the “thaw” and cinema the cranes are flying. after the victory: politics and arts the victory of...
TRANSCRIPT
After the Victory: Politics and Arts
The victory of 1945: great expectations.
Suppression of the arts. Zhdanov’s resolution
against “individualistic” and “bourgeois”
writers (1946).
The “anti-formalist” campaign against
composers (1948).
The “struggle against cosmopolitanism” and the
“Doctors’ plot”.
Film industry stultified, bureaucratized. Few
films made.
The “Thaw” (1953-68) and its Consequences
Stalin dies in 1953; Khrushchev’s speechat the XXthParty Congress
(1956): denunciation of “the cult of personality”; Stalin’s embalmed corpse removed from the
Mausoleum (Lenin’s tomb); The city of Stalingrad named Volgograd; Peasants got passports; migration to cities; housing
construction: low-end apartment blocks, khruschevkas;
Post-secondary education boom; The country opens itself to the world: the 6th World
Festival of Youth and Students in 1957 (new music, style in arts, fashion; (almost) free exchange of information; the 60s generation emerges;
Scientific and technical achievements; the Sputnik and Gagarin’s flight
The “Thaw” and Cinema
The inflow of foreign films (trophy films, such as The Girl of my Dreams and Tarzan; French New Wave and Italian neorealism).
The number of films produced per year rises from under 10 in early 1950s to 75 in 1956;
Old masters achieve a new degree of freedom (i.e.,Abram Room, Mikhail Romm, GrigoriKozintsev);
Cinema studios in Soviet republics develop film production (both quantity and quality);
New breed of directors takes over (“generation of lieutenants” and younger);
Screen versions of Russian and international classics (i.e., Hamlet and King Lear by G.Kozintsev, The Lady with the Dog by IosifKheifits, etc.).
The “Thaw” Cinema
Films pushing ideological boundaries (i.e., GrigoriChukhrai’sThe Forty-First, 1956: a human face of the “enemy,” love across ideological barrier).
Poetic films of young directors
De-monumentalized cinema; human dimension; De-dramatization (influence of neo-realism and
M.Antonioni); “Poetic cinema”: poetry of everyday life, youth,
joy of living. Poetic aspect is more important than the events.
MarlenKhutsiev’sSpring on Zarechnaia Street (1956) and I Am Twenty/Ilyich’s Gate (1961, released few years later) – the embodiment of the Thaw; intelligentia’s concept of “socialism with a human face.”
Reality as the primary object; quest for “cinematic truth”; everyday worries of young people; “New Wave” style.
I Step Through Moscow Я шагаю по Москве(1963)
Director: Georgi Danelia
Starring: Nikita Mikhalkov
Music: Andrei Petrov
Poetry: Gennadii Shpalikov
Thriving Film Industry
New beginnings in cinema: funds, cinemas built, film
director (Ivan Pyriev) at head of industry.
New themes: personal lives. Influence of Italian and
French cinema. The war as one of recurrent themes.
1958 The Cranes Are Flying (Dir. Kalatozov, Mosfilm,
1957) wins Golden Palm (Palme d’Or) at Cannes.
1959 Ballad of a Soldier (Dir. GrigoryChukhrai,
Mosfilm, 1959) nominated for Oscar.
TypicalTraits of War Film post 1953
Engagingnarrative line
Realism (truthfulness) of depiction
Strong acting Innovativecamera
technique Absence of irony,
little satire Interweavingof
humour and dramatic moments
TypicalMotifs in War Film
Contrastbetweenbattlefront and rear
Ironicheroism of soldiers
The good commandingofficer
Corruption amongofficials in rear (party)
Faithfulnessof a soldier
Unfaithfulnessof a womanleftbehind
Ideological content
No mention of Stalin or communism
Simple moral system : good versus bad
Enemyisfaceless Heroismand
endurance of Russian/Soviet people
Solidarityof all peoples of Soviet Union and beyondagainstFascism
The Cranes Are Flying
Director Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957.
Camera: Sergei Urusevsky
Starring: Aleksei Batalov, Tatiana Samoilova
Simple plot, complicated psychology.
Influence of the war on lives of individuals.
The film does not condemn a “morally flawed” heroine: humanism and compassion.
Tragedy containing elements of humour and satire.
Composition (examples)
The film starts as films usually end: blissful happiness of young sweethearts running towards the horizon. The line of the embankment on the screen points to the “future.”
Important dialogues take place on the embankment, but the line is cut short.
The heroine carries a little boy, her perished lover’s namesake, along (another) embankment – the horizon opens again.
Innovative Filming Technique
Extensive use of handheld camera (“off-duty camera”) – frantic camera movements when the heroine, desperate, runs along the street (realism: Urusevsky, the cameraman, used to be a war correspondent).
Camera follows the heroine, without a cut, at eye level and then flies up to give a panorama. Speeds up – slows down.
Extreme close-ups. Eyes.
The villain’s feet trampling the broken glass (Hitchock-like, sinister shots). The heroine’s face upside down (her life turns upside down).
Innovative Filming Technique
Lighting and sound. Ex.: Sounds of the fire in a crumbling building suddenly stop as the heroine goes into shock. The only sound interrupting the silence is ticking of the clock amidst the ruins. The heroine reads a letter hearing her lover’s voice, “irrelevant” music on the background: sharp emotional contrast.
Blinking light during the scene of the rape.
The heroine moves from light to shadow when she learns that her lover has died.
Innovative Filming Technique
The camera follows the heroine and we join her point of view, but then switches to the crowd to show she is just one of the many.
Urusevsky invented circular rails for moving the camera.
The scene of the hero’s death involves constant rapid shifts of points of view (from “inside” – from the ground and from “outside” – from above).
The camera spins as he loses consciousness. Spinning trees.
The overlap of images renders the hero’s stream of consciousness (unexposed film used several times).