SOVIET CINEMA: REVOLUTIONS IN/ON FILM
Prof. Sasha Senderovich -- email with any questions: senderov@uw.edu
From the early years of the Soviet avant-garde to the post-Stalin era of covert critique, Soviet cinema offers an intriguing perspective both on life in the USSR and -- of broader interest to film buffs around the world -- on the art of film. We will explore the pioneering cinema of Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshev, and Oleksandr Dovzhenko; the Hollywood-modeled propaganda films and musical comedies of the 1930s; the representation of World War II; the aesthetic and moral quests of post-Stalin era filmmakers like Mikhail Kalatozov, Kira Muratova, Larisa Shepitko, and Andrey Tarkovsky; and comedies, socially critical films, and new cinematic directions at the end of the USSR. With Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, we will also explore Soviet-era films by filmmakers sensitively exploring Soviet and Russian imperialism that anticipates its resurgence in the present, under Putin.
Over a hundred years after the Bolshevik Revolution and over three decades since the collapse of the Soviet state, we will approach our thinking about Soviet film by focusing on the revolution as a subject. Or, rather, revolutions—plural—in society, everyday life, gender, sexuality, and the art of cinema itself.
CMS students: If CMS 320 section is full, sign up for RUSS 223 -- it's the same course and the same group and the same professor and the same assignments -- but, for bureaucratic reasons, there are more seats in RUSS 223.
Course materials: All films are available with English subtitles. All films are available to stream online on a combination of platforms, including Youtube (free), Kanopy (free), and also through Canvas (also free). There are no textbooks that students are required to purchase.
A frame from the film "Come and See" (directed by Elem Klimov, USSR, 1984) focused on Flyora, a child partisan, in Nazi-occupied Soviet Belorussia.
Schedule of classes:
Note: please watch all films prior to the start of each respective class session if “watch before class” is indicated next to the title of the film. You need to stream all the films on your own; links to all the films will be posted as they come up, in Canvas.
Please check this syllabus and Canvas before each class: some films may change depending on their availability online (the schedule as written at the start of the quarter is based on my most recent assessment of which films are, indeed, available online). There will be some short readings, which I’ll distribute in PDF format (these are not currently listed on the schedule but I promise that they will be a couple to a few pages in length, at most). There will also be selected short background readings from the digital resource “Seventeen Moments in Soviet History” http://soviethistory.msu.edu/ throughout the quarter; please bookmark this website. Reading these entries will help your comprehension of the class material enormously though we will not necessarily discuss these in detail the same way we discuss the primary sources in our course—the films themselves; these are also not currently listed on this schedule but will be listed in Canvas along with the links for the films.
Th, Sept 25 In the Kingdom of Shadows
- Watch in class: Trofim (dir. Aleksei Balabanov, 1995, 24 minutes long)
Tues, Sept 30 Imagining the Soviet Union
- Watch before class: The Extraordinary Adventures of West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (dir. Lev Kuleshov, 1924, 73 minutes long)
Th, Oct 2 The Montage of Attractions
- Watch before class: Battleship Potemkin (dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, 72 minutes long)
Tues, Oct 7 Revolution in the Bedroom
- Watch before class: Bed and Sofa (dir. Abram Room, 1927, 87 minutes long)
Th, Oct 9 Life Caught Unawares
- Watch before class: Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929, 68 minutes long)
Tues, Oct 14 Visions of a New Land
- Watch before class: Earth (dir. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, 1930, 78 minutes long)
Th, Oct 16 Stalinism and Ideological Laughter
- Watch before class: Circus (dir. Grigory Alexandrov, 1936, 87 minutes long)
Tues, Oct 21 The Totalitarian Gaze
- Watch before class: Ivan the Terrible – Part I (dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1944, 103 minutes)
Th, Oct 23 Allegories of Terror
- Watch before class: Ivan the Terrible – Part II (dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1946, 88 minutes)
Tues, Oct 28 Representing War
- Watch before class: The Cranes are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957, 96 minutes)
Th, Oct 30 The Memory of Flight
- Watch before class: Wings (dir. Larisa Shepitko, 1966, 85 minutes)
Tues, Nov 4 The Double Burden
- Watch before class: Brief Encounters (dir. Kira Muratova, 1967, 96 minutes)
Th, Nov 7 No class – instructor at a conference
Tues, Nov 11 No class – Veterans Day
Th, Nov 13 Journeys into the Zone
- Watch before class: Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979, 161 minutes long)
Note that this film is longer than usual—and/but we have only one class session this week
Tues, Nov 18 Because of That War
- Watch before class: Come and See (dir. Elem Klimov, 1985, 142 minutes long)
Note that this film is longer than usual—and/but we have only one class session this week
Th, Nov 20 No class – instructor at a conference
Tues, Nov 25 Dead and (Un)buried
- Watch before class: Repentance (dir. Tengiz Abuladze, 1986, 151 minutes long)
Note that this film is longer than usual—and/but we have only one class session this week
Th, Nov 28 No class: Thanksgiving
Tues, 12/2 Homo Sovieticus – and Other Animals
- Watch before class: Garage (dir. Eldar Riazanov, 1979, 85 minutes long)
Th, 12/4 “There is no Sex in the Soviet Union!”
- Watch before class: Little Vera (dir. Vasily Pichul, 1988, 128 minutes)