cinema of the stagnation period (approx. 1964-85)
TRANSCRIPT
Cinema of the Stagnation Period (approx. 1964-85)
Comedies as a response to life’s dullness
Under Brezhnev: no economic growth, no positive social changes; free thinking (the dissidents) suppressed.
The reign of bureaucracy; bleak life. Lining up for food; “getting” clothes and
other stuff. Jokes and comedies as antidotes to the
monotony and hopelessness.
The differences of the Soviet cultural system from the West
Detached from the market place: money provided by the state.
No reason to work efficiently.
Interaction between the needs of the party and the creative freedom of the individual - testing the limits of the permitted.
“Familial" relations between the different camps (Dom Kino).
Inefficiencies in the system of control (e.g., approval of script, but no control over the production).
Control over distribution. Filmmakers don’t get royalties.
The separate strands of film production of the Stagnation
“Opportunists” (commercial and political) who worked for the system (Bondarchuk – War and Peace; Menshov - Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears).
“Messianic elitism”- Andrei Tarkovsky’sfilms. “Populists” who steered a middle course
(EldarRyazanov, Nikita Mikhalkov), giving good middle-brow films.
“Entertainment” classics (Leonid Gaidai’s comedies, The White Sun of the Desert (Vladimir Motyl, 1970)
Cartoons (the multfilms, мультфильмы) for children (Cheburashka).
Leonid Gaidai (1923-93)
Scriptwriter and director Slapstick comedies with
elements of music comedy
Best comic actors Popular punch lines Smuggled irony and
social criticism Success (up to 76 million
tickets sold per film)
The great comic trio (Vitsin, Nikulin, and Morgunov)
Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)
Patriarchal values, money and power vs youth, love, liberated woman
Protagonists: young students
Villain: a party member who hires petty criminals
Song about polar bears
Features twist - a “bourgeois” dance in positive light
Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)
Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1967)
Ivan Vasilievich Switches Profession (1973)
Time machine, Ivan the Terrible, “back to the future” theme
Colour vs black and white = dream vs reality (ironic comment on the epoch?)
The Diamond Arm (1968)
Semion, a good family man, gets a chance to go on a cruise and travel abroad
Meets a “nice guy” who is a gang member
Smugglers take Semion for that guy and put diamonds in the cast on his “broken” arm
Back at home, Semion collaborates with the police as a sitting duck while the gangsters try to get the diamonds at all cost
Misunderstandings and confusion; happy ending
The Diamond Arm (1968)
Food for Thought
What type of comedy is this? (slapstick/verbal; absurd; dark; farcical;
situational/character; screwball; romantic) How would you characterize this comedy? What is Russian about it? Is it different from the
comedies you know? Do you sense any irony? What is comic about it, where is the humour? What comic devices are used? (hyperbole;
misunderstanding; qui pro quo; culture clash; etc.)