A Companion to Russian Cinema provides an exhaustive and carefully organised guide to the cinema of pre-Revolutionary Russia, of the Soviet era, as well as post-Soviet Russian cinema, edited by one of the most established and knowledgeable scholars in Russian cinema studies.
The most up-to-date and thorough coverage of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, which also effectively fills gaps in the existing scholarship in the field This is the first volume on Russian cinema to explore specifically the history of movie theatres, studios, and educational institutions The editor is one of the most established and knowledgeable scholars in Russian cinema studies, and contributions come from leading experts in the field of Russian Studies, Film Studies and Visual Culture Chapters consider the arts of scriptwriting, sound, production design, costumes and cinematography Provides five portraits of key figures in Soviet and Russia film history, whose works have been somewhat neglected
Notes on Contributors viii Acknowledgments xv Notes on Transliteration and References xvi Introduction 1 Birgit Beumers Part I Structures of Production, Formation, and Exhibition 21 1 The Film Palaces of Nevsky Prospect: A History of St Petersburg’s Cinemas, 1900–1910 23 Anna Kovalova 2 (V)GIK and the History of Film Education in the Soviet Union, 1920s–1930s 45 Masha Salazkina 3 Lenfilm: The Birth and Death of an Institutional Aesthetic 66 Robert Bird 4 The Adventures of the Kulturfilm in Soviet Russia 92 Oksana Sarkisova 5 Soiuzdetfilm: The Birth of Soviet Children’s Film and the Child Actor 117 Jeremy Hicks Part II For the State or For the Audience? Auteurism, Genre, and Global Markets 137 6 The Stalinist Musical: Socialist Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism 139 Richard Taylor 7 Soviet Film Comedy of the 1950s and 1960s: Innovation and Restoration 158 Seth Graham 8 Auteur Cinema during the Thaw and Stagnation 178 Eugénie Zvonkine 9 The Blokbaster: How Russian Cinema Learned to Love Hollywood 202 Dawn Seckler and Stephen M. Norris 10 The Global and the National in Post]Soviet Russian Cinema (2004–2012) 224 Maria Bezenkova and Xenia Leontyeva Part III Sound – Image – Text 249 11 The Literary Scenario and the Soviet Screenwriting Tradition 251 Maria Belodubrovskaya 12 Ideology, Technology, Aesthetics: Early Experiments in Soviet Color Film, 1931–1945 270 Phil Cavendish 13 Learning to Speak Soviet: Soviet Cinema and the Coming of Sound 292 Lilya Kaganovsky 14 Cinema and the Art of Being: Towards a History of Early Soviet Set Design 314 Emma Widdis 15 Stars on Screen and Red Carpet 337 Djurdja Bartlett 16 Revenge of the Cameramen: Soviet Cinematographers in the Director’s Chair 364 Peter Rollberg Part IV Time and Space, History and Place 389 17 Soldiers, Sailors, and Commissars: The Revolutionary Hero in Soviet Cinema of the 1930s 391 Denise J. Youngblood 18 Defending the Motherland: The Soviet and Russian War Film 409 Stephen M. Norris 19 Shooting Location: Riga 427 Kevin M. F. Platt 20 Capital Images: Moscow on Screen 452 Birgit Beumers Part V Directors’ Portraits 475 21 Boris Barnet: “This doubly accursed cinema” 477 Julian Graffy 22 Iulii Raizman: Private Lives and Intimacy under Communism 500 Jamie Miller 23 The Man Who Made Them Laugh: Leonid Gaidai, the King of Soviet Comedy 519 Elena Prokhorova 24 Aleksei Gherman: The Last Soviet Auteur 543 Anthony Anemone 25 Knowledge (Imperfective): Andrei Zviagintsev and Contemporary Cinema 565 Nancy Condee Appendix Chronology of Events in Russian Cinema and History 585 Bibliography 614 Index 631
Birgit Beumers is Professor of Film Studies at Aberystwyth University (UK). She specialises in Russian culture, especially cinema and theatre. Her most recent publications include A History of Russian Cinema (2009) and Performing Violence (with Mark Lipovetsky, 2009); she has edited Directory of World Cinema: Russia (2010; 2014), The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov (with N. Condee, 2011), Russia’s New Fin de Siècle (2013), and Cinema in Central Asia: Rewriting Cultural Histories (with M. Rouland and G. Abikeyeva, 2013). She is editor of KinoKultura and of Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema.
Reviews for A Companion to Russian Cinema
This is a highly interesting and thought-provoking work on a subject that many of us know only too little. The former USSR has a long history and has produced leading names from the cinematic arts and technology. This is a book that sheds light on a previously darkened field and deserves to be read by all of those interested in film making. It will be a stimulating work for students of cinema and the cinematic arts and technology and will provoke much discussion. - Eric Jukes, Reference Reviews, Volume 31, Number 4, 2017.
