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From International Socialism, No.54, January 1973, p.26.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Young Soviet Film Makers
Jeanne Vronskaya
Allen & Unwin, £3.50
Previous to reading this book my only impression of Soviet film makers was that the directors looked like models for knitting pattern books. It is a fact that very few people in the West know anything about the modern Soviet film industry, what the films are about, or how they are made. Jeanne Vronskaya, an exile living in London, has attempted to fill the gap. Her little book gives us the run down on each director, on the films he made, a summary of the plot, the methods used and whether or not the critics liked it.
There have been three distinct periods of Soviet film production. The first was the period of enthusiasm and experimentation that followed the Revolution. With Stalin’s rise to power came the second: an era of sycophancy, where the ‘official’ Social Realist movement reigned supreme. It was in this period that the Georgian cinema produced more films than at any other time. The third, and current period, dates from Krushchev’s attack on Stalin in 1956. This ‘New Cinema’ is characterised by its departure from Social Realism.
As in the West, but even more so, Russian films are subjected to censorship. As here, films are judged to be successful by how much money they make. The box office reigns supreme, that is, with the benevolent nod of the state’s ideological watchdogs. The director earns a percentage of the takings and for that he hands over complete control to the state-run industry. The major difference with western cinema is cultural as most of the subjects seem to be around the effects of either the Revolution, like Konchalovsky’s The First Teacher, or the second World War, of which Chukhrai’s Ballad of a Soldier is the best known here. Also popular are adaptations of the classics. Satirising petty bureaucrats and the world in which they operate is a commercial proposition, although no serious ideological criticism is ever tolerated.
The book does not explain how the films come to be financed, or what it is like to be a film maker in the Soviet Union. It contains only 125 pages of information, of which 25 are an index. The pictures are boring and it costs 3.50 pounds. Still it’s nice to know things are looking up.
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Last updated on 12.1.2008