David C. Gillespie,
Russian Cinema.
Inside Film Series. Harlow, Eng., London: Longman, Pearson Education, 2003.
ISBN: 0 582 43790 3
201pp
US$11.95 (pb)

Russian cinema, though represented often by the bipartite division of Soviet and post-Soviet films, reveals figures and a world view bound to the motherland (the landscape), ingrained in ideology, inspired and penetrated by art, literature, and theatre, and galvanized by music. Russian montage works as a multiple twined thread that not only connects pictures and images, but also associates ideas as well as layer upon layer of (con)textual interpretations. Gillespie’s Russian Cinema is divided into nine chapters with filmographies and an annotated list of Further Reading, Bibliography, and an Index. Gillespie’s premise is that “. . . cinema in Russia has always been regarded by its major practitioners as an art form, a continuation of the cultural traditions of nineteenth-century literature and art” (vii) and thus the purpose of this study is to explore the aesthetics of Russian cinema as cinematic texts. Although some genres overlap and a few relevant non-Russian films are discussed, the question of what distinguishes Russian cinema from other kinds of cinema is pursued throughout the monograph. Russian Cinema is aimed at undergraduates taking either beginning courses in film studies or for those looking for an introduction to Russian cinema. Gillespie’s discussions of films require little previous knowledge and he rarely uses technical language to describe cinematographic techniques.

In chapter one, “The sight and sound of Russian film,” Gillespie examines the identity of Russian cinema and Soviet discourse. During the early twentieth century, European cinema (especially France and Germany) reacted against the inundation of Hollywood cinema through the use of nationalist themes and the reclamation of themes with a European historical context from Hollywood. Although this reaction also existed in early Russian cinema, unlike the cinema of other countries, it became cut off from mainstream discourse especially during Stalin’s leadership. The goals of Russian cinema, however, emerged after the Revolution: films should educate, rather than entertain, addressing current issues; Russia would not serve simply as a backdrop to these films for Russian literature is often centered on the landscape, the river, and cultural ancestors. In connection to chapter one, chapter two, “The Literary Space,” is a survey of Soviet and post-Soviet adaptations of Russian literature, foreign classics, and biopics. These chapters include discussions of several Anna Karenina and The Inspector General films as well as Crime and Punishment (1969) and War and Peace (1965-67).

Chapter three, “The Russian film comedy,” is an especially interesting discussion of laughter and the Russian film comedy. Genres include satire, slapstick, class antagonism, and combat humor. Comedies of the Golden Age were often at the expense of the West and during the 1920s comedies were dominated by Party ideologies (exemplified in The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924), which curiously rejected directorial autonomy. The challenges of the Russian comedy, especially during the Soviet and post-Soviet thaw years, is that it was considered low-brow entertainment challenged by the ideology that it did not have to be hilarious. The Soviet comedy was to reassure everyone that “they lived in a secure and stable society and that the problems faced by capitalist societies were largely irrelevant for them” (37). By the 1970s and 1980s comedies focused on foreign influences (especially from the U.S., Africa, and India) and sexual identities. Gillespie explains that Russian comedies, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, contain black humor (or bad taste including freaks and the grotesque; exemplified in Of Freaks and Men, 1998) or threatening undertones, focusing on pleasures of life (sex and vodka), a kind of anti-glorification of the state and confrontation of the past, and masculinity challenged and debunked (53).

In chapter four, “The course and curse of history,” Gillespie observes that the Russian historical film tells not of its past, but of its present. There are hovering ideologies over the unfolding of histories in these films: there is an atmosphere of Orwellian reality control in Soviet films; Stalinist period films of the 1940s until his death in 1953 use history as a theme reduced to recounting the lives of positive heroes (social realism) that clearly go beyond expectations provoked by biopics (examples include Glinka, 1946, and Zhukovskii, 1950); in the 1960s and 1970s Russian films begin to exhibit scrutiny of historical events and heroes and new modern heroines emerge; from the Glasnost years to the present there have been historical films that enable the rediscovery of history, illustrating the desire to settle political scores, merging the history and politics, and emphasizing that small happenings rather than large events make up history (negative depictions of historical figures also emerge).

In chapter five, “Women and Russian film,” Gillespie contrasts the feminine symbol of purity in the patriarchal world found in early Russian films and nineteenth-century literature to the elevation of women and eventual self-abasement of men in later Russian films. Tracing through history, Gillespie explains that by the 1920s not all female characters in film were passive and domestic as stereotyped in Russian literature. There was an emancipated woman in the films of the Golden Age and she was “consciously identified with the causes of social progress and/or political struggle” (85). The heroine in these films was often understood as a victim of patriarchal systems. The woman’s “double burden,” according to Gillespie, emerged in films of the 1930s and 1940s when women were also depicted as independent and feisty as well as committed to their husbands and families. After Stalin the concern for humanity, in particular the “little man” and the “little woman,” became a major theme in films of the thaw period. There was also an increasing number of female directors. From the Stagnation period to the end of the Soviet Union, female characters could be vulnerable, involved in dead-end relationships or marriages, divorced, or members of dysfunctional families. Post-Soviet cinema from the 1990s to present has also focused on women dealing with motherhood, being in the Mafia, struggling for physical survival, or coming to understand that there is no Mr. Right.

In chapter six, “Film and ideology,” Gillespie presents and deals with critical questions to understanding ideology in the earliest Russian films:

how can we call the Soviet cinema of the ‘golden age’ revolutionary, when in fact it was allied to the state and actively promoted the state’s ideology? How can cinema be radical if it is state sponsored, even if that state actively encourages political subversion and sedition abroad? In considering the radical credentials of Soviet film, we have to reject the notion that ‘revolutionary’ film is necessarily anti-state, for the Bolshevik state was one that consciously set itself against the capitalist world and worked to subvert and overthrow its economic and political structures. Soviet film in the ‘golden age’ eagerly served that objective (104).

During the 1920s and until Stalin’s death, films considered formalist were attacked or banned. Stalin’s policies shut off Russia from the rest of the world and there were very few glimpses of the West in Russian cinema. These films showed that the Soviet life was the ideal life, full of prosperity (including artistic and scientific achievement). Again, Stalin was everywhere. During the thaw and Stagnation periods, allegory, the human factor, and the introduction of a new dichotomy (to welcome freedom and openness or yearn for the leadership and certainties of the past) emerged in Russian cinema. Emerging themes, also found in the new and newly released during the Glasnost years, included those that challenged Soviet ideology, anti-Stalin sentiment, and scrutinizing Russia’s historical legacy through reconsidering the evils of Russia’s past. Gillespie’s discussions of ideology continue on in chapters seven, “The Russian war film,” and eight, “Private life and public morality.”

Gillespie’s final chapter, “Autobiography, memory, and identity: the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky,” is certainly the most rewarding. Had he ended here, weaving his discussion of what Russian cinema is not and Russian films that were never produced in his Afterword into the distinctions found in earlier chapters, the ninth chapter as a kind of synthesis and discussion on new directions in Russian cinema would suffice. Gillespie remarks that Eisenstein may be the best Russian director and Tarkovsky is arguably second best only to Eisenstein. Tarkovsky’s major themes included autobiography (most notably in Ivan’s Childhood, 1962, and Mirror, 1974), cultural and historical roots (for instance in Nostalgia, 1983), the family’s house (exemplified in his last film The Sacrifice, 1986), the Russian landscape (the devastation of the landscape serves as an antithesis of Soviet victory in Ivan’s Childhood, 1962), and intimacy among friends, enemies, and the unknown (most strikingly and wonderfully touching in Solaris, 1972).

Russian Cinema would be most useful and enjoyable as supplemental reading to detailed course notes on Russian cinema or to other writings on Russian cinema that intend to cover history (with social and cultural grounding), cinematic devices and techniques, or film theory. Although Gillespie steers away from jargon, aiming for a highly accessible text, the monograph would still be inaccessible for general readers or those interested in learning about Russian cinema but who have not and will not see Russian films. By covering over 300 films, Russian Cinema suffers from the overwhelming and blurring effect of being a book length story – or plot-driven listing of Russian films. Nevertheless it is impressive that Gillespie’s distinctions encourage and evoke lasting connections for readers who wish to study further the aesthetics of Russian cinema.

Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith
Louisiana State University,USA.

Created on: Tuesday, 4 May 2004 | Last Updated: 4-May-04