Topic
V 1 The Rise of the Soviet Union
V 1.1 October Revolution (1917)
* 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
V 1.2 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.
V 1.3 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
V 2 Socialist Realism
V 2.1 Features
* Proletarian
* Typical
* Realistic
* Partisan
V 2.2 Purpose
* To unify the nation
* To promote the state
V 3 Films of Socialist Realism Movement
* 3.1 Chapaev (Georgi Vasilyev, Sergei Vasilyev, 1934)
3.1 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
* 3.2 Shchors (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1939)
3.2 biography of the partisan leader and Ukrainian Bolshevik Nikolai Shchors, Red Army Commander during the Russian Civil War
* 3.3 Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstien, 1938)
3.3 based on the story of a 13th Century Russian prince leading an army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
V 4 Sergei Parajanov
V 4.1 Shadows of a Forgotten Ancestors (1964)
* departure from literary adaptations and light romantic comedies
V 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
V 4.2 Color of Pomegranates (1968)
* banned upon its release
* 4.3 Return to Life (1980)
V 4.4 imprisonment
* 1974–79: due to resistance to Soviet regime
* 1982: back in jail
* released under Gorbachev's glasnost
V 4.5 died in 1990
* USSR's most innovative director since Eisenstein
V 5 World War II, The Cold War and a Divided Europe
V 5.1 Established at the Yalta Conference in 1945
* Winston Churchill
* Franklin D. Roosevelt
* Joseph Stalin
V 5.2 Cold War divided Europe along an "iron curtain"
* Capitalist Western bloc
* Communist Eastern bloc
V 6 Eastern bloc
* 6.1 consisted of countries occupied by Soviet army after liberation from Germany
* 6.2 included East Germany (German Democratic Republic)
* 6.3 countries adopted Communist modes of government
V 6.4 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
V 7 Film Industries
* 7.1 commercial films were detached from any political meaning
* 7.2 film adaptations of literary classics
V 7.3 state censorship
* political films would be banned or cut
* filmmakers would be persecuted and jailed
V 8 Eastern European New Waves
V 8.1 "double language"
* content safely circumvents state censorship
* speaks to savy audience using coded film techniques
V 9 Bertolt Brecht
* 9.1 alienation effect
* 9.2 discouraged the illusion of performance; encouraged critical observation
* 9.3 "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)
* 9.4 adopted by Eastern European filmmakers
V 10 Poland
* 10.1 National Film School in Lodz
* 10.2 Jerzy Skolimowski
* 10.3 Roman Polanski
* 10.4 Knife in the Water (1962)
V 11 Czechoslovakia
V 11.1 Vera Chytilová
V early career
* philosophy and architecture
* model, script clerk, draftsperson
* Prague FIlm School (FAMU)
V 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
V Daisies (1966)
* New Wave feminist film
V Brechtian comedy
* two women posing questions directly to the audience about philosophy and politics
* jarring editing
* existential pondering
V 11.2 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
V 12 Yugoslavia
V 12.1 Alexander Petrovic
V And Love Has Vanished (1961)
* first film of New Wave movement
V I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967)
* love story that ends in murder
V 12.2 Dusan Makavejev
V Man is not a Bird (1965)
* love story
V 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
V W.R.- Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
* rejection of Stalinist ideology
* American commercial society
V 13 Hungary
* 13.1 Andras Kovacs
* 13.2 Istvan Gaal
V 13.3 Miklós Jancsó
V innovative camera work
* tracking shots
* camera is a passive observer
* camera moves even as we wish to linger
V strong political films
* wartime responsibility
* mob violence
* military behavior
V New Wave filmmaker
* departure from literary adaptations
* rejects aesthetics Socialist Realism
* critical of power relations
V 14 The Red and the White (1967)
* 14.1 Russian Civil War (1918–22)
* 14.2 camera movement is alienating to the view
* 14.3 loose with historical accuracy
* 14.4 creates a binary between powerful and powerless
V 15 East Germany
* 15.1 strict censorship
* 15.2 conform to the Communist Party line
* 15.3 most films were non controversial, commercial favored by the government
V 15.4 Joachim Kunert
V The Adventures of Werner Holt
* struggle to survive at the end of WWII
V 15.5 Konrad Wolf
V Stars (1959)
* young Jewish woman who becomes romantically involved with German Prison guard
* challenges anti-Semitism of the time
V 16 Bulgaria
V 16.1 Vulo Radev
* The Peach Thief (1964)
* The Longest Night (1967)
* wartime films examining human actions when social structures collapse