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The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union
Edited by Birgit Beumers
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Book Presentation:
This volume explores the cinema of the former Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, ranging from the pre-Revolutionary period to the present day. It offers an insight into the development of Soviet film, from 'the most important of all arts' as a propaganda tool to a means of entertainment in the Stalin era, from the rise of its 'dissident' art-house cinema in the 1960s through the glasnost era with its broken taboos to recent Russian blockbusters. Films have been chosen to represent both the classics of Russian and Soviet cinema as well as those films that had a more localised success and remain to date part of Russia's cultural reference system. The volume also covers a range of national film industries of the former Soviet Union in chapters on the greatest films and directors of Ukrainian, Kazakh, Georgian and Armenian cinematography. Films discussed include Strike (1925), Earth (1930), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Mother and Son (1997) and Brother (1997).
About the Author:
Birgit Beumers is Senior Lecturer in the Russian Department at Bristol University. Her publications include Burnt by the Sun (2000) and PopCulture: Russia! (2005).
Press Reviews:
The latest in Wallflower's excellent 24 Frames series, each of which examines a national (or regional) cinema by commenting on two-dozen selected movies. Typically, the Russian volume - edited by Birgit Bemuers, introduced by Sergei Bordov (Prisoner of the Mountains) and covering 1916 to the present - avoids, where possible, the too obvious, or too voluminously written-about: thus we have Richard Taylor on Eisenstein's Strike rather than Battleship Potemkin; Natasha Synessios on Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood rather than Andrei Rublev. Typically, too, the thematic content is rich, if - in the context of ten-page articles - succinct and introductory.Of the stuff I know, Ian Christie writes exemplary summations of Lev Kuleshov's influential 1924 agitprop adventure Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks and Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark, as does Anthony Anemone of Aleksei German's long-banned My Friend Ivan Lapshin, but there are equally interesting and informative pieces on (even) more obscure movies, from the musical Carnival Night to animations like Norstein's Tale of Tales. It's obvious that the writers are drawn from the academic pool, but in the main, they show an enviable ability to address and appeal to a wider, if still serious, audience. Wally Hammond, Time Out
An excellent introduction to some of the leading Russian and Soviet filmmakers and films... Highly recommended. Choice
A welcome and useful contribution... it would make an excellent textbook for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of Soviet and Russian cinema. Seth Graham, Russian Review
Valuable supplementary reading... the collection is significant because it provides an excellent introduction to the cinema of the former Soviet Union. Elena Baraban, Canadian Slavonic Papers
See the publisher website: Wallflower Press
> From the same author:
Ruptures and Continuities in Soviet/Russian Cinema (2019)
Styles, characters and genres before and after the collapse of the USSR
Dir. Birgit Beumers and Eugenie Zvonkine
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
> On a related topic:
The Filmmaker's Philosopher (2019)
Merab Mamardashvili and Russian Cinema
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema (2016)
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
Cinepaternity (2010)
Fathers and Sons in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film
Dir. Helena Goscilo and Yana Hashamova
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
The Zero Hour (1992)
Glasnost and Soviet Cinema in Transition
by Andrew Horton and Michael Brashinsky
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
Kino (1983)
A History of the Russian and Soviet Film, with a New PostScript and a Filmography Brought Up to the Present
by Jay Leyda
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
A Siberian History of Soviet Film (2024)
Manufacturing Visions of the Indigenous Peoples of the North
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
Stalin's Final Films (2024)
Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953
Subject: Countries > Russia / USSR
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