The Thaw

1
The Thaw

• 1953- 1964

2
From the Victory to the Thaw

• The victory of 1945 great expectations
  frustrated.
• Zhdanovs suppression of the arts attacks writer
  Mikhail Zoshchenko and poet Anna Akhmatova.
• Anti-semitic policies struggle against
  cosmopolitanism and the Doctors plot.

3
Film from 1945 to 1953

• Ivan the Terrible II not released.
• Film industry stultified, bureaucratized.
• In 1951 nine feature films made!

4
5 March 1953 Joseph Stalin dies
5
The Thaw in politics 1953-1964

• Nikita Khrushchevs speech about Stalins cult
  of personality at the XXth Party Congress
  (1956).
• Stalins embalmed corpse removed from the
  Mausoleum (Lenins tomb).
• The city of Stalingrad renamed Volgograd.
• Peasants got passports began migration to
  cities.
• Housing construction low-end apartment blocks,
  khruschevkas.

6
Scientific and technical achievements

• 4 October 1957 the Sputnik.
• 12 April 1961 Yury Gagarins flight.

7
The Thaw culture

• Post-secondary education boom.
• The country opens itself to the world the 6th
  World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957.
• Jazz, new music, style in arts, fashion.
• Freer exchange of information.
• The 60s generation emerges.

8
The Thaw Cinema

• Inflow of foreign films (trophy films, such as
  The Girl of my Dreams and Tarzan French New Wave
  and Italian neorealism).
• The number of films produced per year rises from
  under 10 in early 1950s to 75 in 1956.
• New beginnings in cinema funds, cinemas built.
• 1954 director Ivan Pyriev appointed head of
  Mosfilm, later of entire film industry.
• Old masters achieve a new degree of freedom
  (Abram Room, Mikhail Romm, Grigori Kozintsev)
  new breed of directors appears generation of
  lieutenants and younger.
• Cinema studios in Soviet republics develop film
  production (both quantity and quality).

9
War Movies with a twist

• The Cranes Are Flying (Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov,
  Mosfilm, 1957) wins Golden Palm (Palme dor) at
  Cannes in 1958.
• Ballad of a Soldier (Dir. Grigory Chukhrai,
  Mosfilm, 1959) nominated for Oscar.
• Events depicted from the perspective of the
  audience, not the authorities.

10
Typical motifs

• Contrast between battlefront and rear.
• Ironic heroism of soldiers.
• The good commanding officer.
• Corruption among officials in rear (party).
• Faithfulness of soldier.
• Unfaithfulness of woman left behind.

11
Ideological content

• No mention of Stalin or communism.
• Simple moral system  good versus bad.
• Enemy is faceless.
• Heroism and endurance of Russian/Soviet people.
• Solidarity of all peoples of Soviet Union and
  beyond against Fascism.

12
Typical poetic of war film post 1953

• Engaging narrative line.
• Realism of depiction.
• Strong acting values.
• Innovative camera technique.
• Absence of irony, little satire.
• Interweaving of humour and dramatic moments.

13
New themes in film literature and private lives

• Screen versions of Russian classics
• The Lady with the Little Dog (Lenfilm, 1960) by
  Iosif Heifits, based on the story by Anton
  Chekhov.

14
Ia Savvina and Aleksei Batalov in The Lady with
the Little Dog
15
Soviet Shakespeare!

• G.Kozintsev directs two screen versions of
  Shakespearean tragedies at Lenfilm
• Hamlet (1964)
• King Lear (1971)

16
Private lives of Russians

• Feel good youth movies about people meeting and
  falling in love.

17
I walk around Moscow (Dir. Georgy Danielia,
Mosfilm, 1964)
18
The Cranes Are Flying

• Director Mikhail Kalatozov, Mosfilm, 1957.
• Camera Sergei Urusevsky
• Starring Aleksei Batalov, Tatiana Samoilova
• Simple plot, complicated psychology.
• Influence of the war on lives of individuals.
• The film does not condemn a morally flawed
  heroine humanism and compassion.
• Tragedy containing elements of humour and satire.

19
Composition (examples)

• The film starts as films usually end blissful
  happiness of young sweethearts running towards
  the horizon. The line of the embankment on the
  screen points to the future.
• Important dialogues take place on the embankment,
  but the line is cut short.
• The heroine carries a little boy, her perished
  lovers namesake, along (another) embankment
  the horizon opens again.

20
The Cranes are flyingas they will when it is all
over.
21
Innovative filming technique

• Extensive use of handheld camera (off-duty
  camera) frantic camera movements when the
  heroine, desperate, runs along the street
  (realism Urusevsky, the cameraman, used to be a
  war correspondent).
• Camera follows the heroine, without a cut, at eye
  level and then flies up to give a panorama.
  Speeds up slows down.
• Extreme close-ups. Eyes.
• The villains feet trampling the broken glass
  (Hitchock-like, sinister shots). The heroines
  face upside down (her life turns upside down).

22
On the Embankment
23
On the stairs...