Tsar Nicolas II abdicated after February 1917 Revolution
overthrow of the Russian (Alexander Kerensky) Provisional government
Bolshevik led forces into Petrograd on November 5 (October 23), 1917
Red Guards took control of the Winter Palace
power ceded to local Soviets, dominated by the Bolsheviks
Decrees
Private was seized and redistributed among the peasants
All Russian banks were nationalized.
Private bank accounts were confiscated.
The Church’s properties (including bank accounts) were seized.
All foreign debts were repudiated.
Control of the factories was given to the soviets.
Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced.
Russian Civil War
Began in 1918 after the Bolsheviks took control of Petrograd
fighting between Red (Bolsheviks) and White (alliance of anti-Bolshevik forces)
Ended in 1922, when Reds took control of Vladivostok
Establishment of Soviet Union
Socialist Realism
Proletarian
Typical
Realistic
Partisan
Purpose
To unify the nation
To promote the state
Films of Socialist Realism Movement
Chapaev (Georgi Vasilyev, Sergei Vasilyev, 1934)
based on the book about Vasili Ivanovich Chapaev (1887 - 1919) who was in real life the Commander of the 25th Division of the Red Army
Shchors (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1939)
biography of the partisan leader and Ukrainian Bolshevik Nikolai Shchors, Red Army Commander during the Russian Civil War
Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstien, 1938)
based on the story of a 13th Century Russian prince leading an army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Sergei Parajanov
Shadows of a Forgotten Ancestors (1964)
departure from literary adaptations and light romantic comedies
employs tools of the cinema
zoom shots
wide angle lenses
rich color scheme
tragic love affair of nineteenth century Carpathia
won BAFTA award
quickly drew ire of Soviet government
Color of Pomegranates (1968)
banned upon its release
Return to Life (1980)
imprisonment
1974–79: due to resistance to Soviet regime
1982: back in jail
released under Gorbachev’s glasnost
died in 1990
USSR’s most innovative director since Eisenstein
World War II, The Cold War and a Divided Europe
Established at the Yalta Conference in 1945
Winston Churchill
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Cold War divided Europe along an “iron curtain”
Capitalist Western bloc
Communist Eastern bloc
Eastern bloc
consisted of countries occupied by Soviet army after liberation from Germany
included East Germany (German Democratic Republic)
countries adopted Communist modes of government
rejected postwar Western rebuilding plans, such as…
Marshall Plan, in favor of the Molotov Plan
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in favor of the Warsaw Pact
Eastern European Film Industries
commercial films were detached from any political meaning
film adaptations of literary classics
state censorship
political films would be banned or cut
filmmakers would be persecuted and jailed
Eastern European New Waves
spoke in a “double language"
content safely circumvents state censorship
speaks to savy audience using coded film techniques
Bertolt Brecht
alienation effect
discouraged the illusion of performance; encouraged critical observation
“artist never acts as if there were a fourth wall besides the three surrounding him […] The audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place.” (1964)
adopted by Eastern European filmmakers
Poland
National Film School in Lodz
Jerzy Skolimowski
Roman Polanski
Knife in the Water (1962)
Czechoslovakia
Vera Chytilová
early career
philosophy and architecture
model, script clerk, draftsperson
Prague FIlm School (FAMU)
film work
style of American Underground cinema of the 1960s
feminist: nature of power over women in Czechoslovakia
silenced the political machine in her country
Daisies (1966)
New Wave feminist film
Brechtian comedy
two women posing questions directly to the audience about philosophy and politics
jarring editing
existential pondering
Jan Schmidt
The End of August at the Hotel Ozone (1968)
Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to crush the liberalizing regime
end of the Czech New Wave cinema
Yugoslavia
Alexander Petrovic
And Love Has Vanished (1961)
first film of New Wave movement
I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967)
love story that ends in murder
Dusan Makavejev
Man is not a Bird (1965)
love story
PTT Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967)
utilizes stills, clips from documentaries, and other Brechtian devices
murder of a young woman
political social and sexual attitudes that led to her death
W.R.- Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
rejection of Stalinist ideology
American commercial society
Hungary
Andras Kovacs
Istvan Gaal
Miklós Jancsó
innovative camera work
tracking shots
camera is a passive observer
camera moves even as we wish to linger
strong political films
wartime responsibility
mob violence
military behavior
New Wave filmmaker
departure from literary adaptations
rejects aesthetics Socialist Realism
critical of power relations
The Red and the White (1967)
Russian Civil War (1918–22)
camera movement is alienating to the view
loose with historical accuracy
creates a binary between powerful and powerless
East Germany
strict censorship
conform to the Communist Party line
most films were non controversial, commercial favored by the government
Joachim Kunert
The Adventures of Werner Holt
struggle to survive at the end of WWII
Konrad Wolf
Stars (1959)
young Jewish woman who becomes romantically involved with German Prison guard
challenges anti-Semitism of the time
Bulgaria
Vulo Radev
The Peach Thief (1964)
The Longest Night (1967)
wartime films examining human actions when social structures collapse