Perestroika
1987 - 1991
Perestroika
• After Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko die in a quick succession, a new generation leader Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in 1985.
• Replaces old-style party bureaucrats, starts the policy of democratization and glasnost (openness and freedom of speech).
• Declares Perestroika (restructuring) in 1987, launches economic reforms (elements of market economy) and liberal freedoms.
Perestroika in cinema
• Relaxation of controls, appointment of a film director Elem Klimov as 1st sec of Filmmakers Union in May 1986.
• Practical end of party control.
• The influence of glasnost: raising questions of the past and the present: reassessment of history.
• Release of controversial films: Klimov’s Agony (about Rasputin; completed 1975), Aleksandr Askoldov’s Commissar (completed 1967).
Repentance, 1984by Tengiz Abuladze
• Released in 1987; Cannes 1987 FIPRESCI prize, Grand Prize of the Jury and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
• In Georgian, set in Georgia, but presents a generalized portrait of a dictator (Stalin+Beria +Hitler+Mussolini)
• Most famous quote: “What’s the use of a street if it doesn’t lead to a church?”
Come and See, 1985 by Elem Klimov
• WW II’s untold tragedy: the destruction of Belarus.
• Title quote from Apocalypse (Bible).
• Unheroic story of a witness and survivor.
• Unprecedented, horrifyingly realistic cruelty on screen.
Economics vs art
• Raising of unreal expectations.
• Financial self-reliance (khozrasshchet)
• Intellectuals dominated, believed in free market – but the market was elsewhere.
• 1988 Law on cooperatives. Profits, money-laundering. Co-productions with western organizations.
New reality of late 1980s
• Problem of distribution – no more Goskino.
• Impracticality of intellectuals. Flow of money from distribution to producer broken.
• Invasion of foreign films (frequently pirated) – with voice-over dubbing.
• Impact of (a) video and (b) TV (Mexican and Brazilian soap operas).
• Perestroika generates a tidal wave of trash.
“Chernukha” (Showing the seamy side of life
• The collapse of family;• Immorality, unmotivated cruelty among average
Soviet citizens;• The death of former ideals;• Cramped living conditions;• Senseless hysterics;• “Adult” scenes.• Violence and obscenity of language
(Horton and Brashinsky qtd in Little Vera by F.Beardow, 6-7).
Little Vera, 1988by Vasili Pichul
Little Vera
• “What’s sensational about [the film] is that there’s nothing sensational in it” (qtd Beardow, 3).
• Most shocking film of the 1980s
• First erotic scene (1 min 20 sec) on the Soviet screen (viewers’ reaction)
• Starring: Natalia Negoda, Andrei Sokolov (no-name actors instantly turned stars)
• The young director’s (b.1961) home city (Zhdanov - Mariupol), his own life experience. The script by his wife Maria Khmelik.
• 50,000,000 viewers in first year: most debated.
Little Vera
• “The film is an attempt to come close to the abyss of our life today” (Pichul)
• Life away from the “glamour” of Moscow
• Challenging Soviet mythology: glorious, conscientious “proletariat,” happy young “builders of communism,” (model) family as a “unit of Soviet society”.
Viewer Reactions
• Shock at explicit sex scene (“There is no sex in the USSR”)
• Attempted rape, suicide
• Scourge of vodka
• Language (“mat”): cursing, swearing, different conversations at once, screaming to be heard
• Ironic repetition by young of Soviet clichés: “great Soviet
feeling” (love), “fraternal Mongolia”
Little Vera• The generation gap, clash of values
• Another “lost generation” (forced to be idle, cynical and hopeless)
• Vicious circle of life (the young destined to repeat the parents’ path)
• No privacy, no way to solve conflicts
• The meaning of the name: Vera=“faith”
The Family
• Lives in grimy industrial city in Eastern Ukraine
• Father Kolya truck driver
• Mother Rita works as dispatcher
• Son Victor is a doctor in Moscow, separated from wife and son
• Vera has applied to trade school, prefers to be a telephone operator
Main Events• Vera abandons boyfriend Andrei, who becomes a sailor
• V. has an affair with Sergei; they agree to marry
• Sergei comes to live with the family
• Kolia slashes Sergei in drunken fight
• Sergei in hospital, accused of attacking Kolia
• Andrei shows up, tries to rape Vera
• V. takes pills and gin, attempts suicide
• Kolia has a heart attack and dies
Film structure
• Documentary-like opening long panning shot of an industrial landscape (repeated at end)
• String of “scandals”: dance; family receives Sergei; the picnic on the beach; Kolia’s birthday party; attempted suicide; no happy end
• Balcony as the place of family discussions
• Passing of trains as refrain
Camera and editing
• Grainy film stock suggests the effect of polluted air and
hopelessness
• Extensive use of hand-held camera for indoor scenes
• Close-ups: emphasis on the characters
• Telling realistic details: industrial junk
• Ambient lighting (several scenes shot in almost complete darkness)