Russian Film Symposium 2003
Program Four (Supplementary)

Thaw and Stagnation (1961-1986)

Wed May 7

10am Grigorii Roshal': Trial of the Insane, 1961. Iulian Semenov and Vladimir Shredel': Night on the 14th Parallel, 1971.

2pm Mikhail Shveitser: Mister MacKinley's Flight, 1975. Vladimir Krasnopol'skii and Valerii Uskov: Participation in a Murder, 1986.

Screenings take place at 106 David Lawrence Hall.

There will be no formal introductions to or post-screening commentson the films in this program, which is intended to be informationalonly. Post-screening discussions will be welcome but are not builtinto the schedule. The first two films (morning) are from the Thaw(1956-68), the second two (afternoon) are from the Stagnation period(1968-86).

The four films, however, belong to distinctly different genres,providing an opportunity to begin examining changes that occur in theimaging of (anti-) Americanism as this topos moves from one genre toanother in the Soviet film industry over a quarter of a century. Allfour films are set in "the West," with Soviet life andreality never directly represented on the screen. Instead, Sovietlife and reality – at least as packaged by the Soviet media fordomestic consumption – provide the necessary subtext (theunspoken but condemning alternative to the bankrupt legal and moralsystems "over there") that enabled Soviet audiences tounderstand the film "correctly" from the viewpoint ofcultural administrators.

Soviet life and reality, therefore, are not so much"absent" in these films as they are overly"present" in the ways they determine the representationalstrategies in imaging the "other." Conceding capitalism itsmaterial bounties, these films probe the devastating consequences bothushered in and masked by the paradise of consumer goods andtechnological splendors: the hollow moral core on which this kingdomis constructed. The "other" in these films is invariablythe victim, whether on the screen or in the eyes of the Sovietaudience. Oppressor and oppressed in these films represent not somuch two incompatible and antagonistic classes within capitalism asthey stand for the necessary preconditions and inevitable consequencesof capitalism. Regardless of how the contradictions between the twoare imaged (comically, tragically, melodramatically) oppressors andoppressed are equally answerable for the resulting social and moraldisorder.