganda Animated Films. International Journal of Euroasian Research, 9 (27), 250-271. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/avrasyad/issue/62755/950774

The article observes the context around several children illustrated books of 1920-1930’s  dedicated to cinema and cinema characters of the time, including one of the main ones – Charles Chaplin. Along with that the relationships between the two media of the period are analysed

Key words: soviet illustrated book, Western cinema on Soviet screen, Charles Chaplin

В статье на ряде примеров рассматриваются вопросы контекста появления кинематографических сюжетов в детской иллюстрированной книге 1920-1930-х годов, а также происхождения фигуры Чарли Чаплина в таких сюжетах. Кроме того, формулируется характер взаимоотношений детской книги и кинематографа данного периода.

Ключевые слова: советская иллюстрированная книга, Западный кинематограф в советском прокате, советский кинопрокат, Чарли Чаплин

Tarkovsky claimed that cinema was a medium endowed with a potentially universal capacity of communication, since “An artistic image is capable of arousing identical feelings in viewers, while the thoughts that come later may be very different.” The claim that certain images carry a universally identifiable meaning and a universally shared emotional resonance relates clearly to the concept of archetype and specifically to the definition given by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, for whom such images constitute “universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious” that often reveal themselves on an anthropological level through “behavior, images, art, myths, religions, or dreams”. Accordingly, Tarkovsky writes in Sculpting in Time that “the author of a film” should share “something in common with the psychologist-screenwriter, and also with the psychiatrist.”

L'homme à la caméra est un voyage qui articule un médium, un cadre et une façon de vivre, respectivement le cinéma, la ville et l'alternance du repos et du labeur. L'articulation se fait par le biais d'un point commun entre les trois, le mouvement. Si ses procédés optiques de défamiliarisation sont dans l'air du temps de la récréation photographique et des avant-gardes, il en va de même pour le portrait qu'il propose de la vie urbaine. Le long de ses larges avenues rectilignes, du haut de ses toits-terrasses, « la ville redéfinit le regard ». Vertov s'offre même luxe d'y jouer les flâneurs baudelairiens. « Flâner, c'est une façon de lire les rues, dans laquelle le visage des passants, les vitrines et les devantures, les terrasses de cafés, les voitures, la chaussée et les arbres se retrouvent à faire les lettres, les mots et les pages d'un livre qui toujours est nouveau ».

En medio de la primera revolución socialista del siglo XX, cuyos líderes se esfuerzan en buscar un antecedente válido para semejante empresa –probablemente el de la Comuna de París de 1871 sea uno de los más citados–, poetas, pintores, filósofos y cineastas “caen” en medio de ese terremoto y se vuelcan a un lado u otro del proyecto marxista-leninista de sociedad. Lenin señalaría al cine como “de todas las artes, la más importante” y a partir de allí, Estado proletario y vanguardia artística recorrerán un camino vital y tumultuoso. La historia “conocida”
menciona un primer estadio de efervescencia general extendido a todo el arte de la época, enmarcado por el “festejo” del triunfo ideológico, una extraordinaria libertad y la necesidad de expandir la potencialidad del cine como lenguaje autónomo. Luego, una breve primavera que acompañó y sobrevivió apenas a la guerra civil posterior al triunfo de la Revolución y la noche: la “etapa stalinista” del arte, con sus persecuciones, su coherción paranoica y el realismo socialista como estética oficial e indiscutible (so pena de la acusación de “formalismo” y consiguiente destierro para aquellos artistas que no se adecuaran a él). Quien recorra la historia y la filmografía de los más encumbrados cineastas soviéticos del siglo (podría tomarse a Eisenstein como paradigma) no tardará en acompañarlos en esta curva de productiva adolescencia, conflictiva transición y –con suerte– madurez intelectual y artística. El caso del documentalista Dziga Vertov agrega a este recorrido dos elementos de notable trascendencia para entender la relación entre vanguardia artística y política en la Rusia de la primera mitad del siglo veinte.

The book about criminal, emigrant, satiric and other songs that were officially forbidden in the USSR to be performed by professional singers but were used in many Soviet movies as sound-tracks.

C момента изобретения звукового кино на советском экране вольготно чувствовали себя песни, официально запрещенные к исполнению с эстрады: блатные, одесские,
белогвардейские, уличные, эмигрантские…
Часто наблюдался парадокс: «запрещенные» песни сочиняли признанные поэты и композиторы, а исполняли народные артисты.
Знаете ли вы, что один из всем известных «блатных» шлягеров сочинил претендент на Нобелевскую премию Евгений Евтушенко, а есенинское «Письмо матери» прозвучало в картине Шукшина «Калина красная» благодаря личной просьбе Л. И. Брежнева?
Интеллигенция пела «блатные песни» не только с советского экрана, но и вне его. Магнитные ленты с записями городских романсов в исполнении актеров Евгения Урбанского и Николая Рыбникова, спортивного комментатора Виктора Набутова, кор-
респондента Анатолия Аграновского пользовались большим успехом в богемной среде. А многие образцы якобы «уличного» фольклора были сложены ради шутки знаменитыми сценаристами, учеными или художниками.
О том, как, когда и почему «антисоветские» песни звучали с советского экрана, об истории создания многих хитов, о судьбах их авторов и даже о том, кто же все-таки мог
написать «Мурку», читайте в новой книге серии «Русские шансонье».

This symposium will explore the entwined legacies of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist internationalism in the cinema with a view toward contemporary forms of politicized moving image culture. Presentations will focus on how film, in both its aesthetic strategies and broader circuits of distribution and exhibition, has worked as an instrument of global coalition building, imagining alternatives to the uninhibited flows of market finance and the militarized borders of the nation state. In confronting the problem of solidarity in its diverse geopolitical, historical, and conceptual dimensions, the symposium brings together a group of scholars whose work spans from the Communist international solidarity documentaries of the 1920s and 1930s, to the third cinemas and counter-cinemas of the 1960s and 1970s, to more recent iterations of world cinema, decolonial cinema, and the militant image. We aim to respond to a growing impetus within film and media studies to reopen both the influential and overlooked film radicalisms of the past in order to better conceptualize the role of cinema within the ideological battle-lines of advanced capitalism.

REGISTER AT: https://cinemasofglobalsolidarity.com/

The article analyzes the stereotypical image of the Italians in the late Sovietfilms and cartoon animation. The main focus of the investigation is the ex-amination of the comic effects in depiction of Italian characters. It is mainlyexpressed through the parody of the linguistic and paralinguistic features inItalian language: lexis, phrase intonation, and body language. The use of an intentionally erroneous monophonic translation becomes an additionalparody element.Italian characters in children’s discourse of the late Soviet era that is ex-amined in the article have a certain range of stereotypical features (such asstrong attachment to music, adventurism). These stereotypes are not uniqueto Russian view on Italians, as they can be found in the mass culture ofother countries as well. Nevertheless, the image of the Italian mafia in Soviet cinema and animation differs from foreign interpretations of this topic.This specificity is the result the Soviet-Italian relations in the field of filmproduction. / В статье анализируется стереотипный образ итальянца в позднесоветских мультипликации и кинематографе. В фокусе внимания - комедийный жанр и способы создания комического эффекта при изображении итальянцев. Как будет показано, одним из основных способов при этом оказывается пародирование лингвистических и паралингвистических особенностей итальянского языка: итальянских лексики, интонации, мимики и жестикуляции. Кроме того, отдельным элементом па-родии становится использование намеренно ошибочного одноголосого перевода. Итальянцы как персонажи обладают определенным набором стереотипных черт (музыкальность, авантюризм), которые встречаются и в произведениях массовой культуры других стран. Тем не менее, образ итальянского мафиози в советском кинематографе и мультипликации отличается от зарубежных прочтений этой темы. Как будет по-казано, эта специфика оказывается следствием советско-итальянских взаимоотношений в сфере кинопроизводства. Детские фильмы и муль-типликация этого периода рассматриваются как отражение тенденций «взрослого» кинематографа. В то же время выдвигается гипотеза о том, что переход стереотипных персонажей в кинопродукцию, адресованную детям, - это следствие использования их в качестве пародийного приема.